I had an uncle I'd never met because he died in an industrial accident before I was born. It's a horror story. He had just purchased a new pair of gloves with elastic around the wrists. He was tossing metal parts into a wire basked that would be lifted by a crane and then dipped into a pickling vat of boiling acid. His glove caught on the wire and the crane operator couldn't see him. The story goes that other men wouldn't help him for fear of being pulled in themselves. But, he was athletic and a good swimmer and he got himself to the edge and pulled himself out. He lingered a few days in the hospital and then died. His name was Robert, and the one thing I constantly heard about him was that he was loved by everyone.
My stepfather had twin brothers, Robert and Vince. They were identical twins but as different as night and day. I was closer with Robert and for a time I worked with him at a salvage company. Once a week we'd drive to Cleveland and spend two days there picking up every thing from cases of toilet paper to refrigerators that had been damaged in boxcars. We spent lots of time in Altoona, PA where there would be damage to things like a car load of lumber, or those large cans of soup used by restaurants called "70 cans." Uncle Robert was very sociable, unlike his twin. He was known in every bar in town, and about half of them everyplace else I went with him. Eventually, he died of cirrhosis of the liver. I was so tore up I couldn't bring myself to go to his funeral, but I was told that it was one of the biggest ones around. He, too was loved by everyone.
After I came out of the Marine Corps, I found a job at H.J Heinz. I worked one day with a guy named Robert, and we became good friends. He's our daughter's godfather, but after his mother died he sort of drifted away. I haven't seen him in years, but we used to drive around together, picking up girls. That was back when you could still do that. Everyone liked him, but the girls always took advantage of him. He never really had a girlfriend that I can recall and never married. His mother was blind and he had an older retarded brother. He was the youngest of three boys and the middle brother left him with their mother and brother and went to become a dealer in Las Vegas. Robert was the rock of the family.
When our son was born, I told my wife that I wanted to name him Robert, because everyone I ever knew by that name was loved by everyone, and I wanted everyone to love our son. He's a grown man now, and while I'm 5'8" he's 6'2". In my wife's family the men are all tall. He still kisses me every time I see him, and he's everything I could hope he would become, and more. But, it's not because of the name we wanted him to have, but because of the man he's worked to become, that everyone loves him.
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