The Bob Joke

This is our family's favorite joke:

Two guys are standing next to each other in a bar (sorry, Mom) and one of them, Bob, keeps having people come up to him to say "Hi" or clap him on the back.  This goes on all night long till finally the other guy, Fred, gets fed up and says "Do you know every darn person in this bar?"

"Well," Bob says, "as a matter of fact, I do know everybody here.  I know pretty much everybody you'd ever want to meet"

"Yeah, right!" Fred says.  "I bet you don't know Jay Leno."

"Yeah, I do."  Bob says.  So they get in a car, drive out to the NBC studios where the guard takes one look at Bob, waves them on in and they drive up to Jay Leno's parking spot where he's just getting into his car.  Leno sees Bob coming, gets out of his car and says "Hey, Bob! Great to see you ol' buddy. How are ya doing?"

Fred can't believe it but he saw it with his own eyes.  When Bob gets back in the car Fred says "Ok, so you know Jay Leno.  But I bet you don't know President Obama like that."

"You'll see," Bob says.  And they take a road trip across the country to Washington D.C., people waving to Bob and greeting him all along the way.  At the gate to the White House the Secret Service stops their car and Fred starts grinning....until he hears the agent say, "Bob, the President heard you were coming and wants to know if you can fit in time for a little B-ball with him."  Sure enough, when they get to the White House gym President Obama lopes over, slaps Bob on the back and greets him like an old friend.

Fred cannot believe it.  As soon as the basketball game is over he grabs Bob and says "Ok, Ok.  I see you know a lot of people.  But I know for sure the one person you don't know is the Pope. In fact, just to prove it, I'll pay to fly us over to Rome and you try to get in to see the Pope."  Bob just shrugs and off they go.

When they get to Rome they hear that it's a Feast Day and the Pope is going to make an appearance and bless the people, and the courtyard of St. Peter's Basilica is crammed with the faithful.  They can hardly move through the crowd.  Bob says to Fred, "See that little balcony up there?  That's where the Pope comes out to speak to the people.  I'll go in and come out on the balcony with him and wave to you and you'll know once and for all that I know the Pope."

So Bob disappears into the crowd and Fred keeps watching the balcony. Pretty soon, sure enough, Bob and the Pope step out onto the balcony.  Bob is looking down to see where Fred is so he can wave and he sees a big commotion where somebody has fainted dead away.  It's Fred.  Bob hurries back down to the courtyard just as Fred is coming around.  "Fred, Fred!" he says. "Was it that big a shock to see me with the Pope?"

Fred stares at him.  "No, it wasn't that.  It was when I heard all the people around me saying 'Who's that guy up there with Bob?'"

Back when we lived in Oklahoma City, Dennis was the "Bob" of our family.  We couldn't go anywhere that there wasn't someone who knew him.  Every restaurant we went into he knew someone who was there, and then he had to table-hop, of course.  It might be fifteen minutes before we got to order our food.  We might be standing in line at a movie, there would be someone coming up behind us saying "Dennis!  How have you been?"  Sometimes it was a little disconcerting to the boys such as when we were on vacation and just as we were going into a Dairy Queen in a small southwestern Oklahoma town  Dennis was stopped by someone who was coming out, chocolate dip cone in hand. Dennis had sold him land somewhere and they talked like old friends.

Well, it kept us out of bars and casinos, I guess, because you never knew who was going to be coming up to greet him. He had been in real estate for a couple of decades, chaired a lot of committees, been on boards of directors, taught adult Sunday School classes almost forever and made friends wherever he went.  And, hey, he's a memorable guy.

Now that Dennis has been mostly retired for a few years and we live in a different city it doesn't happen as much.  Meals out are a lot more peaceful. We thought.  Except now our daughter-in-law, Robyn, goes out to eat with us frequently.  She is a school teacher, and guess what.  Almost everywhere we go we hear "Mrs. Carey!  Mrs. Carey!"  and it's a student, a former student, or a parent who knows her and wants to say "Hi".  The torch has been passed. Robyn is The New Bob.