To the Editor:
Every town has its characters, and Old Forge is no exception.
Interestingly enough, they primarily tend to be the male of our species. Oh, I’m sure an occasional female rises to the level of a true character, but if you sat down with a few locals to name some, men would dominate the field.
A stop at the TOW Bar to scan the walls of photographs and drawings will confirm that we have (had) many. The stories of their antics have become legendary, rendering gasps and gut wrenching laughter.
This past week we lost one that I personally considered a local character. Bob Hollandt succumbed to complications from pneumonia after a few rounds with life threatening illness. He gave up a lung to cancer years ago. More recently, he disappeared from town for a period of time and came back weak and skinny recovering from heart surgery.
He was a tough bugger and seemed to be doing well. I say this because he was as grumbly as ever over the election process this past summer and fall. His opinion on gun control was as stalwart as ever: There shouldn’t be any.
Bob was a self-proclaimed bigot, chauvinist, racist, woman-hater, redneck—the list goes on. But amidst all those character-inducing qualities, he was also a Teddy Bear of a guy.
If you saw him at Sisters Bistro with one of his daughters, drinking red wine from a stem glass and behaving like a gentleman, you could almost forget his ability to pontificate loudly about any off-putting subject he could come up with!
Bob was not “politically correct.” He did not care for the Democrats. “Staunch Republican” is not a strong enough description of his political views.
He “flipped off” the TV every time Obama’s face appeared…and I don’t mean with the remote. Tony Harpers’ staff had him trained to use three fingers instead of one so as to not upset the family atmosphere of the establishment.
Bob loved to get people going everywhere he went. And he was everywhere! It seemed like no matter which place we would choose to wine and dine at, Bob was there too.
I told him recently that I was convinced he had been cloned! He was convinced that I never cooked!
It seemed there was a Bob Hollandt for every establishment that provided beer, food and sports on TV. I heard people kidding a while back about having a Hollandt-Free Day. The bar/restaurant of the day would have a placard for the window stating that Bob would NOT be there that day.
I’m going to miss Bob alot. I will miss his views on some very arguable subjects. I will miss his ability to say whatever he wanted without caring who heard it.
I will even miss his outward appearance. He dressed in lots of layers with suspenders and wool plaid, much like my own father in his later years. But that’s where the similarity ends. My Dad was a Democrat and voted for Obama from the nursing home by absentee ballot right before he died.
Now that I think about it, it may not have been the pneumonia that took Bob. I’m guessing he couldn’t live with four more years!
Good bye you old curmudgeon. I hope God’s ready for an argument.
Barbara Green, Old Forge
