My Honorary Son ... Bob

We never forget our FIRST.  My first in this case was my very first email friend.  His name is Bob Pfister, of Tucson, Arizona.  I met him through the Christian Special Interest Group with AzTeC, Arizona's finest FreeNet.

I remember that day in May, 1996 very well. I had only been registered with AzTeC Computing, a freenet in Arizona for about 4 days. I was very nervous about posting to a real discussion group and was afraid nobody would like my submission, much less reply to it.

Bob is the gentleman who posted a reply to my first article.

I very easily remembered his user id because he used a popular verse in the Bible as his id, jhn316, which stood for ... John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

I was so excited that someone actually replied to my post that I wrote him an e-thank-you note. Our relationship grew from there.

As a new user, I knew absolutely nothing about the internet and the World Wide Web, and I knew SOMEthing about Bob, I figured he would have all the answers I needed.

I proceeded to bombard him with every little question I had about the internet.  We sent several emails back and forth one day when I couldn't find my way around the Web on our text based browser.

I knew I was truly on his mind when he wrote back and told me he was thinking about my Web problem while he was walking his dog.

Now, I don't know exactly what happened while walking his dog that reminded him of me ... but he wrote back and told me to use some particular command in order to get a URL going for me.  I was so thrilled that his instructions helped me.  I decided then and there that we were gonna be friends for life, at least as far as I was concerned!

Since my education on the internet, Bob and I have come a long way.

I looked at Bob as not only a faithful e-pal, but also as a Christian mentor to me.  His knowledge of the Word of God was far superior to mine.  I admired his insight and his wit when emailing back to me.

Mostly though, his knowledge always got me to thinking.

I pictured Bob as a kindly preacher or in the ministry in some way. I definitely pictured him as far older than I, because of his mature walk with God.

I recall I once had trouble finding a verse in the Bible, and I had exhausted my exhaustive concordance looking for it. In desperation, I wrote to Bob.  In minutes he responded to my request with the proper verse.

I had the good pleasure to meet him in person at an AzTeC user's meeting in Tucson, Arizona.  Prior to the meeting, I sent him an email description of me, telling him approximately how old I was and mentioned what I would be wearing so he could spot me in a crowd.

Naturally he responded back right away with his description: "I'm 26, limp, have a goatee, wear a blue baseball cap and drive a 67 VW bus with no spare tire."

What?????  I was depressed BIG time!  Here is this man who has a tremendous knowledge of God's Word, has ministered to me in such a big way, and he's young enough to be my son!   So I wrote him back to that effect ... to which he replied, "Hi Mom!".

We emailed back and forth a few times that night. Each time, he added a little something new to his description, such as an ear ring, or long hair, etc.

We met the next day at the meeting place.

A pleasant looking middle-aged gentleman approached me at the meeting and asked if I was Kathee to which I answered yes.

He said, "Hi, I'm Bob!"

I replied, "Well, if you are Bob ... there's NO way you're any 26!"

We both laughed, and Bob said he couldn't believe that I bought his description of himself, and said he just couldn't help but further add to his prepostorous descriptions, since I was so gullible!

Bob brought me a CARE package with a variety of Christian tracts as a "good to meet you" gift.

Since then, whenever Bob writes me, it's always, "Hi Mom" and I always reply right away with a "Hi Son, glad to hear from you".

Bob, gotta love him, he even nominated me for the WWW.MomOfTheYear/VoteNow/ "Mom of the Year" award, but he suggested that I not go try to vote for myself as I might get a little frustrated finding the URL. Said something about heavy traffic. Hmmmm, what do I know?!?! Isn't he just so thoughtful and considerate?!!!!  That's my son! That's ... Bob!

We've come along way since that first day in May '96 when he made the mistake of replying to my emails.

Bob's hompage, The Tough Guys, won Websurfer's Home Page of the Week award for the week of July 14-20,1996. Just because that was a few years ago, I'm sure he has won countless other awards for his site. It is a terrific ministry he has for the community.

Please honor my honorary son Bob with a visit to his home page, The Tough Guys