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Chapter Fifteen June is Still Bobbing Out All Over |
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Hey kids, move your cursor over the photos for Bobs fun-sized captions! Dateline: June 8, 2001
Dateline: June 9, 2001
Back at the Hilton I give Joe my humidifier for the night - it might help him regain his voice.
Dateline: June 10, 2001
I toss and turn all night but get to watch some decent HBO. Matthew, Richard and I sample
Gramma Sally’s breakfast although we note that the matriarch for whom the cozy family joint is
named really looks much more like Grampa Sally. We discuss Bob business - like the search for a
new office person and moving the merchandise emporium, possibly to my place in L.A.
You know, I don’t mind staying in ANY hotel or motel as long as it’s clean and quiet
(although if it were free, I’d choose a W every time). And I’m digging the free local calls at Motel 6
(compuserve local access numbers, hee hee), whereas a Hilton charges up to $0.95 for the first
three MINUTES of a local call. Matthew and I do credit card deposits from the tour over the
phone from our rooms before we head over to Pres House, on the campus of the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, for the last show of this tour.
Despite sound problems (churches can be like that) we have a great albeit sweaty show. The lights are
set up on the sides pointing in so I feel like we’re weenies in a
Woolworth lunch counter display
case! It’s been a long time since The Bobs played Madison - the ISO show in the early 90’s. We do "The Druid Song"
without mikes, which sounds really cool. The crowd is really
appreciative, and I briefly get to see Alex’s college pal Chris,
who is wrapping up a stint here
studying people who study studying, or something like that. Two guys from the Mad Hatters, a
Madison-based a cappella group, stop by to say hello afterwards. We hope to come back to Madison
soon - when the University is in session.
A search for a bakery rumored to be open until midnight is fruitless. Back at the motel, I
re-pack, sorting through souvenirs of this tour - NY Playbills, Grand Rapids press, a napkin
from The B.O.B., the business card for the Albany Motel 6 (for that aforementioned complaint
letter!), Neutrogena shampoo and conditioner from the Doubletree in Massachusetts, and some
goofy Gerald Ford Museum postcards. Although I have lots to do when I get there, it will be
nice to be home.
Dateline: June 11, 2001
©2001 Amy Engelhardt (text/page), AlexStein (goofy captions)
Dateline: June 7, 2001
Our own 9 hour Partridge Family Bus
-a-thon begins at the McDonald’s in the throbbing metropolis of
Carlisle, PA... Richard, reduced by utter boredom to reading every informational placard at
every stop, informs us that the North Midway Rest Stop was the first one built on the
Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940... At that time the pike was only 160 miles long...
Matthew vrooms through tunnels on his shift but at two hours in we’re already losing our minds,
although Susan gives a helluva foot massage... As we emerge from an Appalachian,
I recall the fall I moved out to California from NJ; people were inexplicably waiting at the ends
of these tunnels, waving and cheering cars on... Joe reads and drums...
I wedge into a comfy nook and actually nap. It’s a two McDonald’s day...Matthew and Susan have
another serious backgammon bout... we play a tape called "Outback" which sounds like Joe and
Richard making weird noises...and somehow FINALLY arrive in Grand Rapids around 7:45pm!
My room overlooks the Grand River (it’s the river, not the rapids that are Grand, I learn) and
the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.
We stop at a market, riding through a residential section of town that seems eerily familiar. I check my e-mail then go find a solitary dinner,
ending up at a Bennigan’s where I make a dangerous discovery: Ultimate Baked Potato Soup. Back
at the room, Richard comes over to check his e-mail, then I call Alex, telling him about the odd
deja vue-ness I’m having here. A lot of midwestern cities look the same - very ‘burby - but this
one is striking a nerve for some reason. Even now, just writing about it I feel a weird
connection. I conk out after the long travel day, but somehow I feel like I’m still
moving!
An incredibly beautiful day - especially for June in the midwest, when the humidity and bugs
are usually just getting nasty. (Muskegon must be so named for Musketos, for which I have
always been a serious all-you-can-eat buffet.) After a Bobs Big Boy
lunch, and an unsuccessful
attempt to find any Grand Rapids, I walk through downtown, scoring a patch for my collection and
still feeling strangely at home in this city I’ve never been to. On the way back I stop in the
gift shop at the Ford Museum but haven’t time for the full experience - next visit. I notice
that almost no Clinton or Ford Presidential Coins remain, but the Nixon bucket is full!
WYCE’s afternoon DJ tells us we’ll have a five minute slot, so maybe we should decide what we
want to talk about, a plan we all know is just not gonna work. 25 minutes later we’ve yakked
and yukked until she’s completely bamboozled. The station did a great job promoting our show,
headed by serious FOB Michael Packer, who enters the studio with the original Bobs EP, "Out of
the Mouths of Bobs" for Richard and Matthew to sign, next to pictures that barely resemble them.
The B.O.B. (Big Old Building) is amazing. We can hardly decide which
restaurant to choose for dinner - we opt for the steakhouse for geographical reasons. WOW.
Michael and Dagmar from WYCE join us for INCREDIBLE food including
lobster bisque and
mouth-watering steaks. At the show, Joe is losing his voice (hey, that’s my job!
See Illin’ While Trillin’!) - fortunately
the red meat's protein helps push him through. Although the audience seems alarmed at first,
the show ROCKS a town The Bobs have never played. Fans from Canada, DC, VA
and Michigan alongside no longer confused Grand Rapidian converts! Thanks to the WYCE staff
for a wonderful show. We can’t wait to come back, especially to The B.O.B., our rightful
kingdom.
"I guess I’ll have to wait until next time to see
Squeaky Fromme’s gun," Richard says as we
geek out next to the Van Andel Museum Center,
hosting a Star Trek exhibit, before getting back in the van on
another gorgeous, cloudless day. I take us down I-196, thinking there might be a lake view.
(Wrong.) Joe takes over a few hours afterwards, waiting until the light comes on to get gas
(why do guys do that?) at which point we’re in the Chicago ‘burbs and it’s 40 cents a gallon
more... and I’m happy when we pull into the Hilton in Lisle, IL so I can sneak a nap. It’s a
cumulative weariness that gets me on the road - a never-ending tiredness that builds up steadily
that takes me several long sleeping days at home to recover. But these naps can help a little,
if I can slide them past myself.
Our show for Batavia, Illinois’ Concerts for a Cause benefits elderly homeowners - the
organization helps pay for handymen/women to come fix things that are wrong with their homes.
After a lengthy sound setup that included a 40-minute long
Close Encounters-like
EQ-setting machine, the wonderful folks running the
show bring in a steak and walleye dinner for us. (Man, we’re eating well in the midwest!)
The building super, Leo, is a total hoot and we ponder
asking him to open the show with his vaudevillian humor. In this former church, longtime Bobs
fans who have traveled for miles once again mix with regular folks for a more conservatively
slanted Bobs evening - and its prerequisite goofiness.
Thanks to Paul and Missy for a wonderful evening!
Yes, I travel with a humidifier - but I found it’s much lighter once you pour the water out.
Speaking of water, despite enticing advertisements for this Hilton’s Sunday brunch, I do NOT
repeat the Lexington water fiasco!
The Weather Channel has been predicting thunderstorms all weekend but none show up.
We decide to detour on smaller roads instead of the Interstate for a bit of local color on the way to Madison. Route 47
North shows us life's rich pageant in northwestern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin: "Hey Weenie" (a
closed hot dog hut), "Pete’s Hot Dogs" (hot dog hut with a line out the door), old airplane
bombers loop-de-looping over hilly fields of green and yellow, very large bikers, very large
bikes, huge, multi-layered clouds, and Lake Geneva, a true discovery considering the lake itself
is not on the map! 
(They probably want to hide its vast beauty from non-Wisconsiners.) It’s
sort of like the real lake Geneva sans Alps, so Joe dubs it Swissconsin. The town
bustles with vacationers ascurry amongst faux Swiss-named things. Definitely worth further
investigation someday. Although we fear we are lost (due to the sudden appearance of said
huge lake not on the map) we aren’t - Route 50 pops up and we find our way back to the
Interstate to Madison.
It’s beautiful, this town. Originally Alex was gonna come for part of this tour so we might
spend some time here (we’d heard it was a cool college town), but he had too much work at home.
As I see one of the lakes peeking out at me from State Street, I wish he were here to see how
nice it truly is. Naturally we are leaving early tomorrow so I won’t get to see it.
It’s Hot Hot Hot and getting mighty humid in cloudless Madison at 8:00 a.m. so we’re glad to
be heading to the west coast! There are no thunderstorms and we zoom to Chicago,
where my pal
Mark couldn’t meet me for the two hour layover. I’m boiling hot and falling asleep. Me want go
home! Which me do, choosing to watch Moonstruck
instead of four recent romantic "comedies" on
the flight. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to. Back in L.A. that afternoon, I open
my suitcase and dump its contents directly into my laundry basket. The Bobs are due here in 5
days’ time for a benefit in Santa Monica, but for now my pillow is calling!