Tuesday, July 15, 2014

World According to Bob

Friends and fans of Robert Carl Nagel will rejoice to hear that he thrives even as he rushes headlong toward his 85th birthday.

The familiar endures: Robert carries on logging operations as if he were merely 40, rides his bike like there is no tomorrow, belts out show tunes at full volume.

He abjures water–‘fish pee in it’—drinks beer at lunch, cheap sherry in the afternoon, proletarian red wine at dinner time. He stands tall and straight as always.

Robert has a range of comely charms—a world-class overbite, a proboscis to cause Caesar envy, a Boston accent that would do the Kennedys proud—but of all the attributes that mark El Nagel this is Numero Uno: he manages to make just about everyone love him and want to do for him. Motivated by affection alone one friend repairs the busted water works of his old house, another mows his acre and a half of lawn, another installs a new water heater, yet another builds him a porch.

Who else is so cherished that even the local Member of Parliament makes time every July to cut Bob’s hayfield, bale the hay, then haul it away. Such universal affection cannot be explained, it just is.

I am just one among Nagel’s many victims. It isn’t that our tastes match or that we see eye to eye on every important political or social issue. Bob likes lamb and pork, I prefer haddock and cod. I am a pinko, Bob is most assuredly not. I revere the memory of Tommy Douglas, whereas Bob cherishes that of Barry Goldwater. It defies logic but none of that seems to matter a whit.

Summer is here so Nagel and MacLeod tend to share bits of every day in each other’s company. We laugh, we holler; I swill Alexander Keith’s, Bob savours Andres Rich Canadian Apera. Day follows day, the sun shines, laughter and frivolity fill his porch and mine. The world spins as it should . . .

No comments: