in the ring against someone. What do you think?”
I stared at him.
My God, was this the Guinness talking already!?
The man was 54 years old! I pictured him taking a shot to the jaw and—mouthpiece or no mouthpiece—watching two or three loosened teeth float through the air like gleaming Chiclets. I envisioned him taking an uppercut to the gut that would leave him crumpled and wheezing on the canvas.
“Are you out of your freaking mind?” I said finally.
“But I’m ready,” he said.
“No,” I said, “you’re not.” Not at that age, buddy.
He looked down at his beer. For an instant, his shoulders seemed to sag. Then he threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
The full absurdity of it all had finally dawned on him: a gentle suburban husband and dad, a Norwegian pacifist with an AARP card—a man whose last dustup with another human being had occurred when he was 12 and another kid punched him in a middle-school gym for allegedly breaking his love beads—climbing into the ring against some skilled brute half his age, with a lump of scar-tissue for a face.
And all for exercise, no less!
Yet even as Rob’s pipe dream faded in the din of the noisy room and the conversation turned to other topics, I knew one thing was certain: he’d get a column, one way or another, out of this boxing fantasy.
And just days later, he did.
In fact, it’s re-printed right here (“Love punch”), in this wonderful collection of columns he wrote for the Annapolis Capital Gazette from 2010 until last year, when an unspeakable shooting at the newspaper claimed his life and the lives of four of his colleagues.
Also included is a short first-person piece Rob wrote for The Baltimore Sun, where he worked as a gifted features writer for 15 years. It’s about a damp, nervous evening he spent as a chaperone for a middle school dance. You can almost feel the hormones bouncing off the cafeteria walls in his re-telling.
Like the man himself, the columns in this book are often big-hearted, whimsical and self-deprecating. They’re keenly-observed slices of everyday life—to my mind the very best gift a general columnist can give his or her readers.
Many, like the pieces that chronicle Rob’s love for dogs, his iffy luck with cars and his wariness of modern technology, will make you laugh out loud. Some, like the touching “What I Did On Spring Vacation,” about visiting the grave of a long-dead childhood friend and pulling weeds from the simple marker, might even make you misty-eyed.
More than anything, what these columns represent is a fervid appreciation for life—and of the common humanity in all of us.
Whether kindly mentoring young reporters as an editor at the Capital Gazette, wandering the bustling streets of Annapolis and his beloved Eastport neighborhood looking for column ideas, or teaching the next generation of journalists as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, Rob constantly strove to connect with others and learn what makes them tick.
He does that again throughout this delightful collection, where his love of story-telling shines through on every page.
Kevin Cowherd
Cockeysville, Md.
February, 2019
[1]
Newsies
Don’t pass (expletive deleted) notes
March 16, 2014
I sympathize with the mayor. Wow. I’ve never uttered those words about a politician. But I do sympathize.
This past week, a frustrated Annapolis Mayor Mike P. passed a note to an alderman during a prickly public discussion.
“Thanks for (expletive deleted) me,” the mayor’s note read.
Mike P. apparently then made private amends to offended parties. But the note had already made headlines. It was embarrassing. It was dumb. It was interesting. And it was human.
Still, there’s a lesson here—a lesson I failed to learn.
When I was in the fifth grade I had a girlfriend named Jean M. Our relationship existed primarily—if not exclusively—on paper in the form of passed notes. That I had her house on constant weekend surveillance neither enhanced nor threatened our bond. The point was I had her in my sights.
But the course of true love seldom runs smooth, as they say.
I don’t remember what was so alluring about Diane S. Maybe it was the way she walked to the chalkboard or sipped her chocolate milk. Maybe it was the way she absolutely ignored me—yes, that probably was the way. Whatever the attraction, I felt compelled to start writing her notes. Surely, she could read; hadn’t we all begun working together on reading in kindergarten?
I don’t remember the contents of my first and only note to Diane S. My guilt remains an open case (Jean M. hovers to this day on Facebook) since I’m pretty sure I threw her under the school bus. No doubt, I sloppily professed my affection for Diane S—while not mentioning any home surveillance I might have had in mind. Upon reading my words, her heart would have no choice. Soon, Diane S. would be sharing her chocolate milk with Rob H.
But our love was intercepted.
It wasn’t an alderman, citizen or alert reporter who exposed my note that spring day. It was my elementary school nemesis: Bill M. Foolishly, I had asked him to hand Diane S. my note. She was just two rows over, after all. But that scoundrel, in between stabs of satanic laughter, read my letter out loud. He always did have a good speaking voice, I’ll give him that.
To Jean M’s surprise, to Diane S.’s disinterest and to my horror, my note went viral in a musty classroom of Peters Elementary. Had there been Google, I would have crashed the operation or landed a book deal.
My remaining days of fifth grade were spent largely alone. Writing notes to girls or stalking their homes didn’t feel as rewarding anymore. But because few of us stop while we’re behind, I resumed my note passing in the sixth grade.
Diane M.
Yes, another Diane.
Another bad idea.
Dear mayor, allow my story to be a cautionary tale. Let’s keep our notes to ourselves no matter how honest, stupid, human and regrettable they may be. Because there will always be a Bill H. setting us straight and on other courses in life’s better passing.
Sine Die Another Day
April 13, 2014
The General Assembly’s 2014 legislative session concluded this past week with all the hoopla and excitement of, well, watching laws being made.
But who can blame lawmakers? They can’t have hot, hot, hot button topics every year. How often can you bust out the Dream Act, gun-control laws and same-sex marriage? Can we blame the closing-moment confetti from looking a little bored?
I just wish lawmakers
