Scenes from my youth

Snake Bob was tall and impossibly thin. He could be seen walking about town with a slow shuffle, his head swaying up and back, right and left atop his extraordinary long neck like a cobra following a Hindu snake charmer. Snake Bob carried a cloth bag over his shoulder. No one knew what was in it. Playground rumors alternatively speculated it was trash, bottles, the heads of the kids he had murdered. One thing was sure, every kid at the elementary school knew Snake Bob did unthinkable things to little  boys and we were stay away from him.

Some claimed Snake Bob lived under the Armstrong Street bridge. Others “knew” he lived out at the County Home. Chris said Snake Bob lived above the smoke shop on Clinton Street. Chris was always a know-it-all and he had been wrong so many times none of the gang gave his tale credence.

Snake Bob could be seen wandering about town. Today he was at the park. Tomorrow might find him  walking along the highway. I watched him slither his way into the library one summer day and too scared to follow him in, jumped back on my bike and pedaled home.

Those brave souls who had been close to Snake Bob told tales of strange muttering and hissing as he talked to himself as he travelled the streets of town. There was no Bogey Man in my hometown, Snake Bob was a real-life monster that fit the role.

He always wore a hat and dark colored sack coat, no matter the season.

Snake Bob disappeared from his walks about town some time in the early 1970s. Perhaps as I grew older he became less of a scary apparition and more just another old guy sitting in the park.

Bob Gunion passed away in 1972 at the County Home for the Indigent, where he had lived many years. Bob had only left his hometown once. In 1918 he went to France. There he saw such things that haunted him the remainder of his life. His few possessions included a picture of a young, not particularly pretty woman in turn of the century clothing, an old gold pocket watch, and the Medal of Honor.