Bobby Cummins Tribute

November 14, 2025

By Larry Carlin

For those of you who are wondering who I am, my name is Larry Carlin. Bobby and I go way back. About 60 years. I can’t recall the first time that we officially met in the Bob White Farm neighborhood, but I know that the Cummins family moved in in 1965. As kids, we only had one place to hang out there back then, and it was in the park behind their place where the original Bob White house and barn used to be. I am a year older than him, and we attended different grade schools – I went to MDP and he went to Roberts – so we weren’t in the same classes. But there was something that drew us together when we were young. Maybe it was the fact that we were both redheads? The connection may have also been because my father – like so many others in the neighborhood – would take the family cars to Art Cummins Exxon on 202 for gas, repairs and inspections, so I already knew the family name. It’s hard to know exactly, and we certainly had no idea back then that we would go on to be friends for the next six decades.

In the summertime Bobby and his classmate Jim Peacock, who lived down on Weadley Road, and I would ride bikes around the neighborhood and hang down at the park. There would occasionally be pick-up baseball games or maybe we’d swing across the creek where someone had strung up a rope swing. When we got a little older, a big outing would be riding the bikes down to the Village Mart for TastyKakes and cokes. Or maybe even a hoagie or cheesesteak at Pete-Za-Rama. In later years, we’d cycle down to the end of King of Prussia Road, hide the bikes in the bushes, and then walk over the railroad trestle and make our way to the Plaza to hang out on a Saturday, since there was no real downtown King of Prussia to go to.

When I turned 16 in 1970 and got my driver’s license, it was time to leave the bikes behind. I would occasionally be allowed to use the family car to either drive to the Plaza, maybe to the Valley Forge Drive-In, or just cruise around the King with the guys. The Burger King was the hip place to hang out in back then, but without owning my own car, it wasn’t very cool to be trying to hang with a Ford Fairlane station wagon.

But in 1971, when both Bobby and Jim turned 16, they got cars of their own, and this is when the fun was taken to the next level. Jim’s first was a 1960 Ford three-speed hotrod, and I believe that Bobby had an early ‘60s white Chevy Bel Air sedan. A short time later, Jim upgraded to a 1960 pink Cadillac, which was one cool car to cruise around in. At this point Bobby was also working at his father’s service station, and sometimes Jim and I would hang out there on a Saturday night while many of the dudes with hot cars would stop by for gas or just to chat.

Before long either Bobby stopped working on Saturday nights or the station started closing earlier. Whatever the case, this freed us up to start doing some things that mischievous teens are often apt to do.

The craziest night that I ever had – there are three hours of my life that still remain a mystery to this day – was one evening at Bobby’s house with Jim. Bobby’s parents were out for the night, and Bobby had scored some vodka from his father’s liquor cabinet. So, we made some Screwdrivers, and with us being young and stupid, we downed a couple of glasses in a short amount of time. Before long, my head started spinning, we got really goofy, and somehow, I went running out the back door of the house towards the park. My next memory was of me walking back up the stairs to the house three hours later, wet from the evening dew and missing a shoe. Mrs. Cummins answered the door, and she said, “Where the hell have you been?” Everyone had been looking for me, and even the police were called. Thankfully my father was friends with Officer Brennan, who drove me to our house and handed me over to my parents, and told them “Not to worry about this.” This was the first and last time that I ever blacked out from drinking alcohol, and I have never touched vodka or seldom tasted hard liquor since.

The drinking age at that time was 21 in PA, but only 18 in New Jersey. Sometimes on a Saturday night we would get into Jim’s car and go by either Jose’s Plantation Inn in Mount Pleasant or the Ridge Tavern in Norristown, where I, being the oldest, would go in with a fake ID and try to purchase a sixpack of 16-ounce cans of Schmidt’s beer. I was always petrified to do this, but I can still feel that wave of euphoria when I walked out of the bar without getting arrested. We’d then drive around the King drinking beers and listening to the 8-track recording of the Sticky Fingers album by the Rolling Stones. How we never got busted for doing things like this, I’ll never know.

Other times we would tell our parents that we were staying over at each other’s house, and instead we’d drive down to Somers Point at the Jersey Shore and start drinking beers at the Anchorage, where you got seven small glasses of beer for one dollar. From there it was a short trip to a big nightclub called The Dunes, which opened later, had bands playing, and was allowed to remain open until 6 a.m. We would stagger out of there around 3-4 a.m. and somehow make the long trip back to Wayne after being up all night.

And then there were concerts at the Spectrum in Philly. I can recall going with Bobby to see the Allman Brothers, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Moody Blues, and Jetro Tull. During these shows, as you might imagine, some weed was passed around. But of course – like a former president once claimed – I never inhaled!

I graduated from Upper Merion in 1972, and Bobby got married for the first time in 1973. Before long I ended up going to the Penn State main campus in State College, and after finishing at UM in June of 1973 and having his first child, Amy, Bobby began working full-time at the service station, and it was around this time that our lives began to go down different paths. We’d see each other on my trips back home from school, but his hands were full as a husband and dad when his second daughter, Amanda, arrived three years later. But in 1979 I made a decision that really put some physical distance between us, yet if not for his help, I may never have made it out to the West Coast, where I have been living for the past 46+ years.

At the end of January of 1979, I left State College in a funky blue Chevy Vega that I got from my father. My plan was to drive out to California in a few days, after going back to the King to say goodbye to friends and family. I stopped by the station to have Bobby take a look at the Vega to make sure that it was in solid running condition, and he took one look at it, and me, and said, “You aren’t going anywhere in this piece of junk!”

Imagine my shock and surprise! Here I was planning on leaving the next day on a 3,000-mile journey, and Bobby was telling me that I probably wouldn’t even make it out of the state before it broke down. He said, “Let me ask around, and I will see what I can find for you.”

A couple of hours later he called and said, “I know some customers that have a 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass for sale that has low mileage and has been kept in a garage. You can buy it for $750.” Which is the equivalent today of $3,350. At the time I had saved up about $1500 for my drive west, and the Cutlass would wipe out half of my savings. He said, “Trust me, my friend, you really need to buy this car.”

And I did. Two days later I packed all of my clothes and guitars into the Olds, and I headed out from PA with neighborhood friend Brian Sweeney in tow as my co-pilot. We drove south first to visit my brother Jim in Florida (and to avoid snow in the Midwest), and two weeks later we landed in Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge, where I have been ever since. If it wasn’t for Bobby finding me that car on such short notice, there is a good chance that I never would have left the King. And I have been forever grateful to him for this.

Over the decades, I would stop by the station on my trips back east, or we would meet somewhere for a beer. In later years, after my parents passed away, I no longer had family cars to borrow when I went back to visit. So, I began to rent Hertz cars from Bobby. He always took care of me. He advised me to make a reservation in advance for the smallest car, and he would magically upgrade me to something really nice for no extra charge.

A few decades back, in 1988, he came out to visit me with our mutual friend, Bob Reinbold. I took them on a tour of the San Francisco area, and we had a great time. There are some photos here today from that visit. But my fondest memory is of one day when we were sitting on my front porch at my house in Sausalito. We were drinking some beers, and as young guys are sometimes wont to do, we had a belching contest. We were belting out some good ones and having a fun time. All of a sudden, from across the street, my old battleax neighbor opened up her door and yelled, “Get any on ya?” and then slammed the door shut. We busted up laughing uproariously over this, and for years to come, when we’d get together, one of us would utter that question to the other.

Bobby was an excellent car mechanic, and as everyone here knows, he eventually took over the business when his father retired, and he continued working there until he closed the place in 2015. At the time of the closure, he confided to me that, while he was sad that he would no longer have his own business and be his own boss, he was looking forward to not having to work on Saturday mornings nor ever having to clean another restroom. Since then, he worked at a couple of different repair places in the area, and to me, at least, he seemed to be doing just fine.

The last time I saw him was in July, when I was back visiting. He and I and Mike Ross met for a beer at the Valley Forge Firehouse, and it was a good time. We talked about the Phillies, the old neighborhood, his grandkids, my music gigs, old battleax Bertha, and more. He never mentioned being depressed or concerned about anything, and I left there that day being thankful for the six decades of friendship. I reached out to him again in late August when I was back to attend a wedding, but he was having some health issues and was in the hospital for a few days, so we did not meet up. We did have a nice chat, and he said that he would see me the next time I came back.

That “next time” wasn’t supposed to be until next summer, but here I am, back much sooner than expected. And I am just as shocked and saddened by his passing as everyone else here is. And despite the government shutdown and countless flights being canceled, I just had to come and say goodbye.

We had some great times over the last 60 years, and the memories will always be with me. The Cutlass is long gone, and I have often wondered how my life would have turned out 46 years ago if my longtime pal, Bobby Cummins, hadn’t looked out for my well-being and set me up with that car.

My heart goes out to Rich, Barbara, Lynn, Amy, Amanda, all the grandkids, and to all of you. Bobby was a father, grandfather, brother, uncle, a friend to many, and indeed, one of the good ones. He has now been reunited with his mentor and brother, Ronnie, who left this world way too soon in 1969.

My friend, as the line from the song that I often sing reads, “You are always in my heart, you’re often on my mind.”