As I remember Bob today, I think of what he was not:  arrogant, boastful, overbearing.  He manged to get the best out of those who worked for him without demeaning them or resorting to threats.  Just a great guy...

My dad and I had a funny way of saying hello when I was a young girl. He would stand in the kitchen, and when I saw him I would run toward him, head down, at full speed! He always wanted to prove that he had abs of steel and would hold them tight as I barreled toward him. The top of my head would make contact with that belly and I would bounce right off! This went on for quite some time until he was sidelined with an umbilical hernia, apparantly caused by some blunt trauma to the abdomen.........oops!

The past several months, Bob really had a hard time communicating.  You could tell he had something he wanted to say but his brain and his speech difficulties prohibited him from doing so.  While in the hospital, he actually seemed to improve after being on an IV and getting hydrated so the family enjoyed seeing him being more like his old self.  This was evident when the speech therapist came to do a swallow test and asked him to say "one, two, three".  He just looked at her so Aggie said "Bob, say one, two, three" to which Bob responded very clearly - "What the hell for?".   Another time a nurse was pulling the tape off his arm from the IV and when she ripped it off Bob said in a loud voice as clear as day, "You son of a bi#$@"!   We were so happy to be able to hear and understand him, even if it was him cursing at the hospital staff!