My Buddy Bob

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Bob is in the hospital. If you knew Bob, the way I know Bob, this would not be that much of a surprise. This is the person who, when we were kids, cut his knee with a circular saw. To make matters worse, he was on crutches after the saw incident, managed to fall down the stairs and break his wrist. Then he was confined to a wheel chair. Years latter, he thought it would be a good idea to cut the heads off of a whole box of match books and put them in a glass bottle. When there was nothing around that would work as a fuse, he figured that it would be a good idea to just drop a lit cigarette in the bottle. We all just kind of stared breathless at the bottle, but nothing happened. At this point Bob slowly crept up to the bottle with the smoldering cigarette inside. Perched majestically on top of an enormous pile of stick-less match heads. Bob yells out, "I see the problem, the cigarette is standing up. It'll never go off like this." With that, Bob grabbed the bottle with his left hand and gave it a good shake. Paused and looked at it, and set it back down on the picnic table. The instant he let go, it exploded. From my vantage point, about fifty feet directly behind him, I could see him in silhouette against a huge, bright white ball of flame. He still has glass embedded in his left arm and forehead, as well as nerve damage in the fingers of his left hand.

If you were to walk down the stairs in Bob's Mothers house, you would see all of the family photos lined up. You can see how the children grew up in those photos and there is something else that you don't notice right away. In every single picture, Bob has a cut, scrape or bruise on his face. His mother thought he would do it on purpose, so she stopped telling them when the appointment was with the photographer. But he still managed to get injured just days before the photo shoot.

So this time around, Bob was welding at work(did I mention that he is a welder?)when a bottle of solvent that was in the truck he was welding caught fire. His first reaction was to get it out of the truck, so he picked it up and it exploded, burning him on his left hand and arm. They took him by ambulance to the Bridgeport hospital burn unit for treatment. I stopped in to see him tonight on my way to work. He was in pretty good spirits considering. The only thing upsetting him was that he didn't have any cigarettes, so I gave him some. They are going to knock him out on Friday morning to do a deep cleaning of his forearm, and on Monday they are going to do some skin grafts. With any luck he should be home in about a week, but I don't think he will be back to work for several months. Thank God for workmen's Comp.

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Deb and I went to Jake's school today for the old Parent Teacher conference. BIG SURPRISE!!!! Jake is doing a lot better. Especially in math, his teacher said. She told us that he was doing so well, that she is not at all upset about all the homework he misses. I guess we must be doing something right after all.

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If I were a professional wrestler, I would go by the name
"Harry Areola".

Doesn't it just roll off the tongue?