School Story:
Bob grew up in that central part of Sea Cliff that was a rich and thick mix of houses and people and that special category of people called kids. The place had a house, activities and peers for everyone. Across the street from Bob were his classmates Kay and Ginny Parks. At the end of the block lay Central Park, a hub of impromptu play, and across from it the Youth Center for teenagers. Boy Scout Troop 43 headed by the dynamic and well organized Ed Bolitho enrolled Bob and held its meetings at the Youth Center and its outside games in the park. In high school Bob would play hooky with Ginny Parks and John Maloney. The bluff by Tilley’s boathouse, the “18 Trails” and its rope swing hung from the high branch of a big red oak was a favorite hideout. Pete Merkel was another comrade. He and Pete once scavenged a bumper for the ’34 Ford owned by Pete’s older brother who had left home, and they carried it across the North Shore Country Club to Glenwood Landing for installation.
Bob’s father was one of Sea Cliff’s craftsmen. He built the wooden bodies that were popular for the new family car of the middle and upper middle class—the station wagon. On Saturdays he would often take Bob to the beach to dig bait worms near the pumping station then out on the water to fish. On slow days Bob would complain of boredom with no fish biting. He says it took some growing up before, “I realized Dad was out there to relax.”
After graduation Bob went into the Air Force to learn electronics. He trained at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, came home to marry his high school steady, Bette Gildersleeve, then had duty stations in South Dakota with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) that stood ready to retaliate against any Soviet invasion. Bob installed radios in B-14 bombers.
Bob and Bette’s son Bill was born in 1960. Bette’s father worked in the Sea Cliff post office, and after the Air Force when they returned to Sea Cliff, Bob began delivering mail. Since that job, “kind of bored the heck out of me,” he began talking to an Air Force recruiter and signed up for another four years knowing he would get advanced electronics training. After stints in Alaska and Texas, he finished his service in at McDill AFB near Tampa, Florida.
When he came out he went into the relatively new industry of cable television, beginning as an installer and rising to plant manager in his fifteen years with the company. While living in Florida he and Bette divorced in ’79 and Bob remarried, this time to Connie May Chapman, a colleague in his plant who had two children. His company, Stork Cable TV transferred him to New Jersey and after a year to Richmond, Virginia. When the company laid him off in the ’82 recession, he and Connie formed their own company—Egan May Originals—to make custom furniture. (Bob’s middle name is Egan.) They began by working on restoration and repair for an antique shop whose owner was a recent widow. When she decided to close the shop a few weeks later, Bob and May took it over. “Things just took off from there,” he says. They eventually moved the company to their own home and workshop. On twelve wooded acres near Richmond they built the log house they had always wanted to retire in. Connie, who managed much of the business detail, died of Leukemia in 2006.
In 2007 Bob married his present wife Jean, a friend from church. Finding themselves with two homes, they sold both and they are now refurbishing a recently purchased house. Bob stays very active in his Southern Baptist church, and in February 2009 Bob again acquired a business license and has returned to making furniture and general woodworking, back to his father’s profession.
Bob Platt
12331 Natural Bark Dr.
Chesterfield, VA 23832
