Wednesday, November 17, 2004
My favorite memory of Ed Roberti:
One summer, bees decided to build a hive under the overhanging garage roof of our old house at 27 Mali Dr. It got bigger and bigger as the summer went on, to the point where it was the size of a watermelon. Something had to be done.
One evening, while we kids were playing, a handful of the "village elders" were hanging out in the of the Wilson/Roberti driveways. Talk eventually turned to the subject of "the bees". While the wives looked on froma safe distance, the husbands gathered under our basketball hoop, each offering his opinion about how to solve the problem. Each solution seemed flawed somehow and no one could agree on a plan of action. After a while, someone asked, "Where the hell is Eddie?" No one had noticed him slip away and tiptoe into his garage.
Suddenly, he reappeared. He was wearing a trenchcoat and a huge, foam ten-gallon cowboy hat. In his right hand, he held a blowtorch. And he was making a "bee-line", so to speak, for the hive.
"Gimme a ladder and gimme a lighter!" he yelled. My Dad, seeing what was about to happen, sprinted around to the side of the house that faced the Amico's - where the garden hose was kept. SOmeone got a step ladder from our garage and, serenaded by equal choruses of support, doubt, and fear for the future of the Wilson home, up Eddie climbed.
Well, beehives are essentially made up of paper, and when that torch hit the hive, it went up like a pile of...well, paper. Huge ball of flame. Flaming bees swirling blindly all over the place. We kids screaming gleefully all over the yard. Wives yelling. Husbands laughing their asses off. My Dad working the hose like a sharpshooter. The hive finally fell and someone got it into a plastic bag or something.
And in the midst of it all, there was Cowboy Eddie with his hat, boots and trenchcoat, laughing harder than anybody. Crazy as he was, you had to love him. How many otherwise boring neighborhood nights were made memorable thanks to Eddie ROberti?
He claimed he had made many rocket rides into space. Now he has made his final trip to the heavens - let's hope there is a big, juicy moonburger waiting for him.</b></font><br><br>
