Weatherman: The Legend of Bob Richards

St. Louis Stories #2
Bob Richards was St. Louis' leading weatherman back when that still kinda meant something. Like most weathermen, especially here in St. Louis, he was basically worthless as far as actually telling you what the weather might be like the next day, but I think people liked him because he would tell a lot of dumbass jokes. As such, he was somewhat of a local celebrity.

An Internets search turned up next to jack shit about him, but it's important to note that he looked just like the kid who played Billy (or was it Peter?) in the Gremlins movies - if a bit more Jew-y and slovenly in appearance. In fact, for the longest time - I guess because my brain hadn't fully formed - I assumed that these were the same people.

In retrospect, it was probably pretty obvious that this guy was secretly some weird, freaky sex offender type, but I was like 12 years old at the time, so of course I had no idea. Nullus! Then the stories started to come out. Bob Richards had been stalking some woman, leaving all kinds of freaky messages on her phone and flying his famous red airplane over her house at all hours of the night.

I can't remember whether or not it was actually reported in the news, or if it just spread quickly through the rumor mill that the woman in question just so happened to be a jiglady (a big deal in a less-than-enlightened town such as this). Either way, this was quickly the talk of the town. Then the shit really hit the fan when said jiglady went on the infamous Steve and DC morning show.

Like most people on talk radio, Steve and DC were notorious racists. At one point (and I can't remember whether this was before or after the Bob Richards incident) they were kicked off the radio for a year for using the dreaded n-word. Suffice it to say that they had no small amount of fun with this whole incident, repeatedly playing both the nasty answering machine messages and a sound effect of his plane buzzing over her house.

Literally like the next day Bob Richards went up in his little red airplane for the last time and nose dived that shit hard into the ground near the airport. It was weird because I remember watching the news that night and first they reported that some dumb fellow had crashed his plane and then later on they had to report that said dumb fellow was none other than their own damn weatherman, Bob Richards. I can't remember who actually did the weather that night; probably that bum John Fuller.