Robert K. Closser, Jr.

Your friendship, prayers and shoulder have been much appreciated!

Darla, I am so sorry for your loss. Praying for comfort and peace. Love you sweet friend.

I am so sorry for your loss! Praise God Bob has made it home and is waiting for you! I am praying for you! Love you 🙏❤️ Blessings

Rest in heaven Bob!!

Lifting you and your family in prayer Darla!! My condolences.

Darla, I am so sorry for your loss. I am keeping you in my prayers during this difficult time.

In my effort to write about a favorite memory of my father, I discovered there isn’t a favorite memory, there are multiple.

As a child, I stayed with dad on alternating weekends. I always looked forward to being with dad and doing things with him. It was our precious time together.

Saturday evenings we’d typically go visit with family to have dinner or watch some basketball. When not visiting family and if weather permitted, we’d do some outdoor activity like riding go-carts. One evening when my brother, Zachary, was with us, we went to a go-cart track nearby. It was a relatively new, low-budget track and was not managed very strictly, unlike the fancier track on the south-side of town that dad always scoffed at for their ‘NO BUMPING’ policy and posted signs. In dad’s perspective, what’s the point of go-cart racing if you can’t bump into the other drivers? This newer track, however, didn’t seem to mind bumping and we seized this opportunity. Dad, being his determined self, was adamant to not let anyone pass him that night while racing. During one race, a young rider was attempting to pass dad around a corner. Rather than passing dad, the rider and ended up getting ‘bumped’ right into the wall. Dad: 1, kid: 0.

Our Sundays together were always special. Sunday mornings were dad’s laundry day. A man of habit, dad would get up and go to the laundromat at 6am every Sunday. He left it up to me to join or not, knowing it was very early still. When I went, he’d always give me quarters to play the arcade game in the laundromat and afterwards he’d buy us some donuts for breakfast. In the afternoon we’d go to a lake or park for a walk or to play basketball. Once, while walking around Shadyside Lake, dad, unprovoked, said, “let’s have a race!” So, we set our marks and counted down, “3…2…1…GOOO!” and we both took off full-bore for 100 meters. How fun it was to go all out against my father, who used to run track in high school. I was 14 at the time and outraced him, but he was proud, afterwards saying, “Great run! I could outrun my dad at 14 also.”

Dad loved to nurture my young interest in basketball. Some Sunday afternoons we’d go to the outdoor basketball court at a nearby elementary school and shoot around. I recall dad teaching me some of the basics like the ‘give-n-go’ play and how to do a screen defense. Around age 10 I was in a YMCA basketball team for a season. Dad took me to every practice session and game and watched with enjoyment and interest. Dad was a fan of mine, but not so much of the coach, which was understandable considering we lost every game of the season. After the losses, dad would take me wherever I wanted to get lunch together, turning the day’s loss into a win.

When we weren’t out, dad and I would be at his home watching football or playing video games. Dad had the classic Nintendo (NES) game console, and it got regular use by both of us. We had our favorite games: Tetris and NBA Jam, but we had different skill levels at each game. Dad was the most impressive Tetris gamer I had ever witnessed. I was about average at the game, maybe getting to level 12 before losing. Dad, however, could sit and play all the way through the mid 20’s. At that level, the game is moving so fast that it’s difficult to even see the pieces moving, but he somehow manipulated the pieces and progressed through the levels. Dad, the Tetris master, however, did not fare as well at NBA Jam when we played against each other, jokingly telling me, “You’re cheating!” when losing.

My father wasn’t big into going to stores or shopping, though there were a couple of exceptions. During the holiday season, dad enjoyed going to department stores or the mall. We had a relatively small family, so there wasn’t a lot of shopping need, but dad enjoyed it for a different reason. “Let’s go out and get in people’s way” he’d say, and we would go to the stores full of frantic crowds and stroll around with no intention other than being an obstacle to others. Another exception to dad’s dislike of shopping was the hardware store. Towards the back of the store we frequented, there were large industrial fans set on the floor for display. Dad dubbed the largest of the fans “Big Moe” and loved to turn it on full blast pointed down the aisle, where it would proceed to blow onto customers and blow away price labels or anything else in the aisle loosely bound.

One thing a father is generally proud of is when his son obtains his first job, and dad was no different. Like him, my first job was at a grocery store, bagging groceries and getting carts from the lot. Dad would visit me at my job on Sundays and we’d have lunch together. I always looked forward to him visiting me and he was indeed happy to see his son working. He’d tell me, “Parking lot looks good…not many carts out there. Keep up the good work!” He’d proceed to give me many tips on grocery-bagging etiquette, “Don’t crush their eggs and bread” and, “Bag the meats separately.” His fatherhood and managerial sides had finally overlapped. He may have never known how much his visits meant to me.

Dad had much pride in me for pursuing education, which he expressed in multiple ways. Once, during a job performance review he was having, his manager asked him, “where do you see yourself in five years?” Of course, his manager was referring to his work goals, but dad, uninterested in discussing work goals, replied, “I want to see my son graduate from college.” A comment that simultaneously expressed what was truly important and unimportant to him. He, in fact, did see me graduate on multiple occasions and it always made me happy that he was there.

Dad taught me many things while I was growing up. His ethical values were concise, “don’t lie, don’t cheat, and don’t steal” he said to me as a young boy. He indirectly showed me how to stretch a dollar by driving an early-80’s blue Chevette for more years than it should ever have lasted and loved to brag about how much of a “classic” it was. Dad also taught me things that I’d never know of if it weren’t for him like: the Sun is 93 million miles away and it takes 8 minutes for its light to reach Earth; the first Indy 500 winner was Ray Harroun; and most importantly, the longest NFL field-goal was 63-yards kicked by Tom Dempsey, who only had half of a foot. The day this 40-year-old field-goal record was broken in 2013, I called my dad and he answered, “I figured you’d be calling” knowing that I was going to rub in his failed prediction that the 63-yard field-goal record would never fall.

It was in September of 2020 that I first learned of dad’s illness, and I immediately flew to Indiana to be by his side in the hospital. Dad was a very strong man and dedicated himself to his work and family. I saw this firsthand when he began his treatment regimen, driven by his conviction to get healthy and back to work to support the ones he loved. From that point onward however, I knew our time together was winding down. This realization made every visit, every phone call, and every text message much more precious. His stubbornness for life pulled him through the toughest times I’ve ever seen anybody go through. He fought hard and achieved his goal to get back to work at the hardware store he worked at during retirement. Up to his final days, dad expressed his love and pride for me, and I am forever grateful for having him as a father.

Rest in peace Dad,
-Your son
-Richard Closser

P.S. I’ll always wonder if he got a job at the hardware store in his retirement years just so he could turn on the large fans…