Senior stories by Cogir: Bob and Jean

Transcript

Dave: I know where Millbrae is. This is Cadence Millbrae, a community by Cogir. You’re South Of San Francisco. Correct? 

Bob: By the airport.

Dave: We’re in Arizona, and it’s gorgeous today. How is it there? 

Bob: Where in Arizona? 

Dave: We’re in Scottsdale, Arizona. Have you ever been here?

Bob: Oh, Scottsdale. Okay. So Europe where it’s a little hotter. My son lives in Tucson. My number three son.

Dave: Okay. So you’ve been to Arizona quite a bit then. Right? 

Bob: Not a whole lot. No. No. No. No. He just lives there, and we live here. You know? We have been down there more than probably six times in twenty years. So 

Dave: Okay. So let me ask about you and Jean in California. Why that specific Cogir community at Cadence Millbrae? 

Bob: We were living in Belmont. We didn’t like it up there. Not that the place wasn’t okay. It was just that, that’s way too far from our doctors, etcetera, etcetera. So we came down here and I ended up here. We heard about this place. Somebody said, you know, you should go check them out. And, I in fact, if you wanna know, I think it was, the, one of the, ombudsman who said that. And, you know, he asked the ombudsman for his advice, and he said, well, why don’t you check them out? So 

Dave: Well, I’ve been so excited to talk to you, Bob, and Jean, because it’s the month of Valentine’s Day, and you have quite a story. How many years have you been married?

Bob: Oh, 67 years. 68 in June. 

Dave: Okay. So without putting myself on the spot mathematically, mid fifties, 1956? 

Bob: 1956, maybe.

Dave: Fifty seven. Oh, I was close. Close. I was close. 

Bob: Yeah. That’s not bad. That’s not bad. You should be proud of yourself. 

Dave: And the love continues to burn, which I love. Bob, Jean, what’s the secret? Come on. Sixty seven, sixty eight years coming up on seventy years of marriage. What’s the secret? 

Bob: Okay. Then I’m gonna say come on to you. You know what the secret is. It’s saying, yes, dear. Of course, dear. Anything you say, dear. 

Dave: That is so true, and you do that so well, Bob.

Bob:  my thespian background. 

Dave: So you and Jean were, I don’t know, young twenties when you got married? 

Bob: Yeah. We were 20, I was 21. She just turned 22, and she’s four months older than me. 

Dave: So that makes her a cougar, and I’m her boy toy. So cougar Jean and young Bob, tell me how you met. How did this love start?

Bob: My best friend at the time when I was in college, I guess I was a sophomore in college, and she was a nursing student in Cincinnati. And her best friend knew each other, and they introduced us. You know, it was best friend, introducing best friend and so forth, and that’s how we got together. It sort of clicked right away, as far as I was concerned, and I think for her too. But, you know, it was nice. Our first date, we went ice skating at the rink. 

Dave: So love at first sight, you go ice skating. Did you hold her hand, Bob? 

Bob: Well, of course. 

Dave: Just asking, and I wanna know the secret.

Bob: The thing is that at the time, we were very religious. We’re not very religious anymore, but we were very religious, and we had this religious organization that we all belong to. And, so, it was one of those things where, you know, everybody was sort of getting together, and we were ice skating. And then later on, we were having, you know, tours of downtown churches and things like that. I mean, you know, boring things nowadays, but not time that it just seemed like as long as we were doing it together, it was fun. You know? 

Dave: So Jean must have had a really good time on the date, and now it comes to asking her out on the second date. 

Bob: I used to usher at the big theater in Downtown Cincinnati to see all the shows and the music goes and all that. And so I think I dragged her in to do the same thing with me. I think – I think that’s what it was.

Dave: Good move. I like that. 

Bob: Go see every show. You know? And, when I was in high school, we went to see jazz at the Philharmonic in Cincinnati. It was a touring show, and I remember seeing Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson and Mel Torme and all of those people. Are the best shows. And that was the kind of thing that era was really famous for, you know. It really was something that and so we used to go see, you know, South Pacific and, King and I and, all kinds of shows. And we 

Dave: Carnival and Oklahoma. Yeah. That was a great era. Yeah. 

Bob: Well, that was a golden age of theater. And I’m and I’m I’m I had a master’s degree in theater. And so, it means a heck of a lot to me. You know? Later on, of course, I mean, as time went on, we went to see shows all over the world. And, I remember we were living in, walk down the road here in Emerald Hills, and we went up to Chicago once to see hair. We went down to Los Angeles and wanted to see Phantom of the Opera, you know, those kinds of things. 

Dave: So as your marriage continued then, because Hair, you’re talking late nineteen sixties, ’19 seventies, Phantom of the Opera in Los Angeles, Late 1970s. This is something that you and Jean have enjoyed for your entire marriage. 

Bob: Oh, absolutely. And then in probably 1981 or so, we got a subscription to San Francisco Opera because I’m a big opera fan. I have my own website, and what I did was show all of the classical music and opera stuff that was going on in the Bay Area. And I ran that for, I don’t know, fifteen, twenty years. In fact, the San Francisco Opera gave me their top award. Geez. We had a gigantic banquet, and there must have been, oh, 300 people there and everything.

Dave: Wow. 

Bob: And, it was really, really something. You know? They did that annually, and I was, you know, the one for, I don’t know, 2007 or so. I don’t know what the year was.

Dave: That’s the major leagues, Bob, for some of our viewers who may not follow theater, San Francisco Opera is seriously comparable to Broadway. That is where a lot of the big shows started. For example, Wicked that ended up on Broadway debuted in San Francisco. Phantom of the Opera, San Francisco. San Francisco was that spot and still is for big, not just musicals, but plays altogether. And, Bob, is that what you did for a living? 

Bob: No. No. No. No. No. Me and my god, I had four careers. And my first career, out of college was the army. I was in the army for twenty one years. And, 1979, I I, finished up 21 years, as a lieutenant colonel. And then after that, I was a national sales manager for a software company down in Palo Alto. And then after that, the third one was Jean, opened a home care agency in Redwood City, which is south of here. And, I was her office manager, and we did that for about eleven, twelve years. And then after that, my fourth career was with the opera and all the volunteer work. Everything after that, of course, was volunteer stuff. And Jean has a resume that’ll blow your socks off. I mean, she has a master’s degree in public administration. She actually is an artist and had one we lived in Upstate New York. She had a, a, a hobby ceramics studio that she operated. She’s been a SNF administrator. She’s been the director of nurses at SNF and and and, etcetera etcetera. So, anyway, that’s her background. But together, we’ve got six kids, two girls, four boys. We got 14 grandchildren. And the joke is that we have either eight or nine eight or nine great grandchildren, and I don’t know whether it’s eight or nine right now because I know there’s eight. The eighth came in January, but the ninth is when my youngest grandson is getting married, and the girl he is marrying has a little boy. And, so he’s gonna be the ninth when they get married. 

Dave: I love it. What a family. Oh, how much, how many members of your family live in close proximity to where they can come visit? 

Bob: Not many. 

Dave: Okay. Okay. 

Bob: Our oldest son lives on the other side of the bay in Union City. We have a grandchild down in Santa Cruz, which is, you know, south of here, 50 miles, 70 miles, something like that. And then, I have a granddaughter that lives in Napa, which is, of course, north of your Of course. Yes. Foreign country. Yep. And, I have, let’s see. Oh, I’ve got a number two grandson, he’s a seminarian, and he will be ordained a priest in May, I think. May, I think it is. So he is in the area. I think he’s in San Francisco right now.

Dave: Okay. So 

Bob: My grandson is in Mexico, lives in Mexico. I have one in Hawaii. You know, so they’re all over the place. 

Dave: So sixty seven years, Bob. I’ve been married thirty six years, and you’re making me feel like a newlywed. And with Valentine’s Day coming up at Cogir, Cadence Millbrae, what are the plans for you and Jean? You love darts, you romantic couple, you. Nice meal there at Cogir? 

Bob: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, we have a big party here, and, they are, you know, all the avenue. 

Dave: Bob, tell me about living at Cadence, Millbrae, Cogir. I know they take wonderful care of their communities and their residents. Tell me about living at Cadence Millbrae.

Bob: Well, the food is very good, and I’m on the menu committee. 

Dave: Oh, okay. 

Bob: And, so I get a chance to, you know, talk to the chef every once in a while and tell her that my my my my latest instruction was I told the server, hey. Tell this – tell the cook not to put a cold salad on a hot plate, please. Because that’s what happened.

Dave: You’re giving him tips. 

Bob: You know? Yeah. Yeah. And and and, of course, you know, I was I was they don’t usually do that, but it just happened. So no. The food is nice. The decor is nice. The hallways are long, so there’s long walks. People have these watches – I don’t know if you’ve got one on your arm that counts your steps and all of that. But, my problem is that when I push the wheelchair, it doesn’t count. But I’m– I I’m sure I I must walk, you know, at least a mile, maybe a mile and a quarter every day just walking the halls just to get to the elevator to get down to the, you know, the dining room and then go downstairs and get the mail and and all of that. I mean, you know, life for this kind of, you know, for this age is, it kinda gets to be routine, but but if the atmosphere is nice and the activities are good and you you know, I’m I– I do the the movies on Thursday night and, they do they do movies here, you know, twice a day, which is really kinda nice. But those are the regular movies. Just, you know, the movies that you would see either, you know, old old ones or in the theaters. So I specialize in more, music oriented ones. 

Dave: Yeah. 

Bob: I play the piano and I’m very music oriented. So, all of the movies that I show here have something to do with the music. For example, I’m showing the showboat right now. But it’s not the movie version. It’s actually the stage version as it was done by the San Francisco Opera, which is really quite good. We showed the first half last night. Next week, I’m gonna show Annie, the, and then after that, the next show I’m gonna show is, Oh, Brother Where Art. Thou. You probably saw Brother Where Art Thou. 

Dave: Oh, of course. Bob, next time we get together, let’s do this. I want you to name a musical, and I’ll try to sing a line from it. 

Bob: Well, you haven’t seen the old brother where aren’t they? 

Dave: Oh, of course, I have. 

Bob: I can’t believe it. 

Dave: Oh, no. Of course, I have. 

Bob: Well, you know, it’s a big move. It’s a movie literally based on Homer’s idiot. And John Goodman in the movie is the cyclops. He has a patch over my eye. Yep. I remember. And, and and and, of course, the music, of course, is all bluegrass, and I love bluegrass. 

Dave: Well, Bob, you and Jean are too cute, and I know that Jean’s not speaking with us today, but you’re too cute. I know is taking wonderful care of you. And I hope on Valentine’s Day, you tickle the ivories, play a little piano for Jean, watch your favorite romantic musical, have a nice meal, and maybe some of that wine from Napa can come down your way. And I appreciate you being with us. And congratulations on your long marriage, your beautiful large family, and happy Valentine’s Day. Hey. Well, listen.

Bob: You’ve been very nice, and it’s very nice talking with you. Then if you ever get down this way, be sure to stop by and say hello. 

Dave: I love it. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Jean.

Bob: Okay. Take care.

Summary

Bob and Jean, residents at Cadence Millbrae, reflect on their 67-year marriage and a lifetime filled with love, music, and family. From meeting in their early twenties and bonding over shared interests in theater and classical music, to raising six children and enjoying careers in healthcare, the military, and the arts, their journey is full of meaningful moments.

Bob, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and longtime opera enthusiast, stays active in the Cadence Millbrae community—helping with the menu committee, curating music-themed movie nights, and enjoying daily life in a supportive, welcoming environment. Together, Bob and Jean have built a life rich with purpose and connection, and continue to enjoy their days in a place they’re proud to call home.