10-10

It’s another October 10th morning the 3rd of its kind that hasn’t been the same since that fateful day back in 2022… as I sit here in my chair that smells like last night’s chipotle staring at a blank screen on my tv, I can’t help but watch the memories scroll in head of a simpler time. They say time heals everything which it does most of the time, but it can never heal you waking up on your deceased buddy’s birthday with a handful of memories that bring a tear to your eye as you scrub the filith of your body in the shower… October 10th used to be a day of great joy. My friends and I would book a tee time for golf at one of his favorite courses. Plan on gorging our way through a mountain of wings from Bdubs, so much so it would lower my cars suspension by a couple of springs, and we would be rubbing the wheel wells all the way home. End up playing enough video games like Halo, Destiny, NHL, Call of Duty and Madden till our eyes bleed. It was always such a great day celebrating our buddy’s birthday… but that all change a couple of years ago when the world lost one of the great people to ever walk this earth to a car accident… It’s strange to think about how fast time really moves, one day your buddy is buying new clubs, and we are figuring out how to hit them and the next day you're surrounded by family friends at a funeral. I’m not here today to talk about sports in any way. I’m just here to give a little tribute to my best buddy 2 and some change years later after his death. This is the eulogy I wrote for his funeral with some minor changes to names… But read if you want but this is mostly for friends and family of Robby on what would have been another year around the sun. So, enjoy reliving some of the great memories in honor of a great friend.   

Robby

What is there to say about Robby (RAWHE) other than he was the greatest friend a guy could ever ask for. He had an amazing habit of making anyone and everyone feel like they were family. The joy that came out of that guy on a daily basis was staggering. I didn’t come from the tight nit pine wood family that a lot of his other friends here today are from I was from the outcast elementary school that is red pine, So when I landed in middle school I didn’t know a lot of people and there was this fluffy, smiling, joking gentlemen that I happen to meet his name was Robby you might know him and if you didn’t know him you definitely heard him. His roaring voice and laughter carried throughout the halls of the middle school. You couldn’t help but want to be around his energy like a fly to a bug zapper who couldn’t help but get sucked in. From that moment I knew I wanted to be friends with this charismatic human being so he introduced me to the pine wood clan which included the likes of AJ, Eric, Pat and Sam and too all their credit they took me in and made me feel included right off the get go and that was the kind of guy he was he didn’t care who you were, where you were from he made you feel included.

Then came meeting the rest of the Holmquist family and good god that was an experience right from the start I could see right away where he got his bubbly personality from. Dennis, Shanna, Christina and Bob were a cast of characters right out of your favorite reality tv show. One of the most incredible family’s I have ever met so loving, caring, funny… good golly miss molly they were funny so much laughter filled the walls of that house and just like Robby they made you feel like family the second you walked through that front door of the house and of their world famous van that Shan would drive us around everywhere we needed and didn’t need to go. I won’t bore you with details of the stupid stuff we did as high schoolers but let’s just say the bond grew as strong as a warlocks from destiny over those four years.  

That bond caried into early adulthood and just got stronger from our late-night Tuesday casino runs, which there were way too many to count and don’t even want to count but we were always up “300” by the end of the night… To the golf my gosh we played a lot of golf (when he could wake up of course) you would call 15 times and there would be no answer, so you had to go either bang on the front door or call one of his lovely sisters and they were always there to yank him out of a deep slumber. Once we finally got him awake, we seemed to always be ripping around the corner into the entrance of the countless golf courses we played together literally throwing the clubs in to the back of a rusted-out Yamaha golf cart (preferably number 44 it had no governor) and running every old person off the cart path just so we could get to our tee time at two in the afternoon!

To the late-night gaming sessions on Destiny trying to run Crota for the 19th time in the night and it usually ended up with me blowing it somehow and having to restart. Then there was Chel don’t get me started on Chel (EA sports NHL Video game for all you novice out there) The MN Chiefs were always chasing the coveted EASHL trophy with one Patches Cotton (Robby) as our left winger Peroxide Jesus (Shane) as our center, (yes the pastor read Peroxide Jesus during the funeral, I hope Robby got a kick out of that) Benny Bites ALot (Me-Brett) as the Goaltender with a smattering of other friends sprinkled in there Eric, Max, Andy and ooo we can’t forget good old Chubs Peterson (Robert) the enforcer of the team always there to make it 4 on 5 for the whole game by running other players off the ice for no other reason than I guess they looked at him funny? (Robby “really” enjoyed playing with Chubbs) Let’s just say Patches and Peroxide got really good at the Power Kill and I got good at making 90 saves a game. But the cup runs always seemed to end in heart ache because someone would always sabaroni cheese (ANDY) the game and would lose to teams like the Moldy Shower Curtains. But in the end, we did lift the shiny, pixilated EASHL cup a hand full of times and I think we all have it on our resume when we apply for jobs right next to our education.  

Now to the tradition unlike any other no not the Masters… The Bio Trip what’s the bio trip you may ask the bio trip is one of the most important things that we do every year over the last ten plus years it is an annual gathering of the “minds” with a lot of our high school friends and more at my parents’ house in northern Minnesota in the buzzing metropolis that is Biwabik, Minnesota off the shores of the red stained Wynn Lake. The stories that have come from that trip are countless but Robby was always the highlight from his giant fan which we would turn off to get him awake for you guessed it golf to his great jokes making fun of himself and everyone else that was there but he loved along with everyone to pick on Norbs the most! To his movie quotes that were always on point that had the whole place in stitches. But what makes it great is that it’s a time to catch up with old friends and laugh, talk about old memories, and make countless new ones. I think it’s safe to say that the Bio Trip will never ever be the same.

But what I’ll remember the most were our long road trips to Chicago, Florida, Michigan I am convinced that this kid has never seen the state of Wisconsin he was always so excited to head out on an adventure. He would say alright I’m going to stay up the whole way to our destination and I would hit him with a “yeah right dude” and “he would me with a alrighttttt dude” and sure enough crossing over the bridge from Stillwater into Hudson you would hear the faint noise of snoring which graduated to a full on symphony of snoring by the time we hit Eau Claire and when we got to our destination with a few detours along the way he would just say one thing every time “my bad dude sorry I knocked so hard” and then we would just laugh for a good five mins but I didn’t care it was the time we spent together that made it great I hope one day when we meet again that he will be just sleeping in that passenger seat of my Volkswagen next to me the whole way through Wisconsin onto our next adventure.

I just want to say this I haven’t lived a long life, but it has been fulfilling so far with knowing people like Robby’s family from the caring nature to their unmatched toughness for the things they have gotten through and all of my great family and friends. But take the time, make the time, do whatever you can to pick up those minicomputers in our pockets that we are all so addicted to by scrolling through Instagram, Facebook or even myspace to use it as an actual phone and give someone a call. Call a friend that works hvac as he’s climbing a ladder in heat of the day and talk about his fantasy team, call a special ed teacher who is working he’s butt off doing a job I know a lot of us could never do and see how his day is going, call a grid operator who keeps the power on for us and see how his hobby farm is doing, yes that means checking in on steve the donkey as well,  call a navy “seal” who lives out in California and for some reason drives down to San Diego from LA every weekend (have you seen gas prices) but I’m grateful he does because it gives us time to talk, call an actuary who lives in the “greatest city on planet earth” and talk about swing plain. Call a father who is doing an amazing job trying to raise a family and talk about how our stock portfolios are the dirt. Call A Pat just because he’s Pat and he’s the best to talk too. Call a Postal worker and see if he wants to go hit the tree on the first hole at our favorite golf club. Call a pair of brothers to see if they want to crash a boat off the shores of Lake Michigan during a wind advisory. Call a brother and see how his stress levels our from dealing with those two brothers who love to sail. Call the best parents in world who will support you know matter what you want to do in this world. And most importantly call the best friend any of us could ask for and see if he just wants to float in orbit on destiny, make a cross cress pass to a one timer on CHEL, see if he wants to throw a football around in the backyard, see if he wants to go hit a quick nine, see if he wants to come over and watch harry potter in the basement and before the first wingardium levious you both are passed out. But just call and talk because life is short, time is precious and the relationships we form while we are here are the most important and I am confident saying this that me and everyone in this room and even outside this room are so grateful for every moment they got to spend with…

Robby.

Thanks For Reading, Enjoy The Day, Hell Just Enjoy Every Day, Because We Never Know How Much Time We Actually Have On This Planet.