Bio for my 55th High School Reunion

Class of 1963

Adams Memorial High School

Adams, Massachusetts

At Raphael’s Cuban ristorante, El Varadero, on Isla Mujeres    

Febrero 2018, on the Maxac Lagoon.

Robert "Bob" Bacon

Not being any kind of a student or having any particular talent, I had few options for the rest of my life. After graduating in 1963, and following John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November, I joined the United States Navy Seabees and grew up quickly in the following 80 days at Great Lakes boot camp. Assassination is a good spelling word. Dad was a Seabee, and I was born at the hospital on the hill in Adams while he was fighting in Okinawa. I gave my country four and a half years of my young life and loved it. I attended Navy Construction Electrician school in Port Hueneme, California. But I never wanted to work with my hands. I get no enjoyment from it. I’ll split wood, or rake, but do not hand me a tool. One of my jobs as an electrician was changing lights on runways and taxiways, water towers, and airplane and blimp hangers. I truly have no close high school friends, but I have nine close Seabee friends that still meet yearly. Comedian Stephen Wright says that he likes to reminisce with people he doesn’t know. 

I ran the coffee mess at my last naval air duty station and was told that I was good at it. I joined the Friendly Ice Cream management program right after I was honorably discharged, but after two years I quit and I drifted. I carried a pistol and drove Yellow Cab for a while. Only once was there was an attempted robbery. No shots were fired.

Reliable Fence Company of Norwell Massachusetts was hiring salesman. I chatted with a man in the showroom who turned out to be the vice president of the company. He called me back the next evening and said if I changed my eyeglasses and shaved off my mustache the job was mine. I had wire rimmed hippie glasses. In one year I was the top salesman out of twenty-eight. I finally found something that I was really good at. Seven years later the owner of a swimming pool company approached me and said I could make twice as much money working for him, and would have four months off every winter.

I took the chance and ended up selling 1181 in-ground gunite pool projects in eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and southern New Hampshire in thirty years. This led me into the concrete business that I currently work in. Retirement just will not work for me.

I love numbers. Here are my numbers. Johnny H. once said, “the only thing he knew about algebra was that x equaled 3."

Married to Sandy Zabek, class of 1964, for over 50 years. I met her at a high school dance in the original Adams High gym in 1960. In 1985 we discovered Louisiana Cajun / Zydeco dancing, which certainly has shaped our leisure time and travels, and live band house parties here in Marshfield.

Built a house in Marshfield Massachusetts in 1972 that now has six additions. It is on a cranberry bog. My brother and I cleared the lot with axes.

I’ve sold stuff to over 8,000 households in 145 different towns.

Fell into running, which was a great break from selling. Gave up smoking. I have run over 54,000 miles. Google says that Mother Earth is 24,901 miles in circumference. Health magazines say that with my running history I should live to be 147.

I was not a good marathoner, but excelled at much longer distances, such as 50 and 100 mile races. I did them from California to Vermont. On a whim I once ran 200 miles by myself from Zylonite to Rexhame Beach in Marshfield. It was Halloween time, and it was dark by 5:00pm so I only could run 10 hours a day, x3 days, plus four hours on the last day. April 1996 was my final Boston and my eighth finish. Eight is my very favorite number. I used it as a training run for my final Western States 100 trail run in California near Squaw Valley and Tahoe. One year at Boston I started off in Hopkinton dead last on purpose. There were some terrific 24-hour track runs. Sounds crazy, but you cannot get lost on a track and you don’t need to carry a thing. Lost at 3:00am near Red Star Ridge by yourself on a remote, rocky mule trail is no fun. There are mind games to be played while running for 24 hours. When I first thought of doing it, a friend asked, “When was the last time you were up for 24 straight hours, never mind on your legs and moving?"

Road running led to side road cleaning. I keep track of the number of cans and bottles that I pick up. In 2015 I picked up 27,000. I bought this Apple laptop with the money. Last year I bought a snow blower. Duxbury beach is one of my designated cleaning areas.

We travel a bit. We have been to Istanbul, Bogota, Portugal, Virgin Gorda, Meeteetse Wyoming, Costa Rica, and 646 other places. If you ever get a chance to go to Bogota, don’t. Mexico is a favorite, and we spend every winter on an island there. This year was our 30th at Hotel Na Balam. One of my daughters (I have two) teaches yoga internationally. Sandy I go along to assist with the golf cart tours and snorkeling trips. That has brought us to Sicily, Greece (History teacher Mr. Bolger would be shocked by this fact) Cartagena, and Mexico so far. “At times Bacon could not find his locker, but he did a sailing trip to the Greek Islands?” I had never even been to Amherst, never mind Paris. My family only traveled to Lake George, New York. Years later it dawned on me that we had no books in our little house on 90 Howland Avenue.

My first daughter is a writer, which I suppose led me to write a blog. You can find it at bobbaconsworld.blogspot.com. She edits it for me. I really enjoy writing. My e-mail address is my name in Spanish. My Mexican amigos ask “Roberto, your name in the US is Bob?”