Many of the activities of my youth in New Haven included my dear younger brother. For years, I regarded him as my enemy. I don’t know why; he never did a thing to me. But maybe his age was just too close to mine and I treated him as a sibling rival.

Bobbie got involved in pretty much the same things Hugh Louis and I did. He had a B-B gun that eventually got wrapped around the apple tree, thanks to a fit of anger by Daddy, after a shooting incident for which Bobbie was blameless. Bobbie picked blackberries with us and produced as much volume as Hugh Louis and me even if there were a lot of sticks, stems and green berries. He sledded with us on the hill overlooking the cemetery in winter snows. Bobbie played basketball using our coal house backboard and also at the brand new school gymnasium where he helped dig the foundation for 15 cents an hour.

He lettered on the basketball team while I was playing and after Hugh Louis had been graduated. Bobbie and some of his buddies were apprehended once by the town marshal in the process of inscribing their club name on the city water tank. (I did NOT rat them out.) Ned Bell Johnson hauled him to our front door, and turned him over to the custody and care of Daddy that evening. Nothing ever came of the incident; Daddy seemed to brush it off, maybe remembering a few more nefarious deeds of his own boyhood.

Bobbie showed real business acumen in acquiring the local newspaper route. He delivered papers around town every day and once a week attempted to collect the bills. This latter part of the job was a challenge in New Haven as customers seemed to always be short of change when it was time to pay the paper boy. As a result his profitability suffered. But eventually, he got it under control and joined Hugh Louis and me as business tycoons of the community.

He got his degree at the University of Louisville, settled down there with his family and Bobbie is the father of two outstanding children and active in his church. He is a pillar of the family and his concern, love and support can be counted on, whatever the situation.