I don't know how it is in other lines of business, but in journalism you continually field correspondence from utter wackos and complete lunatics. Now I just ignore them or press the delete button. As a younger man I would sometimes entertain them. I'm glad I did, because that's how Bobby Bryde came off initially. He sent me a one-line e-mail ripping me for something and signed it simply "b," as if I was supposed to know what that meant. I responded, and we gradually came to know each other pretty well. Bryde was whip-smart, cynical and witty as hell, and he had a big heart. As the traditional folk song goes, "He was, he was a friend of mine."
Unless you're in the small minority of gamblers who bet on hockey, you might not have heard of Bobby Bryde.
As Bryde would never hesitate to tell you in his inimitable way, he was not part of the city's gaming establishment, or what he considered the "inner circle" of well-known local sports betting figures.
The only thing Bryde cherished more than his outsider status was his reputation as a tough guy, a hard-liner, a rough-and-tumble, take-no-prisoners gambling iconoclast.
All of which he probably was. But I was lucky to know another side of his personality, too.
