Bob Keim's Personal Home Page
I can't say these represent the most important things in my life, or even the most noteworthy, but they sure are fun!
After spending some football seasons at UTK, I settled into the boring life of a CPA. One of my employers offered me an opportunity to transfer to LA (Anaheim, actually). While there, I got serious about a sport some high school buddies, Diehl Unger and David Pickens ('64), got me into.
This picture was taken in 1977 near Coalinga, CA. Motorcycles gave me an excuse to travel all over the West - from Baja, to Oregon, Denver and Phoenix. I really love the Sierra Nevada's - "mother lode country". We got to see old bars, right out of movies, in old gold rush towns. Most bars had hand carved back-bars brought from Europe around Cape Horn in Clipper ships.
I gave up motorcycles when my Son was born in 1979, since we had no medical insurance for pregnancies, and I knew I wouldn't have the time and money to get to a national level of competition. Jacob took the inopportune time to be born during the third Superbowl win for Pittsburgh. He doesn't know how close he came to being named Terry-lynn, after one of the greatest quarterback-wideouts pairs ever.
After nearly 15 years of no racing, I was still struggling with a lack of the weekly racing excitement. A buddy from Jellico got me to work on his race car. Before I knew it, I was getting sideways on the dirt again . Here is a picture of me doing a "polish victory lap" in our Taxbusters Racing Fiat.
The Oak Ridge, Tennessee, heritage comes in handy at the race track, since car racing is just a big physics experiment. It's funny to hear some people express their beliefs that Sir Isaac Newton's theories don't work on the dirt track!
Oops, you can't win every night! This was my family's first group-visit to the track that year. They all wanted to run out on the track and help, until they saw me get out of the car and stomp over toward the guy that flipped me. They decided they'd just keep out of my way for a while. Actually I hit my head on the roof when I landed upside down and was a little dingy for a few minutes. We were glad our "CPA welds" held up in the roll cage.
Along the way I got married again. She was a good sailor, although she'd rather swim than compete. We raced sailboats best when she was steering and I was trimming the sails. Although in this race at Atlanta, she was happy to kick back as foredeck crew. Between the 2 of us, we had 4 kids, 4 grandkids, a dog, and a cat. My Daughter had twin girls 7/98.
Here's Captain Bob at Lake Lanier (GA), Halloween, 1998. Can you tell I weigh nearly twice as much as I did in 1965? I've given up wild women, illegal drugs, and rock and roll concerts. My only vice left is a cheeseburger. My favorite prayer is for one more year of "normal" blood pressure. One day, the Doctor (30ish, tall, thin, probably plays
basketball every night) grabbed my arm an took my blood pressure again. I said, "What's the matter Doc, you don't believe the nurse's bp?" He responded, "Hell no, it's lower than mine!"
This is really where it's at. Two Grandkids and the best deaf dog in the world. Patch enjoyed the sailboat and went with me everywhere (I work out of our house). But who can say no to a handicapped dog? Meagan has proven that humor is learned behavoir. She will make a joke every chance she gets. She and Josharoo both make straight A's (well poor Josh got a B last year) - considerably better grades than either of their parents or their Grandfather.
I've been in Nashville since 1970 (except for my 7-year Tennessee Appreciation Course taught in California). However, every time I come over the ridge at Rockwood I wonder why I'm not living in East Tennessee now?