A couple weeks ago, Bob Nolan and I were standing around in my backyard talking. Actually, I was doing the talking; Bob was repairing a crack in a rowboat made of polyethylene plastic with a heat gun. I was trying to stay out of his way.
Bob came to Mississippi from Ohio in the early 80s to build plastic prototypes for Blazon Flexible Flyer in West Point. Back in Cleveland, Bob and his brother employed 15 people restoring and painting hot rods. Among their clients were the sons of Blazon’s owner, who recognized Bob as a craftsman with a good work ethic and an artist’s vision.
Bob sculpted molds for rocking horses and designed plastic playground equipment and children’s furniture in a studio the company added on to his Sherwood Forest home. At the time, I was working as a commercial photographer in offices above the Princess Theater, and I photographed the company’s sleds, gym sets and Bob’s prototypes.
For models we used our children and the children of friends. We would bundle the kids in jackets, scarves and knit caps and pose them holding a sled in front of seamless paper in one of those upstairs rooms. The pictures ended up on boxes in Toys-R-Us and other big box stores.
The toy company closed its West Point operations in the ’90s. Bob has stayed around and put his talents to other uses. He’s remodeled apartments in the old Ruth’s building for Bill Strauss, designed the Sweet Shop adjacent to Cafe on Main for Peggy Strauss, painted murals in skating rinks across the Southeast (including Skate Zone on Lehmberg Road) for Dale Taylor, refurbished hot rods for Killer Thompson and, years ago, painted the eagles on the walls of the gym at Victory Christian Academy.
Bob, 68, is a low-key guy, white haired with a flat Midwestern accent. In February, he went back to Cleveland to a hot rod show held in a building where army tanks were once manufactured. He was surprised by the reception he received from hot rod aficionados; they treated him as one of the revered ancients, he said. When Jay Leno showed up, event organizers asked Bob to show him around.
Stuff like that happens to Bob. Like the time he was at Toy Fair in New York City — a trade show for toy manufacturers — and he was wandering around with time on his hands.
An elderly lady sitting in a folding chair stopped Bob. They chatted a while. Later a friend asked if he knew who he had been talking with. Turns out the woman was Madame Alexander, whose dolls were a must-have item for little girls for most of the 20th century.
Another time he got on the elevator in the Toy Center only to come face to face with Donald Trump.
Milton Bradley in 1989 released “Trump, the Game,” a Monopoly-like board game, and Trump was headed upstairs for a publicity appearance.
“He goes, ‘how are you doing,’ and held out his hand,” Bob said.
“It’s a great day to be in New York,” Trump said.
“This is my second trip to New York,” Bob said.
“It’s the greatest place in the world to hang out,” Trump replied.
Though the encounter was brief, the future presidential candidate made a favorable impression.
“I just thought he was a regular guy you could hang out with,” Bob said.
After hearing the story, I asked the obvious question. Turns out Bob’s wife, Sue, had already asked him the same question.
“My wife said, ‘I suppose you are going to vote based on your elevator experience with Donald Trump.”
“Well, are you?” I asked.
Birney Imes is the publisher of The Dispatch. Email him at [email protected].
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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