Bobby Doyle

My 20th high school reunion is coming up in June. Most people don't know -- don't even care -- that before I was ever a BYU Cougar I was a Granada High Matador. OLE!

I think I may start writing about some of my classmates here. Nothing comprehensive, just some of the fading memories that I still have. Hopefully none of them are attorneys. I don't want to get sued. I'm not too worried because for me high school was anything but college prep.

I have thought about Bob Doyle a few times recently. His dad was my little league coach one year -- that's where I get the Bobby from. Nobody at school called him that but his mom and dad sure did. I also played high school baseball with Bob, but we didn't hang out much together away from the baseball diamond unless a mutual friend like Anthony Segotta was around.

I think there are two basic reasons I remember Bob. One day he parked his mother's VERY LARGE car in our driveway. He tried to make a cool exit by accelerating at a foolish speed while backing out of the driveway and ended up ripping out a section of fencing my dad put in the front yard. The whole ordeal was almost worth it just seeing the look on his face as the wood cracked and he realized what he had done.

I believe he told his mother the car was hit in Lucky's, a local grocery store, parking lot.

The other reason I remember Bob Doyle is because he used to like to come down and visit Anthony when he was working at the lake. Sometimes we would go fishing together.

Whenever I saw Bob away from school he would always get really loud and animated and ask me to tell him a story about a recent event from my life or about an event I had witnessed at school. I would tell him a story and he would laugh or tell me how nobody could tell a story like me. I always found his behavior with respect to me and my stories a little odd.

I know in his youth that Bob dreamed of playing Major League Baseball. I have had zero contact with him since we graduated, but I wonder what he is doing now for a living. Is he a baseball scout? Is he a head hunter who contacts talented executives with new job opportunities?

The reason I wonder this is because now I get paid to observe and question and report. I write stories every day that have to hold the interest of readers. And nobody among my peers recognized that ability in me earlier than Bobby Doyle.

Still, my favorite memory is him ripping out our fence with the fender of this mom's big, white Monte Carlo. Come to think of it, maybe he is in the demolition business because he took care of that fence in less than a second.