One of my first employers was a man named Bob Carr. He had about an acre of rolling garden beds next to his family home on the north side of town. He sold flowers and shrubs, and hosted a garden tour every summer that was like a miniature Woodstock for old people. On Saturdays, I would ride my bike over to rake leaves or cut the grass. Things his young sons, Robert and Sam, weren’t able to do yet.
Originally from California, Bob Carr was different from my dad and uncles and the other Midwestern grownups I was used to being around. For one thing, he had a ponytail. It was about the size of half a thumb and tied with a rubber band. And Robert and Sam sported mullets years before mullets were even a thing, let alone popular. Now that I think of it, the mullet was likely invented by Bob Carr and modeled by Robert and Sam as a way of keeping it “business up front, party in the back”—not just as a hairdo, but as a way of life.
Along with his proclivity for alternative hairstyles, Bob Carr said things I wasn’t used to hearing. Or at least hearing in the context in which he said them. For example, at church during Sunday morning worship—after the pastor had read a verse or after a singer had performed the Special Music—Bob Carr would call out the word “Amen” at a volume just quieter than a car horn. And while “amen” was a word I was familiar with, it was usually only said aloud at the supper table after grace.
It was a nice change being around Bob Carr. He said what he was thinking. I was used to not knowing what grownups thought because they never told me. Instead they used a unique body language reserved for people who don’t use their bodies much to communicate. It was more like encoded signals. An eye that looks at you and looks away just as fast could mean “No” or “Not now.” It could also mean “Yes.” My father looking straight at me but refusing to answer a question could mean anything from “Sure, see if I care” to “This world is tough, son—you’re going to have to figure some of this out for yourself.” If I had to guess, I’d say translating “Midwestern grownup” is more challenging than Swahili.
Bob Carr did not use encoded signals. He actually said what he was thinking. Even more, he did not wait. When he said “Amen” seemingly out of nowhere, he actually intended it for that precise moment. It meant he agreed with whatever had just happened. Whatever the pastor had just said, whatever the singers had just sung. They didn’t even have to wait until after the service. He put himself on the line with them, as if to say, “Dear pastor, dear singers—as God and everyone in the congregation as my witness, I like you. Should anybody bully you on the playground, I’ll have your back.”
As someone who chose to go into the singer-songwriter profession, I cannot overemphasize how much having a Bob Carr in the audience is a blessing. Just when I’ve been about to exit stage right—after I’ve sung a verse and chorus and realized how terrible my career choice was—that’s when a Bob Carr gives a whoop or an amen, and suddenly I feel like I can make it through. And I do.
On hot summer afternoons, Bob Carr would do something else different. He wore a collared linen shirt with short sleeves but only buttoned the very top button, providing maximum airflow and exposing his potbelly. The expression “let it all hang out” occurs to me now as a literal and metaphorical summation of Bob Carr. A gardener transplanted from California to northern Minnesota, producing seeds of love, acceptance, encouragement. I see him now in my mind’s eye, standing on a small knoll, leaning on a garden hoe, his linen shirt fluttering in the wind—not unlike a cape.
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