From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Robert Bernardo  (1952-1992)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 10:23:23 GMT


In article <1992Aug15.072023.14995@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com
(Steve Dyer) writes:

Arnold is right, the more I think about it: we who knew and
loved Rob, as well as anyone who didn't know him but feels
the loss anyway, should be sounding our echoes.  Steve gives
me a chance to make one small echo more.

>I entrusted him with my treasured rare book collection
>which I had brought with me to San Francisco.  What was that?  Why the
>"Song of the Loon" trilogy: cowboy soft-porn and camp, totally out of
>print and unavailable except through connoisseurs of the series.  Knowing
>Rob and his interests, you can tell how eager he was to borrow the books.

He always had great cowboy calendars, pictures of a nifty
hunk (he definitely liked hunks) for each month.  We always
traded birthday presents, and one time he sent me one of
these calendars, somehow having found a cowboy calendar with
semi-hunks, more to my liking than his.

But on my first trip to his house, April of 88, something
about that month's hunk reminded me of the "Song of the
Loon" trilogy.  I asked him if he'd ever read the books.  Oh
yes, he said, Steve Dyer lent them to me.  I'd completely
forgotten about this.

>I recall breakfast at Rob's one morning with Jess, and fresh eggs
>from the chickens he kept in the barn (what were their names?
>Eleanor?  Gertrude?  Help me here.)  

Ethel and Miriam.

Rob's breakfasts were always wonderful.  Not only those
fresh-as-possible eggs, but delicious pancakes, which he
made the last time I was there, this past January.  Rob was
the first (and still the only) person I ever knew who ate
tamales for breakfast.  Tamales and fried eggs, it ain't
half bad, I discovered.

>I remember chatting about
>all manner of things over that breakfast before I was to leave
>for home.  I remember looking in the bathroom and being astonished
>at the tub and tile and the glass of the shower doors; you could have
>performed surgery on any of these surfaces (gad, you could have done
>so in the kitchen or living room, too; maybe even the barn.)  We could
>never have been lovers. :-)

The shower's glass doors and the tub and tile were sparkling
that day because I had spent *hours* getting all the lime and
soap spots off them the day before.  As a housekeeper, Rob was
a lot like me -- he could, but he didn't like to, and he only
did when he had to.  I volunteered to do the shower doors
and the kitchen windows (oh shit, another flood; well, it's
to be expected).

The barn evokes some pleasant memories.  On my second trip
there, it was (for me) crushingly hot, around 100 every day.
The house was always quite a lot cooler than outdoors, even
without air conditioning.  Anyway, one of the days, Rob was
working (still at PacBell, back then) and I was not going
anywhere, just staying at the house, resting and reading.
But I was to make sure the guys who delivered a truckload
of hay for Oriana could get into the barn OK.

This turned out to be a delightful duty, for two such
gorgeous young things showed up on a rickety truck as I
seldom see.  It being so terrifically hot, of course they
had to whip off their shirts to unload the truck.  I was
*ever* so helpful, as you might imagine.  I chatted them up
in a big way and brought out a big pitcher of ice water,
which the guzzled gratefully, greedily, running down their
gleaming, hard, sweating chests.  Oh oh oh.  I had to rest
when they left.

>It's difficult to imagine soc.motss without Rob jumping into a
>discussion with his characteristic Talmudic precision.  No, it
>doesn't feel real just yet.

Such an apt way to put it, Talmudic precision.  He was
easily the most analytical person I've known.  Since I'm
anything but, it made for many long and complicated
exchanges, sometimes accompanied by a little heat when
things got too complex for either of us.  (Well, I doubt he
would cede that they ever got too complex for him.)  I used
to try to extricate us from these conundrums by suggesting
we leave it and come back to another time.

One of the things I'm having the hardest time with now is
that there won't *be* another time.  Thing to do, I guess,
is recall the times we had with fonder memories.  That, at
least, is easy to do.

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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