Attribution: Pete Souza, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper will be sending a message today to his old friend Bob Shepard on the occasion of the opening of the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago. Bob would have a typical Chicago comment of ironic Black pride and then he would laugh loud enough to be heard in Indiana.
Bob was more than a friend to the keeper. From the moment the Army’s integration plan put them together on a cold Korean hillside in 1951 to Bob’s last weekend many years later at the keeper’s Madison home, Bob was the ultimate integrator not only for the keeper but also for his family and friends, including the keeper’s elderly father who had never so much as met a Black man until he and Bob hit it off like old friends after deer camp meetings.
During the keeper’s Chicago Tribune days, Bob was entrée to a big part of the city that would have otherwise been unavailable to the keeper. And his little south-side house was a second home where Bob–an excellent cook, once served the keeper collard greens and pigs’ ears with no “soul food” explanation.
Bob departed Chicago and the rest of the world many years ago, and wherever he ended up he is sure to be integrating things just by being there. Either of the avowed hereafter destinations could obviously benefit from his presence.
The keeper’s message to Bob: “Save me a place at your table, but no more gristly pigs’ ears!”
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