(Cue up The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkle in the background)
At one time, just before he left for Tehran, The Boxer was Bob's favorite song and he seemed to play it constantly. I suspect it remained the theme for his life ever after.
Bob - Robert - Whalen was my late ex-husband Tom Byro's best friend. They lived nearby in Cupsaw Lake, NJ and were in Lakeland HS together. They remained best friends until Bob's untimely early death.
Back in 1969 when we all shared a huge apartment in uptown Manhattan, Bob worked for Bell Telephone. He played The Boxer every day in his room. Id ask him why, why always this one song, and he'd only say it was his life. Ma Bell was about to be ripped apart by the regulators and Bob was trying to decide stay and see what he'd be offered or jump at the exotic offer to move to Tehran, Iran and work on the Shah's project to bring state of the art phone service to Iran. The Tehran project offered huge salaries, paid travel including visits home and holidays, and the chance to live in an exotic cultural part of the world wide flowering technical upsurge. He packed his bag for Tehran, asked us to keep an eye on his girlfriend Jeanne and help her if she needed anything, and off he went. Bob loved Tehran. He said it was like NYC's Greenwich Village but cleaner and cooler. The girls were prettier, the music hotter. It was a coffee house culture, a night culture, and he loved it. Not a hint then of what was to come and what would be lost.
I remember so much but there's so much more I've forgotten, esp small details and time lines. Bob was supposed to visit the Isle of Wight Festival for his first vacation from Tehran. He bought a VW camper van and set out to drive there. The expected mad adventures ensured ending with his missing the festival and being asked to leave the UK. He sold the VW and flew home to NJ.
Bob Whalen with his reed thin flower power body and bright red hair in a massive afro. He and Jacko came to our wedding. He declined to be best man since he didn't approve of marriage, or marriage to me, or god knows why so Jacko was best man. Ironically, Tom was best man for Bob's wedding many years later.
Thus ends the lesson. I happened to listen to The Boxer this morning and it made me think of Bob. Rest in Peace, old friend.
