Bob Biederman

Posted on: Jan 13, 2025 at 1:31 PM

Happy Birthday. I started intending that wish for Bob Biederman. Then I thought better of it. It works for Bob on January 14, 2025, when he turns 79. The more I thought about it, the more it dawned on me that for most of the class of NHS 1964, a Happy Birthday wish in 2025 would be in order. For all of you, Happy Birthday!

Many of you know the story about Bob and me—there really wasn't a story until we met on this website, I think, about ten years ago. A lot has happened in the passing years—some good things, some not so much, but we supported each other.

Bob and I haven't spent any physical time together during the last ten years except for the time we spent with Dave Bliss in San Diego. (As a passing note, Dave Bliss's birthday is on January 22.) Yet even though Bob and I communicate almost solely via email, we have grown closer together. Like many of us, we have had some thoughts and ideas that have not materialized. We regret that a few of those ideas didn't work out.

Hopefully, there are people in our lives who have stood by us when we need them most. Bob Biederman has been my leaning post. I have been blessed with people who have come into my life at just the right time, bringing with them exactly what I needed. Bob Biederman is one of those people.

A Jewish Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, titles one of his voluminous writings (well worth your time to read any of his writings), "Count your blessings and begin to change your life." Bob has been a blessing to me and has been a key contributor to many of the changes in my life over the passing years. We have challenged each other on many fronts, but two stand out—religion and politics. Shocked? Me too. We may not have always agreed, but it did not diminish our respect for each other or our friendship. To many of you who knew Bob, myself, or both of us, could you see that coming? Not me.

Bob, I wish you a happy birthday, but perhaps more importantly, I want our classmates to know how much our friendship has meant to me. You have put the friend back into friendship. It has taken fifty-plus years of fundamental ignorance of each other to come to a point today where I can call you my friend, my best friend. Bob, if I had to describe our relationship - "Iron sharpens Iron." Thanks for those 79 years that got you here, but be forewarned, I am not sure I could do another 79 years being friends with a Bigelow graduate!

Posted on: May 29, 2023 at 5:14 PM

Here's to Roger Watson:
Memorial Day is a special one for our friend Roger Watson. It feels good to know somebody who has so embraced the identity of his service in the Marine Corp. It’s a central part of who he is. The good part. Another good part is the idea that he really loves to read the ideas of Thomas Sowell. The guy who lives in between those two poles is a large handful of a friend worth working at.
Thanks for your sacrifice, Roger, on this special day.
And thanks to whomever it was that created this NNHS web page that has brought so many people together who might never have thought the good thoughts they do from all the warmth that continues to pop up here.

It seems that no volume of words is going to capture what Dave Bliss meant to you or Roger, Alan or any of us. He was not just a person of Faith, but the kind of person that was so successful because he mirrored yourself back at you in the kindest most complimentary way. He was different for each of us with that through-line of his love for Jesus and what that meant to him. He found that kind of love in most everybody he met. Or he at least tried.
I did enjoy that brief few hour visit with him in San Diego because we were able, through his efforts to find that commonality. He had to do a bit of excavating, but he was not a lazy man at all.
Alan used the phrase "doing God's work". I've heard that phrase before. But first you have to find Him and the name is not always Jesus, and sometimes-most times- there is no name at all. But thoughts of Dave Bliss will do nicely without the need for a label. And I do doubt he is "resting" anywhere he might be. He was just tireless.

Posted on: Jan 14, 2023 at 4:33 AM

Posted on: Jan 14, 2022 at 4:33 AM

Taking a moment to remember and thank you for your sacrifice on this day. You're a wonderful standard-bearer for all the veterans we need to remember and honor.

Posted on: Mar 15, 2021 at 2:01 PM

For Roger's birthday- Over the past few years I've gotten to know Roger Watson fairly well. He's a giving and generous person eager to share. I found the following words, written by a Yorkshireman named David Whyte. They are not mine, but the ideas are all about Roger:
"Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness.
Friendship not only helps us to see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn."
There are a few more stanzas worth reading, but these first few lines are a good reflection of Roger