I work in the construction business, and I meet lots of people. My Outlook contact list has more than 1200 entries. On one project I was calling for bids for structural steel, and a man came in to look at the drawings.
He worked for a while, and then gave me his business card. I noticed his last name was Hornback. I remembered a Fred Hornback from my early staff member days at camp, maybe first year councilor and CIT. Fred had introduced me to British rock and roll, and loved the band called the Kinks.
We were good friends. He even drove a couple of times when we went to movies, or double dates. He had a red (I think) Volkswagen Bug. That was a fun car to go running around in.
So I asked Mr. Hornback if he was related to Fred.
Mr. Hornback got the funniest look on his face, and asked how I knew Fred. I told him about Fort Scott and the Bug, and how we had been friends.
Mr. Hornback listened quietly and then told me that Fred had been killed in a car accident some years ago.
He has never come back to quote any other work for us.
My world got a little grayer that day.
Bob
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fred was my dad...if you have any fun stories, i'd love to hear them.
I knew Fred when we were kids. He lived up behind the ballparks at Delshire Swim Club. We played on the same baseball team, maybe soccer too, but I can't remember.
Fred was one of the nicest kids you could imagine, and he came at the world from a different angle than most of us sandlot rats. Not the real athletic type, he was artistic, had a great imagination and if memory serves correctly, he fell in with the (legendary) Bob Beamon art scene at Elder H.S. Fred never seemed like he was in a bad mood. I liked him a lot and I was very sad to hear that he was killed in an auto accident.
I forgot to mention that it's not surprising to hear Fred was a Kinks fan. They were huge at Elder in the early 80s, especially among the class of 81, which my brother belonged to.
Fred might have also been a member of the unofficial New Wave Club, a group of students who wore skinny ties to school. It wouldn't have surprised me if he was because a lot of the art students were founding members.
thank you :)
Sara, I knew your Dad while going to UC in the 1980's. He was one of the nicest guys I knew and I like him a lot. He had his own unique personality and was a lot of fun. He was in a band called the Goops and was really happy when they played him on 97X a few times. I've thought about him through the years and always wondered where he might be buried as I'd like to pay my respects to him. He was a good guy.
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