Bobby Lohman (RIP)Bobby was a little man and gentle.
He came to the temporary homeless shelter
with his bindle and pasty pale face
grizzled
uncommunicative but always had a
ragged
book of crossword puzzles with his stuff
and would spend many nightime hours
working the puzzles while others slept/
Bobby let us get to know him after many
consecutive nights of not saying anything/
The puzzles were the key, he eventually let us join him/
He stayed but said nothing about his background/
He was hired to be the night watchman at the window
where homeless men lined up outside the building
waiting to secure a cot in the old church building hall
converted into the permanent shelter
called The Guest House in Milwaukee/
Bobby was a funny man, it turned out, and a musician/
He became a beloved figure at the Guest House/
He was our good friend/
He was killed, beaten to death one night in his room
on W. National Ave for his Social Securiy check/
We funeralized him at Woods VA Cemetery/
This was in the 1980's/
We never really knew who he was.
.........................................................
We took a picture we had of him in a Guest House calendar and glued it to an emgergency canoe oar that we carried when whitewater canoeing on northern Wisconsin rapids. Carrying this oar we wrecked a couple of canoes; beaten to death........
On one side is the picture of Bobby; on the reverse is one of me.
