Simply Spectacular!
Photography: Carter Fish
He was born in Fort George Wright, Washington, where his dad was serving in the Air Force, on March 17, 1947, the second of seven Detmer siblings. Shortly after he was born his family moved to Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, then to Goose Bay Air Force Base in remote Labrador, Canada in 1956, and then to Plattsburgh Air Force Base in Plattsburgh, New York in 1958, and, when his dad retired from the military in 1961, back to his parents’ hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York. “During the rest of my teens, we moved around from one house to another,” Bob recalls. “First with different relatives…but then once we shared a house with strangers mom met at the grocery store - 13 of us all together in their old three bedroom farmhouse. I ate Cheerios for breakfast and dinner - with water, as milk was scarce. I would go days at a time without eating - which is when I started the eat-once-a-day fasting routine I keep to this day. In high school I was 6’2” and weighed 135 pounds. My dad had to leave high school in the tenth grade to support his family but he was a really brilliant man, and my mom was an amazing and loving mother. They were the best parents…totally devoted to the family and sacrificing everything just to make ends meet.”
Although no one understood it when Bob was a kid, he had and has a neurological condition called Receptive Aphasia, also known as Wernicke’s Aphasia, which affects the ability to understand spoken and written language. “All the kids thought I was stupid and called me ‘retarded’, and after the results of an IQ test got into the hands of some students it was publicly confirmed that I had the lowest IQ in the school,” Bob remembers. “In my senior year, I had the comprehension level of a 4th grader, and a terribly limited ability to recall names and data. The school would move me up a grade after I flunked a course three times, which turned out to be the case with almost all my courses. And I was bullied terribly. Two guys named Lefty and Randy would chase me down after school and punch me or put me in a headlock. …Still, I have many wonderful memories of my childhood, including some good friends, great birthday parties, my First Communion, Halloween candy, Easter baskets, Christmas mornings, being a Boy Scout and an altar boy, playing all sorts of games, and learning how to ride a bike, roller-skate, and swim.”
“And just so you know, I learned years later that Lefty became a delinquent adult and died in prison under mysterious circumstances, and that Randy died in Vietnam, rumored to have been shot in the back by ‘friendly fire’,” Bob adds.
In addition to the Receptive Aphasia and his poor circumstances…at the age of 3, Bob was diagnosed with a congenital and uncorrectable eye affliction which causes permanently deteriorating vision…and living life through an ever-blurry lens as a kid and into his adult years. …But when the condition resulted in Bob being unable to drive, at the age of 45…Bob underwent seven risky experimental laser eye surgeries and 20/20 vision was eventually restored!
“I was drafted in 1966 when the Army lowered its standards to meet recruitment quotas,” Bob remarks. …In Army Basic Training, out of 170 recruits, Bob was given the Commander’s Evaluation Award recognizing outstanding enthusiasm, comradeship, promptness, skills proficiency, neatness, discipline, Esprit de Corps, and achieving the Expert Marksmanship medal. “It was the first time I succeeded at anything! And there was plenty of food, so I beefed-up to 175 pounds!” Bob declares.
“…But, serving in the Army turned out to be the most horrific experience of my life. After Basic, I was assigned to the Medical Corps and my first assignment was working in a hospital at Fort Gordon, Georgia. It was gruesome. Just like in the movie Born On The Fourth Of July. Thirty wounded Vets to a ward, gruesomely dreadful, with men - mostly teenagers - dying almost every day. Long nightmarish days and nights, comforting suffering patients, and devastated parents. Because I was the only staff member who would attend to a particular patient known as ‘The Spitter’ for his ability to accurately target anyone coming within ten yards - and it turned-out ‘The Spitter’ had Tuberculosis - I also contracted TB. …I was whisked-off to a remote MASH unit in Germany to quarantine for the remainder of my service. …I consider myself very lucky to have survived! Memories of all the trauma are the source of my frequent nighttime horrors. I suffer from the life-long debilitating effects of PTSD, and although I appreciate the veterans disability and health coverage I receive from the VA - it’s not worth it! …I lost my faith!”
Bob continues, “When I got out of the Army in 1968, I moved back to Poughkeepsie and got a job working at IBM on the night-shift assembly line. I moved to Highland, New York in 1972. To Hyde Park, New York in 1974 - where my wife, Lynn, gave birth to our son, Eric. To Franklin Lakes, New Jersey in 1978 - where our daughter Kristina was born. And then to Armonk - where we lived from 1983 to 2013 and where our kids went to school. I retired from IBM in 1996, after 28 years, at the age of only 49 - and retired with a full pension! …In 2013, we moved to the house we’re in now in Bedford, which I always refer to as ‘The Town of My Dreams’! …And I guess Lynn and I did something right, as Eric, who retired from the Coast Guard Reserves, is now a successful Engineer with a wife and four kids - who pilots family and friends around in his own plane, and Kristina is an attorney and altruistically focused on animal welfare. I’m so proud of them both!”
…In 2013, we moved to the house we’re in now in Bedford, which I always refer to as ‘The Town of My Dreams’!
“I learned handyman skills by necessity, as the only houses we could afford needed a lot of work!” Bob laughs. “Using my newly acquired skills - and long before it was the thing it is today - I began to buy, fix-up, and flip houses. I didn’t know what I was doing at first, but would just tackle one task after another until the job was done. I’ve flipped a dozen homes…and made a nice profit doing it!”
“As another ‘second job’, I decided to learn how to produce videos and soon had a successful business doing that - mostly making videos for non-profits to help them raise money for their cause. It was fun and I won lots of awards for my work. One of my videos took First Place at the Annual International Video Awards in Birmingham, England in 1992.”
And then Bob reveals that, “Starting when I was working pushing carts and stocking shelves at ShopRite for $40 a week when I was 18, and all along the way while I was receiving my veterans disability, working at IBM and collecting a pension from them, flipping houses, and producing videos, I invested every dollar I could save! Mostly in IBM and then also Apple - and I still have almost all the shares I’ve ever accumulated!”
…And, like with Gump, there’s still a long list of Bob’s additional exploits and achievements that go way beyond his careers in the Army, at IBM, flipping houses, as a videographer, and as an investor:
Despite his learning disability, Bob was determined to attend college, and after being denied admission a couple of times he started with two years at Dutchess Community College and then earned SUNY New Paltz’s first ever Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Broadcasting in 1974, and graduated cum laude at that!
While at Dutchess Community College, Bob’s Public Speaking professor convinced him to take on the role of Charlie in a production of Death of a Salesman. Bob worked hard to memorize his lines and, much to his own surprise, he was a star of the play! The cast then performed at numerous locations around New York, including even a prison, and the production won numerous awards at the annual New York State Theater Awards Festival held in Corning, New York, and Best Play at the Eastern Regional Theater Competition held at Marist College - with Bob winning an Outstanding Actor award! Given the success, the cast and crew decided to renovate an old theater in town, called The Vassar Institute, in order to perform the play - thus founding The Valley Theater Company, which went on to produce many plays over the following 25 years. “After that, I performed in numerous other plays,” Bob says, “including a children’s touring play that was seen by thousands of students. And I’ve been in over 100 TV commercials, and I wrote and produced a dozen plays for radio for a company I created and called Radio Theater Presents.”
Maybe most ironically, for one semester in 1977, Bob taught a course on Public Speaking at Dutchess Community College. “Witnessing my energetic, animated, and humorous teaching style, the department head offered me a full-time position, but I knew I couldn’t achieve my goals there…and I’d already gotten my revenge,” Bob grins.
As ‘Wilderness Bob’, a character Bob created to teach outdoor safety to families, Bob became one of the first nationally recognized outdoor-survival experts, producing a DVD that was sold at REI and through Outdoor Life magazine, marketing various related products, and appearing on CNN, MSNBC, and CBS among other media. Bob even co-authored a children’s book called The Curse of Ruby Mountain - Tales of Wilderness Bob, to teach stories of safety and survival.
When Bob was 39, he adopted 40 cats and kittens about to be euthanized, beginning a lifetime passion - shared with his wife and daughter - for animal rescue and animal rights advocacy. Bob has more than a few rescues living in his house at any given time…and another everchanging number more living in Kristina’s apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
One day in 1992, as Bob was driving by a historic church in Bedford, he noticed smoke coming out of the building. Without hesitation, Bob jumped out of his car and ran to a back door - where he confronted a man who turned out to be a serial arsonist as he was exiting the building…and kept the fiend at bay until the police arrived.
Following a fantasy from childhood of being a comedian, when Bob was about 60 he appeared at a local comedy club. His stand-up routine was a success, so Bob went on to perform at more open mic nights, and even performed on cruise ships. “Covid cut this bucket list adventure short, but my selection of humorous real life anecdotes was a real crowd pleaser. And after a while I made sure to be scheduled as the last act of the evening, as I learned that after the audience had a few drinks my stories were even more entertaining,” Bob jokes.
A poor swimmer, and against all advice, at the age of 69 Bob swam 3.2 miles across the Hudson River, from Highland to Poughkeepsie, to honor his father and mother, who met near where Bob got into the water.
Months later, Bob ran ‘The Eye of the Dragon’ marathon in Florida - while friends cheered ‘Run Forrest Run’ from the sidelines. “I just imagined a bully’s punch and headlock were steps behind and just kept running,” Bob admits. “I came in second.”
…And the list goes on and on…including living through a tornado in Springfield, Missouri, and escaping a hotel fire at The Rocking Horse Ranch in Highland, New York.
…As a six year old boy, Bob witnessed the fatal crash of a small plane in Texas in 1953 and visited the crash site, where he collected lead, and then Bob used that lead to mold figurines of Native Americans. …Many years later a Westchester magazine serendipitously wrote an article about the 1953 plane crash - and Bob saw the article, got in touch with the author of the article, and provided the molded Native American figurines that Bob still has to be pictured in public interest follow-up stories about the incident.
Bob’s story is so fantastic, The New York Times - a paper Bob used to deliver as a boy - published a feature on him in 1994, and he’s been interviewed by Nancy Grace, Paula Zahn, and others for several national TV broadcasts.
“But I’ve never read a book from cover-to-cover, I can’t follow a movie if it has a plot, and I have trouble learning just about anything until I do or experience it for myself,” Bob reveals.
Despite his circumstances and challenges, Bob is nevertheless pretty happy and, by most standards, quite successful. He lives in a house in Bedford, and is starting to build a second home on the property which he hopes will serve as an assisted living facility for him and Lynn for years to come.
Perhaps most fascinating, Bob comes off as an intelligent, affable, articulate, well-informed, and worldly kind of guy. Though there is a very slight hint in conversation of something being different about him, his true brilliance is in his genuine and positive approach to everything in life. A lot like Forrest Gump explaining his exploits on the bench at the bus stop.
To explain himself, Bob wrote a short book called Improbable Me. He says, “I wrote it for my four grandchildren and someday their children. I want them to know and remember ‘Grandbob’. Who I was and what kind of a person. I don’t believe in heaven, and I’m bothered by the notion that a couple of generations from now no one will remember that I existed. I wanted to pass down my story…and all the lessons I’ve learned…”
Success and happiness are two different things, although they are often synonymous…but I believe people can make their own luck, good or bad.
Bob Detmer
Commenting that success and happiness are two different things, Bob outlines his life-lessons with a neat list of what he feels are the keys to success:
Delayed Gratification - which Bob calls “probably the most effective personal trait of highly successful people”; Live Beneath Means; Be Nice to People, Original, Passionate, Perseverant, Perpetual, Punctual, Particular, Positive, Creative, Enthusiastic, Patient, and a Leader Not A Follower; Work Hard, Always Look Neat and Well-Kept, Never Use Foul Language, Never Use the Word ‘Like’, and Never Procrastinate; Set Goals and Exhibit Self-Control, but always Be Compassionate, Adaptable, Compromising, and Courteous; Be Penny Wise, Take Advantage of the Miracle of Compounding, and Be Careful Who You Trust When Money Is Involved; Bring Humor Whenever Possible, and; Never Lose Your Childlike Inner Self, or as Bob puts it, “Embrace the Whoopee Cushion!”
Bob Detmer calls his life story Improbable. And - like with Gump - Bob’s list of exploits, achievements, and accomplishments can even seem impossible or unbelievable. …No matter the odds, Bob Detmer’s story proves that anything and everything is accomplishable…and that - following a neat list of disciplined rules of behavior - dreams really can come true!
Run Bob Run!!!
As featured in the May/June 2025 issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine