All posts in Death

I started and stopped read­ing sev­eral times a book called World War Z. It’s a com­pletely seri­ous take of what hap­pened to the world and its pop­u­la­tion fol­low­ing a zom­bie apoc­a­lypse some­time in the not-to-distant future. It’s creepy and kinda scary in parts but if you make it through the whole book it’s a pretty good “what if” sce­nario. For the entire pop­u­la­tion of Earth to sud­denly have to face a cat­a­clysm of never before seen pro­por­tions and fight back until liv­ing humans regained the planet is pretty cool.

And it gets you think­ing about sur­viv­ing some­thing ter­ri­fy­ing : could I do it? How would I get my fam­ily out alive? Where would we go? What would we do about food and water? Could I trust my fel­low liv­ing humans? Even my own neigh­bors? ‘Cause you never know what peo­ple will do when faced with the end of mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion and we’re sud­denly liv­ing in the Dark Ages all over again. Every­body, let’s party like it’s 999!

Being Mr. ADD my mind will wan­der some­times so when I’m stuck in the break room the other day wait­ing for the microwave to fin­ish warm­ing my lunch up I look over at the ice machine. Hang­ing off of it is a pretty hefty ice scoop prob­a­bly mea­sur­ing about 12 inches by 5 inches by 5 inches. The thing is big.

So I hefted it off of the scratch-built hook that it hangs off of and raise it up. Could I cleave a skull with this? Would a machete be bet­ter in close zom­bie com­bat? How would I get out of this break­room if my office were infested with the undead bod­ies of the peo­ple I work with? Could I dif­fer­en­ti­ate between their liv­ing and undead selves?

Some­body came in after that. He was taller than me. What if he was a zom­bie? He’s pretty tall, could I cut his head off with this thing?

I took my lunch back to my cube and started look­ing around at more items in my gen­eral vicin­ity. I have a knife but a knife in zom­bie com­bat is going to be pretty use­less — no point in stab­bing them. Could I crush a head with a lap­top? My mon­i­tor weighs as much as a car so it’s use­less too. The cube walls aren’t too tall, I could escape over them if I got pinned down and there’s a pretty hefty door right near my cube. That could my my escape route, but what if there were more zom­bies behind that hunt­ing for fresh brains?

There’s a guy that sits at the end of my row. I some­times wish he were a zom­bie so I could cleave his head with an ice scooper.

A friend of mine died today. He was a work friend, but I knew more about his life than the major­ity of the peo­ple that I work with, so I con­sider him not a work friend but a real friend.

Bob L’Roy was a goofy goofy man. He smoked, drank, and cussed with the best of him, but he was loyal. He played the drums, liked camp­ing and boat­ing, and was an all around good guy. His desk at work was right in front of mine. Every time I look over my mon­i­tor I will miss him.

He went to UT back in the 60’s and got shot at by Charles Whit­man. After stay­ing in school as long as he pos­si­bly could, he got drafted into the Army and became an APC dri­ver. He saw com­bat and was wounded when his APC drove over a Viet­cong mine. It was a mil­lion dol­lar wound and he got to come back to the states.

He bummed around and started drum­ming for var­i­ous jazz musi­cians, going on the road with them and mak­ing music his life. He enjoyed it, but he longed for some­thing more seden­tary. He even­tu­ally went back to school, learned pro­gram­ming, and started work­ing with com­put­ers. He worked here and there for var­i­ous com­pa­nies pro­gram­ming in the 80’s, fix­ing things here, mak­ing things bet­ter there.

Even­tu­ally he and I started work­ing together. He was friendly, affa­ble, and liked to tell jokes. He and I talked a lot about his time at UT and the Army. He was quiet and con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers and never failed to make you feel wel­come around him. Some­times he would bore me to tears, telling me about some piece of pro­gram­ming he’d writ­ten that he was proud of, and how it still needed tweak­ing, but that was com­ing, and then later he’d tell me more, and man, it was dull, but he was proud of what he did, which is not some­thing a lot of peo­ple can say with what they create.

I had planned to go see him tomor­row. I had hoped he would hang on, and I didn’t make it. He wasn’t con­science, and he wouldn’t have known I was there, but I feel guilty and self­ish. He was there, lay­ing there, and now he’s not.

He’s been dead about 2 hours now. My coworker talked to him about God once, and from what he heard Bob’s in pretty good hands right now. I hope he is.

Here’s his obit -

L’ROY, ROBERT F. Age 62, of Allen, Texas, passed away June 2, 2006, in Dal­las, Texas. He was born April 22, 1944, in Carthage, Mis­souri, to Robert E. and Alice (Hen­son) L’Roy. He served in the U.S. Army dur­ing the Viet­nam Con­flict and was a Pur­ple Heart recip­i­ent. He was very active in the Dal­las jazz music scene as a bassist, before receiv­ing a Master’s of Com­puter Sci­ence Degree from East Texas State Uni­ver­sity Com­merce. Mr. L’Roy last worked for SBC as a com­puter ana­lyst in Irv­ing. He is sur­vived by many aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. His par­ents pre­ceded him in death. Vis­i­ta­tion with the fam­ily will be from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M., Wednes­day, June 7, 2006, at Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home. A pri­vate inter­ment will be at Ridgeview Memo­r­ial Park. To con­vey con­do­lences or to sign an online reg­istry, please visit:, www.tjmfuneral.com Tur­ren­tine Jack­son Mor­row Ridgeview Memo­r­ial Park Exit 38 N Cen­tral Expwy (972) 542‑2601 turrentinejacksonmorrow.com

OB6 Obit­u­ar­ies, Notices

Pub­lished in the Dal­las Morn­ing News on 6/6/2006.

Good­bye, Yeti Bob. I’ll see you someday.