[June 10, 2011] Moscow's ambiance feels right to downtown resident Tweet Jun 10, 2011 (Lewiston Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- People featured in this column have been selected randomly from the telephone book. MOSCOW -- While he doubts the local chamber of commerce here would ever hire him, Bob Barnes doesn't hesitate touting the virtues of being a resident in this University of Idaho town. "I think this is one of the best-kept secrets in America," Bob proclaims. "It's a small town. It has all the small town ambiance ... one ZIP code, four telephone prefixes. Not all the streets are paved and people don't always lock their houses." Moreover, Bob says UI and neighboring Washington State University are sirens luring cultural amenities to the area that can't be matched even in much larger communities. "There are a lot of movie screens, plays, concerts. And there's sort of an artists' colony here, too. You get the best of both worlds here." But the real secret, Bob all but whispers, is perhaps the best place to live in Moscow is downtown. He's been doing it for decades and estimates perhaps 100 or more apartments are located mostly above Moscow's many commercial buildings. "And some of them are really charming." As a downtown Moscow resident, Bob, 60, has become one who other people routinely see and perhaps wonder where he came from and what he's doing. A local. A regular. A guy with a full beard, a friendly smile and enough tenure to be considered a fixture. "It's a little odd," Bob says when asked how, why and when he came to town. "One of those not-a-one-sentence answers." Born in Chicago and raised in Boise, Bob says the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy and a computer company called UNIVAC more or less shaped the path he followed to the Palouse. He joined the Navy in 1968 and ended up aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger. "I was what they called an aviation fire control technician, which has nothing to do with fighting fires," Bob recalls. "It's basically a glorified electronic technician." The schooling and the exercise of some commonsense, he says, set him up for his future. "The smartest thing I ever did was stay and get an honorable discharge. Which was uncharacteristically wise because I was pretty dumb when I was that age, as many of us are." Once out of the Navy, he entered college but cut his education short when offered a job with UNIVAC, one of the first computer companies. "I worked on big main-frame computers before personal computers even existed," he says. "You couldn't fit one in this room, some of the ones I've worked on. So I was just absolutely fascinated when the personal computers came out." After 19 years with UNIVAC, mostly overseas, Bob says he decided to return to the states and realized most of his friends, for one reason or another, had moved to Moscow. So he followed their lead and has remained. "One of the things that had really surprised me, was how quickly my skills became obsolete," Bob says, "to the point where I couldn't get a job with another computer company." Instead, he cobbled together a living in Moscow by driving taxi, shuttles, and worked for some three years at a convenience store. "Unfortunately, in 1999 I had a major heart attack at age 49." Today, Bob lives off a Navy pension and says his heart works at about 35 percent of normal. He's fighting diabetes and failing eyesight. He looks back at the heart attack and warns that many men approaching 50 suffer from what he calls black knight syndrome. "Remember in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when the king fought the Black Knight," Bob says of the scene where the knight ends up hacked to pieces without arms and legs but maintains "It's only a scratch." "There are men in their late 40s who have really serious health problems, but they have the black knight syndrome," Bob says. "There's nothing wrong with me. I can still stand up and go to work in the morning." Since he can no longer push that envelope, Bob says he's immersed himself in a downtown Moscow lifestyle set within an attractive Main Street amid people who accept one another despite their differences. "I think part of the reason is that Moscow parallels the best part of America," Bob suggests, "which is that nobody is really in the majority. Everybody has to accommodate other points of view." While he describes national politics as a "blood sport" fueled by media bent on filling a 24-hour news cycle with controversy, Moscow remains a place where people can still look one another in the eye, discuss their differences and share a community geared for the most part to acceptance. Not that there aren't some warts. "One of the things I see here are some people who don't appreciate what they've got," Bob says. "And they're trying to tear it down. They'd deny it to their last breath that that's what they want to do, but that would be the result of what they're trying to do." An example? "Moscow's school system. It's under attack. People don't want to spend the money. And that makes my brain buzz. It should be obvious that giving people the best education possible is beneficial for everyone." So school is out for the summer here at the primary, secondary and higher education levels. But learning continues, Bob says. Downtown discussions over coffee, in the shade, on a bench in Friendship Square. Moscow affords its residents an opportunity not to just get acquainted, but to really know one another. Johnson may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 883-0564. To see more of the Lewiston Tribune or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.lmtribune.com. 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