Bobby was first noticed in January of 2024 sitting forlornly at the side of a road having been unceremoniously been pushed about by a bully of a snow plow
It was a cold, lonely duty he had been assigned - guarding a spot on the side of a busy street
He endured more snow, bone-chilling cold, and dampness
Any, and all, passersby ignored his plight as he was buried deeper in the snow
Then one day he was sure he was going to be rescued, the snow clearing gang arrived, surely they would take him and warm him up somewhere he could have a hot rum toddy
But no, he was carefully worked around and left in his misery. Although they did offer some solace - they gave him a No Parking sign in hopes that cars would stay far enough away from that he wouldn't be splashed with cold wet slush
He became aware that he was garnering some international attention and finally resigned himself to remaining on duty as those responsible seem to not care about him. He reported cold feet (i.e frozen in place) but the last few days of record winter warmth have revived him as he guards his spot. He was however perhaps becoming delirious as he could no longer remember why his spot needs guarding
He was however very surprised and immensely pleased to be honoured by the Tipua Community
A few days later, Bobby Bollard spent a lonely night facing an onslaught of 10-15cm of snow. After a drought of no snow for several weeks and a warm few days, winter dropped in again last night. Bobby indicated the snow, while not that thick, was offering some insulation for his frozen feet.
Bobby Bollard’s nephew was recently hired as a bodyguard. Bobby told me about a recent challenge his nephew experienced:
“The mosh pit tried to rush the stage, his nephew held them back with the assistance of the barriers, that suffered some damage, but the singer was unhurt.”
“The mosh pit tried to rush the stage, his nephew held them back with the assistance of the barriers, that suffered some damage, but the singer was unhurt.”
As much as Bobby’s feet were still frozen in place, he was surprised to hear about a frozen dinosaur downtown. Apparently it was a serendipitous find in a large block of ice that ice carvers had been chipping away at. They discovered the dinosaur inside. Bobby was proud to see 2 bollards standing guard over the frozen creature. He hoped one of them would go across the street to the coffee cafe and get a cup of hot chocolate for the dinosaur.
Bobby was quite jealous of some of his fellow workers who were being taken to the Washington DC area to assist in the traffic control during the upcoming Cherry Blossom festival. Apparently there is a shortage of bollards in the Washington area, so some Canadians were being called in. They were taken to Washington early so they could familiarize themselves with the city
Hopefully Marilou will be able to find these foreign workers and say hello to them.
A very sad story.
Bobby had not seen his older brother, Brandon, for a while and was worried. A police car happened to stop nearby and Bobby was able to attract the attention of a friendly police sergeant. The sergeant promised to be on the look out for the missing bollard.
A few days later the sergeant returned with a sad face. They found Brandon. He had drowned in a shallow creek a few kilometres away.
A funeral was held, but Bobby was not granted bereavement leave and could not attend.
Bobby was very distressed.
Bobby has some old school chums who work at the airport in Calgary, (Western Canada).
His best classmate, Bernie, and some of Bernie's co-workers, were proud to be standing guard over one of the last flights of Lynx Air. A low cost airline that ran out of investors after 2 years and will be ceasing operations in the next day or two.
Bobby could hear a loud racket coming from a nearby shopping mall. He wondered what was going on. Bobby saw a news story on it later that day. It seemed to him, based on the sign in the background, a question needed to be asked: “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
Bobby was quite upset that the four guard bollards seemed to have just stood off to each side and let the mayhem happen. He strongly believed they should have intervened .
Bobby was unhappy to learn about an apparent drunken brawl that had broken out amongst 8 bollards supposedly on duty in Montreal. He felt they should have known better.
Two were still looking a bit tipsy, while another two appeared to have been at the losing end of the brawl, but had not been taken to the bollard local hospital yet.
Booby knew only too well how the warm spell had quickly turned to freezing cold with night temperatures of -20°C (-4°F) plus a windchill. He hoped his distant cousins had not turned black with gangrene after having been frostbitten.
Bobby’s distant cousin Barney, is not known as the sharpest knife in the drawer. Barney saw this trailer and assumed it would be heading south for the winter so he hopped on for the ride to warmer climes.
Wrong Barney!!
Booby’s friend Bradley had a very important job. He was charged with holding up a sign to warn people that they might need cross-country skis or snowshoes to pass him. It was his job to make sure no one became bogged down and needed rescuing in the snow.
Bobby’s school mates who work at the airport were finished their shift and waiting to be taken back to the warm waiting room before being called back out on an overtime shift. There were two still on duty, once they were finished all 5 would head back to the waiting room.
Bobby gets very upset when people do this.
An adult and two young bollards had been purposely buried. Bobby felt that people should know better as bollards are put in place to warn people of dangerous situations, If the bollards are buried, how are people going to be protected?
Bobby has some acquaintances that he met over the internet. They seemed quite nice. They work in South Carolina.
They were sent to a high paying job at the local Ace Hardware store. They got all tied up in knots over the excitement of being paid so much to watch over a hole.
Bobby was pleased to learn that as snow piles have been receding, some of his lost friends have been found. He was happy to hear that there will be counselling and refurbishing available for them to deal with the trauma of being buried all winter, before being assigned new positions
At a truck yard not far from Bobby, one of the trucks looked a little worse for wear. Three of Booby’s friends, qualified as truck inspectors, were on their way to see if the truck was salvageable.
Bobby’s younger brother, Bert, works down by the bridge. He had been roughed up the night before in a squabble that turned ugly. Bent over with stomach pains, he still maintained his post under the bridge the next morning.
Bobby was glad to hear that four of his nephews were lining up to get ready to cross the street to rescue their father -in-law who last night, had fallen asleep in the snow under the trees (top right)
Bobby has noticed the younger bollards seem to avoid the dirty jobs, leaving them for the bigger, older guys. He told them they are not respecting their elders; they should be sharing the load of all jobs.
Mayhem at the airport!
Bobby was distressed to learn that one of his school chums had been drinking on the job and commandeered one of those movable luggage conveyor belt thingamajigs.
He had already run over two co-workers and was aiming for another who was firmly standing his ground.
Bobby hoped the drunken fool would fall off the seat and the mayhem would be over.
A few of Bobby’s friends got a drive about an hour south of town. They wanted to go to the St Lawrence River and hopefully see some snow geese, but it was too early for the geese to come back.
Unfortunately the pavement they were standing on gave way and one of them just about fell into the river.
They tied a rope between themselves and pulled the one in danger back up on to the pavement.
Fortunately all’s well that ends well
Bobby’s distant English cousin disappeared years ago, but this morning Prue Stopford spotted him in a garden centre car park in Cornwall. Soaked and disorientated, he doesn’t look good…
Bobby, when he heard the news, thanked Prue very much. He had been worried about his cousin.
After the scare of almost falling into the St Lawrence River, Bobby’s friends decided they would drop by to see some school mates who were guarding a pipeline that runs from a makeshift unloading platform on the river’s edge and into a storage tank on the far side of the road.Bobby’s friends were surprised it took so many to do the job, but they thought a good job was being done.
Bobby Bollard has friends in many cities. This is Conan Cone who lives and works in a small town about an hour’s drive from Bobby. (If Booby could drive he would like to visit with Conan)
Conan, and his friend Billy Barricade, were assigned to protect some wet paint markings on the road, an assignment they found quite boring. (As boring as watching paint dry they said.) They felt the painted words and symbols on the wall behind them were much more interesting than what they were doing.
Bobby has some tall nephews who had managed to come untied from their mother’s apron strings.
Once they dug themselves out of the snow, they were thinking of heading over to the local gym to try out for the basketball team.
They weren’t sure if they should bring along skinny Willy (back-left) or whether he needs to put on some weight before trying out for the team.
I decided to drop by and wish Bobby a Happy Easter but I discovered I was not the first to do so.
The Easter Bunny as well as Mrs Chicken and family had heard how lonely, and confused, Bobby was; so Mrs Chicken’s children decorated some eggs and the Easter Bunny brought a basket to carry them. Off they went to cheer up Bobby.
Bobby’s spirits seemed lifted and he was enjoying the company, so I thanked them, wished them all a Happy Easter, and returned home.
Bobby’s school chums at the airport are always ready to welcome an arriving plane and its passengers. Bud, in the foreground is ready to hop out with some chocks for the wheels when the plane is at the bridge. The two tall skinny guys are protecting the ground crew from going too close to the engine intakes.
Bobby hopes when they get off shift that they eat a good meal and try to get some weight on.
Bobby couldn’t believe the story his school chums told him about the car that bounced off the steel support column and drove through the window. The car was a write-off, but the driver recovered. To prevent that happening again, a few of Bobby’s friends were assigned to guard the column around the clock.
News Flash!
Nature is playing a trick on us, and Bobby Bollard, this morning. After several weeks of spring showing signs of taking hold, we had a forecast of 20cm/8″ of wet snow.
Standing in my front door, I heard some unhappiness being expressed loudly. It seemed to be coming from a block away and sounded like Bobby.
I put on my boots and coat and bringing along a cup of hot chocolate I made my way to Bobby who was most unhappy.
The hot chocolate warmed him up and he was glad to hear the weather is to be back to normal in a few days.
He is still trying to figure out what he is supposed to be protecting at his location.
Nature is playing a trick on us, and Bobby Bollard, this morning. After several weeks of spring showing signs of taking hold, we had a forecast of 20cm/8″ of wet snow.
Standing in my front door, I heard some unhappiness being expressed loudly. It seemed to be coming from a block away and sounded like Bobby.
I put on my boots and coat and bringing along a cup of hot chocolate I made my way to Bobby who was most unhappy.
The hot chocolate warmed him up and he was glad to hear the weather is to be back to normal in a few days.
He is still trying to figure out what he is supposed to be protecting at his location.
Bobby doesn’t like people smoking as it isn’t good for their health. But for those who can’t shake the habit (or choose not to) some places have smoking areas. This smoking shelter is for the ground crew working the airport. Bobby’s friend was assigned the task of ensuring any people coming over for a smoke, went inside the shelter so as to not expose others around to the smoke.
Bobby thought it was strange that two of his slim-jim school chums were standing outside the door of the luggage delivery carousel (that takes the suitcases up to the terminal for the passengers). Bobby thought that if they weren’t working that they would come inside and warm up like the other bollard already inside. Maybe they were hiding something??
Bobby thought this was a pointless/hopeless assignment. One of his friends was dropped off in a field and instructed to ensure the geese did not get passed his post. While he was managing to corral these two geese, this is a location where in a few weeks will be full of many young geese families and their goslings. There is no way he could manage to corral all those.
I had been away for a few days so I dropped by to say hello to Bobby. He was in pretty good spirits as the weather has become “decent”. I told him how honoured I was driving along the main highway with hundreds of his buddies, who seemed not to be on any particular duty, standing at attention and saluting me as I passed. I showed him the video, he certainly accepted the standing at attention, but gave me a quizzical look as he didn’t see any saluting.... 🙄🙄
One of Bobby’s friends who hung out nearby, thought he heard some voices. He spotted a brown box that seemed to be the source of the voices. He sidled over to it and discovered it was a telephone wiring connection box and the voices were leaking from the wiring. He hung around and had a nice conversation with a bollard over in Norway.
Bobby wasn’t happy when he learned that two of his slim-jim school chums working at the airport were doing their best to hide so they wouldn’t have to do any work that day. A supervisor noticed they weren’t around their normal working area and found them hiding. Bobby thought they were very lucky not to have been fired.
Bobby was disappointed to learn that Colin Cone, who works as day guard at yard not far away, is not brought into a warm shelter during the night and early morning when a strong gate replaces him.
Bobby thought this was a tall assignment even for a slim-jim. Surely he wasn’t supposed to stop this big rail car! But that was the job and it managed to do it.
Bobby had some problems trying to understand what was going on with a distant cousin who was last seen, not in the best of shape, standing on some gravel next to tree with a no littering sign on it. Bobby hoped no one would consider his cousin litter and that he would be brought in for refurbishment.
Bobby had a good laugh at this situation. Bobby’s nephew was given an assignment of looking after a dog for a day, including taking it for walks. Bobby was sure the dog would run rough shod over his nephew.
But no, his nephew’s commanding presence put him in complete control of the dog.
To Be Continued