Krause: Bobby Dwyer was a true original

Where does one start to describe Bobby Dwyer? How do you properly eulogize a guy you?ve known since you were 25 years old, and with whom you?ve shared so many laughs (and a few pretty intense disagreements too)?You might as well know at the outset, this is going to be difficult.Let?s cut to the chase right away. Bobby Dwyer was a fan?s fan.There are plenty of people out there who look at you in all sincerity, with puppy-dog eyes, and say, “you know, ALL I care about is the kids.” And sad to say, that?s often not the case.Bobby never had to say it, because he lived it. He never had to convince anyone of his motives, and he never tried to. All he ever did was deliver, and then stand in the background as the beneficiaries of his labor — whether they were from Pop Warner, Lynn English, Lynn Tech, or wherever — received the mementos of their accomplishments.It didn?t matter what your organization needed. Whether it was jackets, sweatshirts, T-shirts, trophies, plaques, or equipment, there was Bobby ready to roll up his sleeves and make it happen.There was that Bobby Dwyer.He was also the foreman of our graphics department at The Item, and before I ever knew about his almost heroic volunteerism on behalf of youth sports everywhere, this is the Bobby I first met. I came to The Item as a 25-year-old kid, and probably not knowing all there was to know about the design end of the business … which is something I found out quickly once I encountered one Robert A. Dwyer for the first time.In those days, we had a system where stories were done on special typewriters that were compatible with soft-type setting machines so that they would no longer have to be set by hand.They were also supposed to provide a more accurate sense of story length, but I could never get the hang of that. For the first few months, everything I sent out to the Graphics department was either too short or too long. And boy, did that exasperate Bobby. It exasperated a lot of other people too, but Bobby?s reaction to me kind of summed it all up.?Krause, do you send anything out here that fits?” he bellowed to me one day.But I got to know him through our mutual love of local sports. And though we never lost our ability to have a good knock-down, drag-out from time to time, over the years, we came at it from mutual respect and friendship. We still screamed at each other at the top of our lungs, but we could laugh about it afterward.My best memories of Bobby were Friday night football games at the old Manning Bowl, where we?d stand in the end zone closest to Locust Street and just hold court with the other regulars; or the many Saturday mornings we?d sit in John Moran?s office and listen to all his stories.Then, there was one Friday night back in the day when English played, and lost, a game at Manning Bowl. It was one of those kinds of games … a lot of pushing and shoving back and forth, tempers flaring, a lot of penalties … and there was a huge crowd of people milling around afterward in, shall we say, varying degrees of testosterone and aggression.I only lived around the corner at the time, and had chosen to walk to the game. Now, I was trying to figure out how to run the gauntlet past all these hyper-aggressive kids … and I wasn?t looking forward to it.Suddenly, I hear a horn. A car window opens and there?s Bobby Dwyer.?Get in, Stevie,” he said. “You?re never going to get through all those kids alive.”Bobby was an original. One of the real good guys. I miss him already.