Toblerone

Well, i was trying to think of a funny way of starting this entry, maybe a catchy title and Toblerone was the best i could come up with. This week is the week (i say week because we're not 100% on what day it happened) that our good (sweaty) buddy Rob Toby passed away three years ago. Tobes was part of the group back in the day. Towards the end of high school he sort of started to separate himself from us. We weren't mad at him, he was doing his own thing and we were getting ready to go to University. When i say 'we' the people who know me will know who i'm talking about. The University years went with seeing Tobes only a few times each summer and at Christmas. We talked about him sometimes like he was Pokeroo from Polka Dot Door. Remember that thing? We'd get together for drinks and someone would say "guess who i saw at the mall tonight, Toby!" The rest of us would be jealous and then wish it was us who'd seen him. The same would happen at the bar. We would all run downstairs to see him if we knew he was there. And there he'd be, standing in one place, sort of bouncing back and forth with a smile on his face, happier then hell to see us.

I can only speak for myself but while at University i didn't do a very good job of keeping in touch with him. He didn't make all that much of an effort either but it was different at the time because he stayed in Timmins and i was 8 hours away in Waterloo. That's what happens when you leave home, you tend to lose touch a bit with the people who stay. Of course i never thought that we had a really short time span with which to catch up. The last time i saw him was at Walmart in 2004, just before i moved to Korea for a year. He was there with his girlfriend and he was waiting for her to try something on. When i saw his big bald head i knew it was him and i was super pumped to see him. I told him where i was going and he was so excited for me. I knew that he would have loved to do something like that and i wish he had, i know it would have changed his life.
There is so much more i could talk about with him. His white pants, his sweaty ass on Anth's driveway after playing basketball, the fact that he didn't grow after grade 8, having his first cigarette in like grade 6 probably right after his first sexual experience...lots of stuff. Rob took his own life for a reason we'll never know. He was into things that obviously he didn't feel he could deal with. Things we wish we could have helped prevent. Personally I still think about that fat bastard quite a bit. I never thought that i would be dealing with a friend killing himself. I didn't really handle it very well when it happened, his funeral was one of the worst if not the worst day of my life. I'll never forget his bald head in that casket and the way his parents were just so calm. It was creepy. I was angry, i am angry still.
I think of him when i hear "Run to the hills" by Iron Maiden because he loved showing me how cool the drum parts are. I think of him when i hear "Beer Goggles" by Lagwagon because he would always say "ya man its true, when i drink i totally think ugly chicks are hot". I think of him when i see a mosh pit because in 97' at the Warped Tour he came out of the Lagwagon pit with a bloody mouth and a smile saying how fun it was. I think of how when i went in for an interview for a job at the grocery store he had one the same day and how pumped we were to work together. I think of Danny on the handlebars of his bike screaming "woo woo woo" on the way to Anth's. I know i'm forgetting some things that will be obvious as soon as i post this but that's ok. I won't ever forget them. I know if that son of a bitch is up there (with shmerbe and momma's wodden leg) he's bouncing around in white pants listening to the Fushnickens, smoking a cigarette and waiting for us to join him. Peace Tobes you sweaty bastard. (clearly sweat reminds me of him as well)

I'M CALLING IT: Toby's legacy of what went down in Tayo's basement during "lockout", the 7 hour smell will go down in history.