(I told this story on Robby’s Facebook page several years ago, but best I can tell, I’ve never told it here. This is an important moment in my childhood.)
In the fall of 1983, I was 12 years old. My parents had been divorced 18 months. My mom was dating/pseudo-living-with the oxygen thief who would eventually become her fourth husband. Really, MTV was one of the greatest things in my life.
And I was attending my very first year of public school.
Private Presbyterian kindergarten? Check. Private Episcopalian first through fourth grade? Check. Private Catholic fifth through seventh grade? Check.
Public eighth grade at Oxford High School? Check.
Look, I remember my time at Oxford very fondly. I had a truly awesome teacher or two there. I was, for two years, a proud part of one of the greatest marching bands I’ve ever seen. But, in terms of human relations, it was relatively mean streets compared to my previous schools. There was more hostility, from greater numbers, from more directions, than I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t excessive. It was just big, scary, organic real life.
I had beginner band that year. When you were in beginner band and you rode the bus, you had to retrieve your instrument from the bandroom while the marching band was still in class. So you tried to get in and out as unobtrusively as possible.
We had a bass guitar player. He was an upperclassman named Robby. (How cool is the friggin’ bass guitarist in a marching band? I loved him getting into “Sunshine of Your Love” as folks were filing into the gym for pep rallies. At football games, he marched on the field at halftime with a guy pushing a Peavey amp powered by a car battery. I swear I am not making any of this up.)
Robby sat just beside the entrance to the instrument room, at the back of the bandroom. And at the end of a particularly exasperating day, I dragged my hand across his music stand as I walked by, spilling all of his sheets into the floor. I was horrified.
Bo: “I’m so sorry. Let me get those.”
Robby (bending down to get his music): “It’s OK.”
Bo (more nervously): “That was really clumsy of me. I really didn’t mean to. I apologize.”
Robby (deliberately, looking directly into my eyes, and actually gently grabbing my forearm so he was sure he got my attention): “Man, it’s OK. It was an accident. Relax.”
I nodded, and that really was the end of it. That’s the guy he was, and is. It was an injection of kindness and understanding exactly when I craved it. I’ve never forgotten it. And he shrugs it off when I bring it up, but the bottom line is that he was an unusually grounded and empathic 17-year-old.
Thank you, Robby. I deeply needed who you were in 1983. And I’m proud to be your friend in 2016.
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