Over the summer, my friend Bob moved to Idaho. Or someplace.
A few years ago, we would spend every Saturday evening in Bob’s basement, around a table playing D&D. We’d play an assortment of games on the weekend, actually. Sometimes Bob would run the game, sometimes one of us.
Our games were pretty relaxed. One of the great things about Bob in particular is that he seemed to be into the game for the same reasons I was. Sure, we both enjoyed the game itself, but we were just looking for an escape from the day-to-day – something extraordinary to think about that a simple TV show or movie just wasn’t going to do, and yet involving involving other people. At least, that was my impression.
The games led to some memorable scenarios. Frequent “smoke breaks” in Bob’s back yard led to many interesting non-game discussions. I have fond memories of sitting on the swingset there in the summer and talking about gaming, and barbecues, and movies.
Bob offered many interesting “had to be there” moments of his own at the game table. “Is that food?” is a common refrain when food appears at our games, referring to the occasion when I brought some mini pastries to the table to share, and Bob proceeded to scarf them all down. Also memorable is the time that Bob somehow forgot the word “mouth” while trying to describe a particular scenario, and used the phrase “speaking tube”. We still use that to this day.
Bob’s kids were roughly my kids’ ages, though Quinn is a bit older than Abby. They played together now and then.
Sometime a couple of years ago, Bob just stopped coming to the game, after we relocated it across town. We kept urging him to come, but I guess he had his own issues to deal with.
This past summer, Bob called me out of the blue, asking me if I’d like to take (and move) the D&D stuff he had out of his basement. I guess a couple of our other group members has said they’d do it, but never came back for it. So I came over and grabbed up all of Bob’s gaming materials.
He helped load up his livingroom TV into my car too, since it would take up too much room on his trip to Idaho. Or wherever.
And then he was gone.
We were out to lunch over the weekend and saw this photo of Bob and Quinn on the kid’s record board. They take your picture when you eat their largest size burger, and apparently Quinn had eaten the largest kid-sized burger. There they were on the wall. Still here, but not quite.
