D14 greasy bob

I remember Bob Stahl well, although in my circles he was referred to as stinky Bob, great guy, would help anybody at the drop of a hat. I used to work with Bob a little at Toms Cycle in saint John’s back in the day. He would get Honda parts for us, he had a connection up north somewhere. Bob was a greasy dirty guy though, hygiene was not a priority for Bob. I remember one time he was in the shop eating a hunk of cheese and he goes “isn’t it amazing how clean your fingers get when you eat cheese” And yes, for once his hands were clean but the hunk of cheese was black with grease! Didn’t bother him..
At that time Bob was sponsoring a kid with the last name Faber, maybe Terry Faber? Don’t remember, he was fast though. Then before that it was Denny Bentley he was very fast, kind of a 500 specialist if I remember correctly. I’m pretty sure later on after he was done racing Denny went and actually bought Bob a truck to thank him for all he did. That there should give you an indication of what kind of guy Bob was. I’m sure there were more before Denny but that was a little before my time.
The last kid I remember him Sponsoring was Jared Whipple, another fast kid from the area. Not sure whatever happened to him. I’m sure he’s doing fine he seemed to be a good kid with a solid family. There were plenty of others he helped out, including Nick and many other d-14 fast kids.
Later on after I quit the bike shop I went to work in Lansing and our shop was close to Bobs house, I would go there to see Him quite often…So, if you know Bob you can only imagine what his house was like, quite honestly it was unbelievable, bikes and parts, and Cats, everywhere, something on the stove top that was probably there for a month, literally a trail through the house to get to places, I don’t think he ever threw anything away but Hey, he was never married and kept all the things he loved close. I would go there to basically waste time at the end of the day. We would watch old war movies and he would like to listen to old recordings of racing motorcycles like the old Nortons Manx, Triumphs etc, he would have old vinyl records with races on them, just the bikes, probably be worth something today. And of course he would show me all his stuff he’d collected through the years. Mostly things from the war and old radio equipment, he had an arsenal in his house, hundreds of guns, grenades, bayonets, just everything war related, he had a room in his attic filled with nothing but guns. His basement was something to behold also, pretty much a complete machine shop down there, he could do anything, bore cylinders, rebuild cranks, grind valves and seats, I think he may have had a Tig welder down there too and for the life of me I don’t know how in the heck he got that stuff down there, the only way down there was a narrow staircase through the kitchen…Oh, I almost forgot he had a firing range down there too, you know to shoot all his guns!
Bob was in WW2, he flew the P-47 thunderbolt I think he was in some part of occupied Germany later in the war. I don’t think he saw a whole lot of action but I do remember one story where he said he came back from a mission where they had engaged the enemy and when he got out of his air plane he noticed there was four or five bullet indentations in the back of his seat. He went on to say that luckily the seat of the p47 was armor plated or else I’d be dead. After the war he came back and worked at Then Retired from G.M. And I’m pretty sure the house he lived in his whole life was the house he grew up in.
After a while things got busy with life and I quit going by Bobs place as much as I used too then one day I noticed the house was getting remodeled and thought no way Bob would be doing that. Come to find out, and I’m not sure how true this is because I never spoke with Bob again, but I heard the ATF raided his house, because his neighbors, and rightfully so I guess, where worried about all his guns and grenades he had in his house so they took his house, property, basically everything and put Bob in a home of some sort. Sadly Bob didn’t live much after that and died blind, alone and penniless in some state run facility. I think he had some friends that would visit him from time to time. At one time I had heard where he was living but never got over to visit him.. I regret that..
I’m not sure where Bob is buried, I assume in some veterans cemetery, possibly Grand Rapid I would think.
I miss Bob, and wish there were more like him these days, he was as core as they come, the original old school Michigan Mafia even though he didn’t race.