April 27, 2015

Bob Goldberg

Bob Goldberg was born in 1927 in Dallas, Texas, a self-described Depression baby. His father was a violinist by love but worked mostly in pawn shops to make a living, while his mother sold hats at a downtown store. The family lived upstairs in a two story house on their street in South Dallas, with his mother's parents and three of their children living downstairs. His grandfather had come from Ireland and his grandmother from Russia, and Bob felt his grandparents were like second parents. One grandfather worked as a tailor downtown and another worked in and later owned clothing stores. Though times were hard, Bob remembers a happy childhood spent playing ball outdoors with a group of friends, listening to radio shows, and living in a neighborhood with almost no crime.

Bob attended grammar school and Forest Avenue High School in South Dallas. After graduation he spent a semester and a half at the University of Texas before enlisting in the Navy at seventeen, partly so he would not be drafted and partly because many of his friends were serving. He completed boot camp and radio school in San Diego and was stationed at a radio station in downtown San Francisco, where he worked as a radio operator sending messages about troop locations out into the Pacific. He served about twenty months for the duration of the war. Returning to Dallas, he married Lois, whom he had first dated on their high school graduation night, in November 1946.

Back in Dallas, Bob attended SMU on the GI Bill while working about forty hours a week, and graduated with a degree in business marketing. He soon joined Commercial Metals Company, a large recycling firm, where a close friend had helped him get the job, and stayed for 32 years. He rose from cashier to assistant manager, then scrapyard manager for twelve years, and finally area manager overseeing seven scrapyards, later training his two sons who went on to open their own scrapyard. Bob and Lois raised a daughter and two sons and delighted in a large extended family. He served on the board of the Jewish Community Center and coached youth football, baseball, and basketball there, and his advice to future generations was for parents to spend more time with their children when they are young.

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