The Good We Have With Us Forever

On the one year anniversary of Rob's passing, I'm going to try and forgo the descriptions of how much I miss him, and how this has been a tough year. Instead I'll share a few funny stories of great times I had with him.

When we were both in college, and he was back on summer break, we went out to Nokomis beach on occasion to hang out and swim. I had just come in from swimming, and was drying off up by our stuff, when a girl came up. Of course I thought she was hitting on me, but what she really said was "Hey, would you do me a favor and give this to your friend when he comes in?" I said "Sure, and ahem, yeah, he's my brother" thinking that I would enlighten her to my good looks. She wasn't bitin' though, and reminded me that it was for him. It turns out it was her phone number. Rob had no time for her however and just discarded her number. With Rob it was easy come, easy go. Until Jane came into his life. Then he never looked back.

We had many funny fishing stories, but one of the best was when we were fishing in Mercer and when he wasn't looking I managed to cast my line over a branch that was probably 12-15 feet in the air. When I said "Oooopsie," he looked at me and said "What?" I pointed to my line and he just broke out laughing. Both of us did.

"How did you get it way up there?" he asked.

I didn't have an answer, but when I think of the incident, and his great laugh and reaction, it is wonderful.

I used to have some pretty big house parties when Mom would go on vacation out of state. I'd invite all of my college and work friends over, turn on some music and have some beers. It was always a lot of fun. I remember one where Rob came in after his own night out and not one, but two of my girlfriends came up to me and said "Who is that?"

"Oh, that's my brother Rob," I'd say, trying to play it down.

"Gosh is he good looking," they'd say.

"Ahem, yeah, and he's my brother," I'd say, trying to remind them of the blood relation/gene pool thing. Needless to say, they weren't looking to get any deeper in the gene pool.

I was beginning to see a pattern.

There were the funny stories from our childhood; riding his bike off the porch for a quarter, (forgive me, Rob), the fire he started in my closet, (I forgive you, Rob), his diet pill binge, the cat in the truck cab, (forgive us, Tom). There were the fun trips we took with him and our family to Hackensack, Mercer, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, the BWCA and tons of others.

There were the countless fishing outings including carp fishing at the Mississippi, Lake Phalen as kids, Como Lake for whatever we could drag out of it, White Bear with cousins, Mille Lacs with brothers, the St. Croix river at Bayport with step-sisters/brothers, the BWCA, Forest Lake, Spider Lake and his great musky, and many, many more. He loved fishing, that's for sure, and he did it well.

Those are just a few of the many GREAT memories I have of my time with Rob. If I'm having a hard day, I try and draw on some of these great times and it makes my day a little easier.

I miss his smile, I miss his fellowship, I miss fishing with him, but most of all, I miss laughing with him.

Blogging off...