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When Easton world traveler Robert Bull went to Russia 20 years ago, he never expected to fall in love. He had recently lost his wife to breast cancer and was looking for time alone with his camera and the eclectic scenery along the Volga River.
"I was taking a picture of the church at the Kazan Kremlin," Bull recalls. "There were all these wires hanging down. ... All the sudden I hear this voice behind me, 'What you going to do about all those wires?' That's how we met."
Robert and Lois have since married and traveled the world together. "It's wonderful to be 88 and have such interests," Lois said of her husband. "He is gardening or delivering food or whatever." He also plays tennis once a week.
Robert was a professional photographer for years. He was one of the first to film football games for coaches with Winik Films. "If you drew a line from Pittsburgh to Washington [D.C.], we did all the NCAA stuff there."
The NFL then came knocking on his door. Then it was the NBA. But this hardly has any effect on him. As a young man in the Army during World War II, he was given official copies of 680 portraits of Allied leaders commissioned by President Roosevelt. The original portraits are in the Library of Congress. His head and heart have been full of steam ever since.
For 75 years he's been a drummer, and in the twilight of his life he finds himself spending more and more time with his three bands -- a four-piece horn group called The Bantam Band, the Swing for Jazz Quintet and his big band project, Golden Angels Jazz Band. He arranges all the music.
With retirement nowhere in sight, perhaps Robert's secret is his success: "Don't ever retire and not have something that you want to do, that you want to become, that you want to start." he advised. "The worst thing you can do is retire, and what are you going to do? 'I'm going to sit on the beach and read.' Forget it. You'll be dead in a couple of years."
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