I wish that Bob Milek were still alive -- you'd love the little guy.I'll mourn his early death until I die.
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<br>Bob, like Elmer, didn't let being short bother him. The last time I saw him (at a SHOT Show), he was looking at an exhibitor's quilted two-rifle case. It was just a tad over four feet long and a few inches over a foot wide. Bob had it laid open, on the exhibitor's counter as I walked up.
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<br>"What's that?" I asked. "A Bob Milek sleeping bag?"
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<br>Bob laughed. Just then, Dave Hetzler (Guns & Ammo) walked by.
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<br>"Did you hear what Ken said?" Bob asked. Dave said he hadn't, so Bob repeated my remark and laughed with delight. His laugh was always close to the surface, and he enjoyed any opportunity to let it loose. Whenever we were together, he loved to recall the time, as he said it, when he "found an editor useful."
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<br>On the 1978 Grand National mixed-bag hunt, Bob and I were members of Bill Jordan's team. Bob had never hunted gray squirrels before. I had. I spotted one looking at us from inside the stub of a hollow limb. Bob shot it, thinking it'd kick forward and tumble out. Instead, the squirrel just died there with its head hanging out the end of the limb stub.
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<br>The lowest hand-hold on that big tree was pretty high up. I leaned my gun against another tree, leaned my back against the squirrel's tree, and laced my fingers together to give Bob a boost. He still couldn't reach anything he could grasp to begin climbing.
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<br>"Stand on my shoulders," I said. He did -- but still couldn't reach high enough.
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<br>"Stand on my head," I said. Bob reminded me that his boots had Vibram "waffle-stomper" soles. "Go ahead," I said. "Stand on my head. Just don't DANCE on my ol' bald noggin."
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<br>Bob stood on my head, reached something he could grab, pulled himself up, and climbed up high enough to retrieve his squirrel. But first, he asked our partner Hal Swiggett to take a photo of us, with Bob standing on my head.
