Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson

      Much has been made over the years of Bob ‘the Viking’ Hawkinson, as well as of his singular diplomatic efforts to restore the reputation of America in the eyes of carefully selected East Europeans.    I want to offer some less well-known vignettes of Bob’s exploits in the Mediterranean, and specifically of Bob the ‘method traveler.’    You may not be familiar with this concept, I wasn’t either until Dame Fortune (or Catherine Collins, same thing really) assigned me as Bob’s room-mate for the duration of the justly famous Willamette faculty development study-trip across Greece, ably organized by Catherine and Jeanne Clark and smoothed through its trying moments by a Hellenic tact that only Stasinos Stavrianeas could bring to situations.  
      ‘Method travelling’ is related to ‘going native’ except that one immerses in the mythopoetic legacy of the local.   In the case of Greece, this meant ‘going heroic.’    I trace my own belated comprehension of the real meaning of ‘heroism’ -   some things one cannot learn from books -  to that trip and to Bob.    It dawned on me slowly, as we journeyed about together, that Bob was channeling Heracles and the generations of ancient Greek heroes raised on his example.
      
      As a result of the careful planning of our itinerary, we visited many astonishing monumental and archaelogical sites, arriving usually close to mid-day for best viewing under full sun.    At every battle-field we visited, while the rest of us were content merely to seek shade and scan our surroundings, Bob Hawkinson, moved by the pathos of waves of fallen heroic warriors, would emulate them and fall, ideally on his knees and with arms flailing.    If, in the process of plummeting, a water bottle or camera could be cast against rocks, and fortunately there were lots of rocks where Bob elected to fall, all the better.  
      At the battle-fields of greater gravitas, Bob fell more heavily, or twice, or preceded by a running trip.    At Thermopylae, he fell repeatedly, sacrificing himself bravely for the sake of his one-man historical re-enactment.    It was as if he was willing his body to become, as Reconciliation was in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, an embodied site upon which the Athenians and Spartans could work out their differences and have their respective way.   One senses that after Bob’s visits countless ghosts could finally depart honored and contented.
      Since we are no longer sure where all ancient battles occurred but we know that the ancients warriored about a lot, at some historical sites Bob fell just in case, spontaneously and silently  yet always heroically.    He fell like that at the grave-yard of ancient Athens, the Kerameikos, amid the abundant pottery shards, because it was the right thing to do.
      
      At some point all of us arrived individually at the unspoken realization that Bob was participating in our trip not primarily to learn about the ancient Greeks, as the rest of us were selfishly, but much more profoundly and self-effacingly as a pilgrim to complete the Twelve Labors of Heracles.    It would take too much space to recount the remarkable manner in which Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson ‘nailed’ each of them, as the kids say these days.    I can only briefly marvel at 2 or 3 of the labors, and trust that a better chronicler will complete the task in the future.










      The original Heracles' Ninth Labor was to obtain Hippolyta's girdle, the magical belt of the Amazon Queen.   Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson scoured the market-stalls of the Plaka in Athens for it for hours but to no avail.   Plenty of Olympiakos soccer vests but no Hippolyta's girdle.    None of the women that Bob approached and asked to show him Hippolyta's girdle proved helpful either.  In fact they retreated in embarrassment.     It is sad, Bob noted later, when a society loses familiarity with its own traditional knowledge.    He had to settle instead, demonstrating Aristotelian magnanimity, for spending great sums on a trove of authentic plastic replicas of ancient artifacts and objet d’art.  
      On one such shopping expedition, Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson undertook to purchase an authentic, hand-unwrapped, replica of a trireme, the ancient Greek warship, crafted from the primeval metal known to metallurgists as lead.    Its high price was proof of its authenticity, Bob explained later, but since it was big and heavy, the ship had to be shipped.    Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson is still waiting for that ship to come in.  
      
      


If Athena could be birthed through Zeus’ skull and Dionysus carried to term in his thigh, perhaps the modern miracle of an Athenian market-vendor delivering on goods already paid for may yet occur.    Until recently, Bob could be seen each day at his UC third floor point of vantage scrutinizing the cargo of the Fed-Ex delivery truck for a trireme-shaped package. 






      
      
      Speaking of magnanimity, it was Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson who, having taken a shine to the ascetic rigor of all things Spartan, cautioned the rest of us against our pedantry in mocking the newly-constructed Library of Sparta, apparently financed by retired Greek-Americans, to house the collected literary and poetic works of Sparta, namely, Milo of Kroton’s Wrestling Tips, and the Telephone Directory for the Peloponnesus, both well-thumbed after all.
      
      
      
      
      The Fifth of the Twelve Labors of Heracles was to clean the Augean stables in a single day.    Two-thirds of the way through our trip, also in Sparta as it happens, Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson undertook to wash all of his clothes at once.    He didn’t patronize the local Laundromat.   ‘This is Sparta!’ he growled, and besides, ‘did the real Heracles carry a power-washer to the Augean stables?’    Who knew that Sparta would even have a working  Laundromat? thought I.    No, Bob washed everything in our hotel-room sink.    And when I say ‘everything’ I mean not only his many yellowed though (perhaps) once fetching chiton-style undergarments, but all of his khaki outerwear, yards and yards of khaki.    All of which then had to be dried overnight because we were due to take flight to our next destination on the morrow.    So much khaki, so little time.    The great damp heroic costumery was hung from a makeshift line and draped over furniture throughout our room as well as on the balcony.    Our room came to bear an uncanny resemblance to the aftermath of the carnage on the battlefields of Plataea, or at least it would have been uncanny if blood were khaki-colored.   The next morning, none of Bob’s clothes were dry.    Indeed, if anything, they had sucked humidity out of the obliging night air, and become wetter and heavier.    Again what to do?    WWHD?   What would Heracles do?    Plastic Bags!    The Greeks surely knew how to make monuments so well that millennia later every civilization has ruin-envy but, truth be told, even their finest quality garbage bags were not up to this task.  They disgorged themselves, like upset Stymphalian birds (Heracles’ Sixth Labor) in the hotel lobby, in the airport lounge, and on the tarmac.
      






      I drank a lot at night to be able to drown out Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson’s nocturnal meditative roaring (referred to in lesser men as ‘snoring’).     One particular night, as I lay waiting to be carried to the Land of Nod by Soporific the Boatman, I heard an anguished yell, a human voice and yet distorted as if it was echoing out of Hades itself.    I rushed to the bathroom door and flung it open – what I saw provokes chills even today just recalling it.    Would that I could scratch it from my mind’s eye.    The Second Labor of Heracles was to slay the Lernaean Hydra.    The lair of the Hydra was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid.    Here, before my eyes, since unfortunately there was no shower curtain, was Bob in all of his au naturel fulsomeness, sitting squarely in the bathtub in two inches of soapy water, engaged in bare-handed wrestling combat with a giant metallic snake.    Less multi-cephalic than the nine-headed Hydra; only one head actually but surely more cunning.    It was writhing demonically, hissing ferociously, and spitting what I initially took to be venom but turned out to be water.   Greek water.
      The evidence of battle was everywhere: jagged slashes of water dripped from the mirror, walls, and ceiling, and three inches of water stood on the bathroom floor.    How to help?    I tried to be Iolaus to Bob’s Heracles, but I didn’t have a burning torch handy.    It didn’t occur to either of us to just turn off the tap; although at least I had been drinking.    Instead, we wrestled jointly with, and eventually subdued, the demon hydro.
      
      




      Towards the end of our journey, on the island of Mykonos, renown for its white-washed walls and blue roofs, hedonism and raving, some of us watched in awe and admiration as Bob stretched his otherwise lithe Nordic frame to consume a noon-time feast: vast bowls of Htapothi Vrasto (Boiled Octopus) were disarmed, and Gharithes Vrastes (Boiled Shrimp) were skewered.   Tiropitakia (Cheese Pastries) were chased with Piperies Psites (Grilled Bell Peppers), and both washed down with Fava Skordalia (Yellow Split Peas with Garlic).   There followed a course of Dolmathakia Me Rizi (Stuffed Grapevine Leaves) so large that the hills around Thessaloniki are still in ecological recovery, and whenever possible, on everything a thick layer of Maidanosalata Piroski (Parsley Spread).   Aggressively eating vast quantities in one sitting wasn’t actually one of the Twelve Labors although Heracles did dine with Pholus the Centaur in his cave on the way to the Fourth Labor, slaying the Erymanthian Boar, so … close enough.    Besides, by then, none of us wanted to cramp the style of a hero on a roll, and he was paying, so we joined in instead.


      To this day, whenever I hear the word ‘hero,’ I think of Bob ‘Heracles’ Hawkinson, kissed gently by the sun to a glowing octopus-red hue, in shorts that displayed battered knees, laden with bulging and torn plastic bags, damp khaki flapping, not defeated, never defeated, just delayed a bit by airport security. 
      
      With regards, 
      Sammy Basu