I think Bob is happiest when he’s running. This past summer, he suffered plantar fasciitis, a painful long-term foot injury that prevented him from running. So to work up a sweat and burn off energy, he cycled daily twenty-one miles to Lincoln Park and back home.

Two of Bob’s most memorable running experiences involved saving lives. The first incident happened in the Ferry Woods not far from our home, on a hot summer afternoon, Tuesday, August 29, 1995. I was cycling alongside Bob when we came upon a young teenage boy sitting slumped off a dirt trail, with a man standing over him. Bob asked if they were okay, and the man said, “Yeah, we’re all right. He just fell off his bike.”

But something seemed odd. The boy had dirt all over him and wasn’t talking, so Bob asked again if they were okay.

In a quiet voice, the kid said, “Please, don’t go! He’s trying to kill me!” The kid’s shirt was off, and he had footprints on the skin of his chest from being repeatedly stomped on. Apparently, the man was lying in wait to rape a girl, and when the long-haired teenager came sailing by on his bike, he made the wrong grab. Then, realizing that his victim was a boy, he stomped on him and was in the process of dragging him to the Thoroughfare Canal to drown him.

Bob helped the young boy up, then grabbed the man, whose ankle was sprained or broken during the incident, and hauled him out of the woods. I walked ahead with the boy to the nearest house and called an ambulance and the police. Bob later testified at the Thirty-third District Court, along with SGT Joe Porcarelli of the Grosse Ile Police. The boy's attacker, 28-year-old Brett Wilson Sowers, was charged with assault with intent to commit murder but was found guilty of felonious assault. (He went to prison and died nineteen years later, on Wednesday, August 12, 2015.)

The other incident took place in Killeen, Texas, in 2005, when Bob and I were at an Army Rangers reunion. Bob had just been down with heat exhaustion for two days. After feeling nauseated for the entire flight, he had immediately gone on a long run as soon as we arrived in the humid ninety-six-degree heat. By Friday, June 24, he was feeling better, so he got out of bed and took off, believing, as always, that a run is good for what ails you. About an hour later, he was cutting through a parking lot when he heard faint cries. “Please help! Please help!” Stopping, he looked inside a car and saw an elderly woman lying on the front seat. She was barely conscious and fumbling weakly with the latch, trying to open the door. Bob couldn’t open any of the doors. He didn’t know whether she was suffering from heat exhaustion or something else—only that if she wasn’t rescued soon, she would be dead. Fortunately, cell phones were common by then, and he called the police, who got the woman out.

Bob’s worst running memory happened on Grosse Ile, when one of his young dogs, Sergeant, climbed over our backyard fence and caught up to Bob, who was running with his other dog, Ranger, on Parke Lane. Before Bob could do anything, Sergeant darted across the street and was hit by a car. Sergeant died in Bob’s arms.