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| Jim Fitzgerald and Bob Brynildson |
I have known Bob for nearly forty years. That is a long time to share a friendship, and I find it difficult to put into words what that friendship has meant to me. Perhaps the best way to try is to tell you how it began.
I knew of Bob before I met him in person. We were both at a Gen Con sometime in the late 1980s, where a naval miniatures game was being played. Those of you who knew Bob will appreciate the irony of this: Bob hated naval gaming and had apparently been dragged into the game kicking and screaming. Well, probably not screaming, but he certainly wasn’t there by choice.
At the time, I wasn’t a historical gamer. My interests were mostly fantasy and role-playing games, with a little BattleTech thrown in. But I had a hole in my convention schedule, and there was this very cool-looking ship game taking place. So I joined in.
Being the newcomer, I was assigned the biggest, baddest ship on the floor: the Japanese battleship Musashi during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Bob was commanding an American ship. And, as Bob so often did, he took the new guy under his wing. He made me feel welcome and part of the group. That meant something to me, particularly because we were both from Minnesota and had that little bit of common ground in a room full of strangers.
The game itself provided a memorable moment.
There was an annoying player on the American side commanding a Brooklyn-class cruiser. I will leave it to history to decide whether he was also a cheater, but I had my suspicions.
About halfway through the game, I noticed that both his ship and mine occupied precise corners of the floor tiles. A little geometry, courtesy of the Pythagorean theorem, established that we were exactly 105 inches apart. I had a calculator in my pocket, so I worked out the distance and called for my main guns to fire for effect.
Everyone kept asking whether I was sure that was what I wanted to do.
I kept saying yes.
They brought out the tape measure and measured. Sure enough, 105 inches. The Brooklyn was right where it was supposed to be when my shells arrived, and afterward there was a very large hole in the water where the cruiser had been.
The player insisted that the result couldn’t possibly be right and had the distance measured repeatedly. The measurements never changed.
Bob eventually came over and asked me how I had worked it out. I explained the geometry, the corners of the tiles, and the calculator in my pocket. He was impressed enough that he invited me to join another game he was running later in the convention.
That game was on the Eastern Front of World War II, using the Europa board game system.
And that was how it began.
A chance encounter, a battleship, a little geometry, and a fellow Minnesotan who made a newcomer feel welcome. I had no idea that day that I was beginning a friendship that would last nearly forty years.
There are a thousand little things that make up a friendship of that length. Some are important moments, others are the little rituals and running jokes that become part of the fabric of our gaming lives.
Bob, as many of you know, was one of the owners of Source Comics and Games. And Bob had a favorite reminder for those of us who inevitably showed up for a game only to discover that we’d left our dice at home.
He sold dice.
It didn’t matter how many times you had forgotten them, or how sheepishly you admitted it. Bob was always there to remind you that he sold dice. It became one of those familiar bits of Bob humor that you could count on, and I suspect many of us will hear his voice the next time someone turns up at a game without a set.
I will miss that. I will miss Bob.
Forty years of friendship is a gift, and I am grateful for the time we had. I wish there had been more of it.
When visitation and funeral arrangements have been announced, I will pass that information along.
Until then, please keep Bob’s family in your thoughts.
Bob will be missed.
Jeff
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