Doctor Frank gets lots of letters. Emails really, but that’s how it works now. And how it works now too, apparently, is that our friends pass on. We look at each other like Stormin said a couple years ago and we say OK don’t anyone die between now and next time — could you imagine saying that, even just a few years ago? — and then JBT dies. And now Crawdad.
So Doc got this from Walker. Walker volunteered to write a few words meant to be a tiny piece of Bionic Bob’s obituary. And Walker couldn’t stop, he just kept going until he had this giant opus. And Walker can’t let go, because it’s all true, the Green Lake part, the nickname part, the skateboard part, even the love part, and Walker wants to know what to cut. Because it’s sposed to be tiny. Here it is:
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There was this guy who pulled a mean oar at Seattle’s Green Lake Crew, back in high school, early 70s. Somehow his face is clearer than the others in my memory, no bushy mustache then, just lean fire and intensity. The rest of us — North Seattle boys, all of us, living just minutes from the boathouse — wondered why the hell this Crawford kid would commute all the way from Mercer Island, an hour away, just to work himself near to death in a boat, slog home in the dark for dinner and whatever Mercer Island kids did at night, come back for more the next day… and the next… and…
…and pretty soon nobody cared about the why. Bob Crawford was a hell of a teammate. The kind of guy everyone wanted in their boat. A guy who gave everything he had, every stroke, for the team. For his teammates.
It took me almost fifty years to get why he did it. It was love. But we’ll come back to that.
By the time I moved in at the UW’s Conibear Shellhouse as a freshman two years later, Crawdad was a Husky sophomore. By then that giant dark shrubbery grew thick and unruly on his lip. And a new nickname sprouted along with it. Badass Bob.
Sophomores, aka Rookies, at that time were bound by rule to make life hell on the frosh Grunties. Badass did his best to comply. But every guy he helped toss in the lake, every new victim of some harsh ritual, even Bob’s poor beat-down Gruntie roommate Kevin, saw the twinkle in his eye, and a hint of a kind smile he could never keep hidden under that mad swatch of fur.
Bob’s greatest contribution to crewhouse lore was the sport of indoor competitive skateboarding, judged for points along the linoleum tiled corridor of Grunt Row, where a few dozen freshmen lived under supervision from respected Rookies like Bob. As the only guy with the cojones to take part, Bob got the victory every time… until that day… a poorly timed leap took his head full speed into the metal door jamb at the end of the hall. Panicked Grunties surrounded their wounded hero, lying in a pool of blood, and managed to get him to the hospital. When he returned, patched up, stitched up, and made better than he was before, thanks to medical technology, yet another nickname arose.
Bionic Badass Bob Crawdaddy Crawford, like most of us anonymous Huskies, never made a top boat, never got gold medals or championships or a purple jacket from the Husky Hall of Fame. But those that earned the awards and recognition know without a doubt they wouldn’t have made it if they weren’t pushed to their limits by Bob Crawford and the handful of guys like him who never let them rest.
I was lucky enough to pull an oar with Bob in the last race of his Husky career. It was Opening Day in the Montlake Cut and we 3rd-boaters were supposed to lose the featured JV event to the actual Husky JV boat. With Carolynn Patten in the cox seat, the first-ever woman to cox the men’s team at UW, we led that race for 1500+ meters before the other Huskies took the lead and the win. Sad? You bet. But back at the boathouse we huddled up and heard Bionic Bob tell us, with wonder and gratitude in his voice, it was the best race, best boat, best crew, from start to finish, that he’d ever been a part of, and he was just damn proud to be a part of what happened that day. Everyone looked at him and nodded. Bob had put into words exactly what we were all thinking.
Back to that love thing. A few years ago I got on stage with my son Joe, a guitar instructor, for a rendition of Free Bird at a jam for his students. During rehearsal one day I told Joe there was this guy, years ago in college, who hollered “Free Bird!” at every band, every DJ, every guy who dropped a quarter in a jukebox, even at Roy the square dance caller. I said it was mid 70s, just a couple years after Skynyrd released the song. Joe, always the best at a deadpan reply, says “Oh my gosh… maybe he was the first guy…”
So no kidding, there I was in front of this crowd before we played, saying “In the house tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the first man to ever yell ‘Free Bird!’ at a show, Badass Bob Crawford!”
After the song, as I thanked Bob and Vicki for taking a huge part of a fall Saturday to drive to Seattle, find parking, sit and listen to a hack musician who called him up on a lark after not seeing him for years… I mean, who does that?… that’s when it hit me.
He did it for love. Bob drove to Green Lake every day out of love for his brothers. He gave everything he had, even in a losing cause, even when there was no glory in it for him, because he loved his teammates. And he came to that show because a brother called with a favor to ask. And Bob, who loved his brothers, wouldn’t let a brother down.
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Sorry Walker. Doc’s got nothing for ya. You better just leave it all there.
