That Guy’s Famous! He’s a Crazy SOB…

In my teens, when my family was spending our summers in Ocean Beach at the Jersey shore I hung out with a bunch of kids whose families also had summer houses in the same small town. One of my friends was a young guy named Bob McGonagall. Bob was a stocky athletic kid with a great sense of humor that was always up for any kind of spontaneous mischief we could devise. Because of his kinky brown hair his nickname was “Buffalo Bob”. “Buffalo Bob” was not merely a participant in our mischief but a major instigator as well. Whatever crazy scheme the group would come up with Bob would always be the first to kick it up a notch or two. The general consensus was that sooner or later he would probably end up in jail. On the contrary, I heard years later from some our mutual friends that Bob had become a law enforcement officer and in fact joined the FBI in Newark, NJ.

Decades later, when I was living in Allentown, PA and working for Air Products I would frequently drive down to Philadelphia at night to have diner in the Society Hill section of town and hang out there in the bars and nightclubs for the evening. On one such trip I was having dinner at the bar in one of the popular restaurants on 2nd Street and wound up sitting next to a group of guys that were FBI agents from Philly. They were telling “war stories” about some on the job exploits and the stories were hilarious.

Before long they drew me into their conversation, and we exchanged information about who we were and where we were from. I casually mentioned that I had grown up at the Jersey Shore and in my teens had a buddy that joined the FBI in Newark, NJ. They asked his name and I said his name is Bob McGonagall but he went by the nickname of Buffalo Bob. Suddenly the whole group became animated and they responded telling me “Hey, that guy is famous in the FBI, That’s Rocky McGonagall, he’s one crazy ass son of a bitch”.  They started to tell me about his exploits and the stories sounded like they were talking about Clint Eastwood’s character Dirty Harry. They told me he was retired a few years back but his legacy lives on within the FBI.

So long, good luck and have a nice day.