Relationships are complicated, and sometimes changes happen so gradually that we don’t even notice them. I had this experience with a friend at Rangeview.
Bobby was a custodian at Rangeview and had been there almost since the beginning in 1982. He was a fixture, the institutional memory of the school. He knew where every body was buried—sometimes because he put them there. If Bobby liked you, you never had to worry about a thing. He’d go through a wall to help you. But if he didn’t like you, well, there was nothing you could ever do right in his eyes.
He passed away a couple of years ago, and I miss him daily. I loved our conversations, those early morning chats at five a.m. when it was just the two of us in a massive, empty building.
Bobby and I bonded over history and the Eagles. The day he found out I knew that the Eagles had formed from Linda Ronstadt’s band in the seventies, we became best friends. I knew that Don Henley and Glenn Frey had roomed together while playing in her band and forged a bond that led to the Eagles. That little piece of trivia earned me a lifetime of loyalty.
Bobby did countless things for me—many above and beyond. My favorite was the day he brought me a mug commemorating the 1954 World Series Championship by the New York Giants. I’ve been a Giants fan since I was a kid growing up in San Bruno, back when Candlestick Park was still home. Bobby had been at a collector’s convention, saw the mug, and decided I needed it. He wouldn’t let me pay him for it, which was just his nature. I have no idea how much it cost, but I know it wasn’t cheap. That was the kind of friendship we had.
Let me tell you how that friendship started—through adversity.
I had been at Rangeview for about a year, and while Bobby and I interacted, we didn’t have much of a relationship. He had a grumpy veneer that kept people at a distance, and I was put off by it. Then, one day, he just stopped talking to me. If I needed something, I might get it in a few months—if I was lucky. After a year of this open hostility, I finally had enough. One day, when he was in my classroom for something, I just asked him point-blank: “What did I do to make you angry?”
That was when I learned a valuable lesson about perception and how we treat others. I often tell my students that actions speak louder than words, but sometimes I forget that lesson myself.
Bobby told me that I hadn’t held the door open for him. I was completely caught off-guard—I had no memory of any such incident. When I pressed him for details, he told me that one day, as I was heading to the office, he was behind me with a two-wheeled cart loaded with boxes. I had walked through the door without looking back or holding it open for him.
Honestly, I didn’t remember. I was probably lost in my own world, distracted by whatever was on my mind that day. But instead of making excuses, I started with an apology. I told him I didn’t remember, but I was sorry. And that simple apology changed everything. From that moment on, our friendship began. I also started paying more attention to the small things—like holding doors.
I cherished my friendship with Bobby. Even though he was an expert at being grumpy, I always looked forward to seeing him every day. By the time he passed away, I had already retired, but we held a service for him at the school. The auditorium was packed. For all his gruffness, that old man had touched the lives of hundreds over the years.
That mug still sits above my desk. Every time I look at it, I smile, remembering the twenty-year friendship that brought it to me.