Bob Thelen
The Trailer Park
As my first year at college wound to a close, there was no way I was going to return home to live after experiencing the sweet smell of independence.
So, with only a few days left in the year before the dorm closed and kicked us all out, I came across a friend of a friend who knew someone who's dad bought a mobile home for his son to live in after school was out.
A couple phone calls later, and I was all lined up to move into the shady single wide with 2 roommates I'd never met before.
I forgot the one guy's name - the one who's dad owned (or maybe rented?) the trailer for him, but the other dude's name was Bob Thelen.
And like a scene straight out of Animal House, at our first meeting he asked me my name, and then dubbed me "Vitch". As he said, "Short for Nason-o-vitch."
Motorcycles & Phone Lines
Someplace along the line, I bought this little Yamaha motorcycle - I think it was something like a 360cc (?) And of course that had everything to do with the fact that my folks had strickly forbidden me from ever owning a motorcycle (remember that "sweet smell of independence" I was talking about earlier).
Bob and I spent a lot of time tooling around St Cloud on that thing. We drove on roads, and sidewalks and through fields a time or two. It was an exhilarating time to be alive, I'll say that.
Next Year
We stayed in touch and continued our adventures all through my school year, and in 1978, at the end of my 2nd year, we got an apartment together as we both embarked on our newly found careers.
Sauk Rapids
In 1979, I bough a dilapidated old house and began fixing it up. And Bob was there from day one.
From the massive initial clean up of all the trash left behind to the beginning stages of demolition and reconstruction.
Losing Track
Again, just like with my friend John, Bob and I mostly lost track of each other after I went on the road with the seismograph company in early 1980. We'd stop in and say "hey" everytime we came home to visit, but after a while, those visits became few and far between.
And the years quickly turned into decades.
The Reunion
Then in May of 2024, approaching 50 years since first meeting in that single wide trailer in St Cloud, MN, we reconnected over dinner, and the next day, took a walk-about (as Bob called it), just to catch up. And it was glorious.
A lot had transpired--for both of us--in those in between years, but the ability to settle back in to the