Bob Malkin

Bob hamming it up in his Swiss apartment, in 1989. Taken either by his girlfriend, or by a woman he was trying to convince to be his girlfriend...he can't remember which!

Bob's story about this picture:
This was taken in 1985 in Miami. Those are bass on the stringer. (The picture was taken by yet another woman who had been my girlfriend, but was not my girlfriend at the time, but she still wanted to be. It was a busy few years for girlfriends.)

More interesting than the girlfriend, however, was the fishing partner. He was my roommate. When I moved into the apartment, I asked him about borrowing a mop. He said "why?" It went downhill from there.

Jim, the roommate, hadn't mopped the kitchen floor for all of the three years that he had been living there before I moved in. Imagine what the bathrooms were like (but not when you have recently eaten). In any case, guys forgive such things and we got along quite well. Jim, slightly taller than me at about 6' 6", liked to fish and so did I. So, we agreed to go out one Saturday at 5 AM in his boat on his "favorite" lake. Leaving for the lake I was surprised to see that he was taking a four-foot life raft with him. Life preservers are more typical. I was also surprised to see that the raft was well worn with many patches. I was thinking "I hope Jim is better at keeping his boat maintained than his kitchen floor. I don't want to have to find out if those repairs to the life raft hold." As you have probably guessed, when we arrived at the lake, there was no dock, no mooring and no boat!! Jim's "boat" WAS the four-foot life raft. The repairs -- I found out after we had left shore looking like an angry spider on its back - were the result of the dorsal fins of the bass (a bit sharp) tearing through the plastic of the inflatable. He said, "Try to be careful about that, if you can."

Did I mention that Jim was also an electrical engineer?

Normally one might be upset but such a turn of events. However, the fishing was excellent. And, in this lake, the best spots couldn't be reached by "real" fishing boats anyway. (Real fishing boats have things like engines, seats, etc.) Jim caught at least a half-dozen nice sized bass that morning and I did as well. When we got home, I asked a friend to snap the photo that you have to prove that I had survived and even faired well.

Jim and I only went fishing together once, as best as I can remember. I moved out a few months later. I had a short term obsession with those things that turn your toilet water blue.