RETIRED BJ PRINTER BOB LEWIS PASSES AWAY IN FLORIDA

Bob Lewis, retired BJ printer and later Building and Facilities Manager, passed away Sunday, July 4 at his home in Sarasota, Florida.

Bob Springer passed along the sad news. Lung disease brought Bob down.

Survivors include his wife, Fen; son, Robert; daughter, Kim; and grandchildren.

Springer nailed Lewis’ character: “He was a wonderful friend to everyone in all departments.”

I recall in 2008 when Paula and I wanted to find Florida beachfront rental in February and I knew that Bob had one on Point of Rocks on Siesta Key, Florida, just south of the #1 beach in the world in my opinion because the sand was always cool on your feet no matter how hot the sun was. Only a beach in Saudi Arabia compared to it, according to travel experts.

So I called Bob in Wadsworth where he was living with wife Fen. Got his Voicemail so I left a message.

Bob called me back, from California! He was getting his rotator cuff repaired by the same doctor who did the first fixup which Bob screwed up by overdoing the rehab therapy.

Several years later, I ran into Bob and Mike Jewell walking on the beach at Siesta Key. Bob's place wasn't rented for about 10 days in February that year so they both went down to stay in it. 

We were staying in Sea Castle, whose parking lot is across the street from former BJ printer Bill Gorrell's former rentals.

My late wife Monia and I had dinner with Bob and Mike the next evening.

Monnie was my Cinderella girl. Honestly. I courted her for 2 years at her Cinderella, West Virginia coal mining camp home adjacent to Williamson, West Virginia on the Tug River border with Kentucky.

Bob and Fen later bought a 2-bedroom, 2-bath home at 5787 Ivrea in Sarasota that was built in 2002.

Alas, Sea Castle, where every February My Mona Lisa and I were reunited with the same people from states in the north who also booked Sea Castle for every February, was razed to make way for a 6-story condominium.

Former BJ printer Bill Gorrell's complex across the street from Sea Castle also was leveled for the same inglorious reason.

And the two complexes behind Gorrell's former place, which Bill managed for the doctors who owned them.

Gorrell started it all in 1971 when he purchased the 37-room Siesta Plaza Motel and turned it into Poor Bill's Motel.

Renters could work off part of their tab by doing carpentry, plumbing, electrical work or painting.

BJ folks gathered as many as eight at a time to drink, play poker and golf while staying at Poor Bill's place. BJ vacation schedules in the Composing Room were choreographed to allow the mass exodus to Siesta Key and Poor Bill's Motel.

There were 113 printers in BJ Composing in 1982. Computers eliminated them all. And the current BJ newsroom is on the 7^th floor of a former Akron rubber factory on Main Street.

Gorrell was famous for his parties -- the Kentucky Derby (first Saturday in May, when John S. Knight flew up from Florida to Louisville's Churchill Downs every year), Thanksgiving and the March climax to the shuffleboard tournament.

Poor Bill's place was across the street from the Sea Castle rentals by the time my late wife Monnie and I first stayed there in 1999. Previously, Sea Castle was called Sun and Sea Lodge because it was on Sun and Sea Drive.

I had called Bill about renting a place with him in the early 1990s, but something came up and My Monnie Lisa and I never made the trip. When we arrived at Sea Castle in 1999, it was too late to get together with Bill. Born in 1930, Bill died in 1995.

But I had BJ reunions every year on Siesta Key. With former BJ Composing folks Dave White and wife Gina of Sarasota, my favorite makeup printer Terry Dray and wife Cecily of Avon Park, Florida, and newsroom rewrite expert Don Bandy of Bradenton. And former BJ printer Don Pack was the pool guy at Sea Castle, when he wasn't galivanting off to Costa Rica or another country with his girlfriend.

Monnie and I ran into  Bob Lewis and another BJ printer, Mike Jewell, while strolling on Crescent Beach one year.

Bob's 2-bedroom rental property at 7007 Point of Rocks Road was available for 10 days, so Bob and Mike popped down to Siesta Key to take in the sunshine. The four of us went out to dinner together.

Another time, I saw a car with Montgomery County license tags one building east of Poor Bill's former place and checked on the second-floor rental's occupants. It was Composing retiree Hugh Downing and wife Sharon.

Alas, times change.

Terry died in 2009. Don died in 2011. Dave and Gina, after about two decades in their Sarasota home, sold it and bought another one in Venice, south of Sarasota, and Dave passed away.

Dave had about eight dimes that I gave him during each reunion since he was famous for telling newsroom types who were complaining in the Composing Room, "Here's a dime; call someone who cares."

Bob and Mike didn’t crossed my path again  since. And now never will.

The Downings moved from Medina County to The Villages, a Florida retirement city with 140,000 people and 50,000 golf carts and 90 miles of cart paths for shopping, restaurants, churches and, yes, the 38 golf courses.

Hugh would line up BJ foursomes of snowbirds for us on The Villages’ zillions of golf courses.

Hugh passed away in 2016 and Sharon after a few years moved to Erie, Pennsylvania to be near her son, Jonathan. Hugh and Sharon were married for 56 years.

Hugh’s siblings are Barbara Downing Roelle, Bert Downing, Colleen Downing Elliker, James Downing, Judy Downing Johnston and Karen Downing Yochem.

Hugh and Sharon both were from Galion, Ohio but didn’t meet till Hugh showed up in her parents' home in Florida.

Hugh started working for the Galion Inquirer at age 14 as a paperboy and worked his way to typesetter before leaving the Inquirer in 1962.

After a move to Florida, Hugh worked for the Pensacola News Journal until 1964 before "heading home" to Ol' Blue Walls. Hugh retired  in 2000 after 37 years at 44 E. Exchange Street.

I retired in 1996 after 26 years at the BJ as part of my 43-year newspaper career that took me to the Williamson (WV) Daily News, Glendive (Montana) Daily Ranger (6 week paid honeymoon with my new bride, My Mona Lisa), Charleston (WV) Daily Mail, Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, St. Petersburg (Florida) Times and the BJ.

Paula bought another home in The Villages (she had sold her previous home there)  which is her primary residence when she isn’t staying at my Tallmadge condo that we bought in 2006 during our 17-year romance.

Paula will be heading north to visit her siblings, her son in New York City and lodging in my Tallmadge home in August.

Half of my 30+ winters in Florida of up to 4 months were spent first with my Mona Lisa and the other half with Paula.

The Villages and Siesta Key’s remarkable beach and Clearwater Beach are my favorite Florida hideaways.