The Gentle Giant
Just received a letter from two friends that I hardly get to see anymore. Bob and Pat Windel moved to Gypsum Colorado recently, from Minnesota. Bob is a school superintendent, and at one time was stationed in Montana. You can bet that he gets the respect of his peers, and all who are associated with him. You see Bob could of played pro-football out of college, but he opted to follow his heart, and pursued a career in school administration. Four professional teams were interested in this big, agile, quick, lineman, but to this day he will tell you he made the right choice. Bob loves his job, and is good at what he does.
Bob also likes to hunt and fish. Many moons ago, when we could run up mountains, we backpacked into the Rockies for a fishing expedition. Bob was big 6-foot 3, and as strong as an ox. There were five of us on this trip, and the first thing we did was divide up the supplies. When my backpack hit around 70 pounds I told Gary (Bob’s brother-in-law,)”that’s it I can’t handle anymore!” Jim and Dick loaded up approximately the same amount, which left about 230 pounds for Gary and Bob! Actually Gary had the same 70 pounds that we had, but he insisted on carrying his huge”trusty” 30 pound cast iron skillet; thus 100 pounds. During the hike that skillet played an important part in a dilemma Gary would find himself in. (I wrote a blog about this very funny predicament many months ago.) Anyway Bob “saddles” up the 130 pounds, and takes the lead on the trailhead. Mind you this is our first day at 9000 thousand feet, and were going up to 10,000! It doesn’t take 15 minutes, and Big Bob is out of sight. The trail is well marked, so it didn’t bother us to be”spread out” on our little trek. We had no idea how”fast” Bob traversed the terrain, or how “slow” we crawled it, but I was shocked when I reached camp. Bob was standing there with a big grin on his face, as I surveyed my surroundings. Bob’s tent was up, his trench dug, and he was in the process of lashing together a table! “How the heck did that big guy pull this off,” I wondered to myself! From that day forward I decided Bob was going to be “My Hero!” I soon found out that Bob was a big “Teddy Bear” and had a compassionate gentle way about him. You couldn’t help, but like the guy.
There’s a lot more to this story, which I will continue in the next few blogs. Stay tuned!
Mike