SAVED

How one man’s journey and passion separated him from those he loves… and brought him closer to God.

The rain dances onto fans as they pour out of the Kenmore T stop and onto the Brookline Avenue bridge. They pass an assortment of sights that have become synonymous with the area: the iconic Citgo sign and the popular UNOs Pizzeria. These images become so familiar that they’re taken for granted and, eventually, ignored completely.

Someone who no one can ignore, no matter how hard they try, is the aging six-foot man that stands at the corner of Lansdowne Street. For years he’s stood outside of Fenway, and he’s slowly become a part of the Kenmore Square experience.  As water falls off the brim of his ‘Jesus Saves’ baseball cap, Bob Whetstone attempts to hand out pamphlets supporting his belief: if you are not saved by Jesus, you will inevitably end up in hell.

Fans who pass him try to walk by with the same glazed look that they give to UNOs and the Citgo Sign. There’s no denying everyone’s intrigue with Bob’s sign, though, and no one can deny their natural instinct to sneak a peek. The image is unsettling; a modern-day street broken in two, with people falling into the flames of Hell. The phrase “Saved by Jesus or Lost to Hell” is written along the top.

Bob is able to catch the attention of a young woman, who grabs one of his pamphlets. Her partner immediately dismisses it.

“What he’s saying is nonsense,” he said, “That Jesus guy is always here.”

“He has the right to say whatever he wants like everyone else,” says his partner.

“He’s not like everyone else, he’s nuts.”

No, he’s isn’t necessarily like everyone else, and he isn’t necessarily crazy, either. When it comes down to it, ‘Jesus Guy’ is just someone who is extremely passionate about one particular thing, much like the fans attending Fenway Park are with the Sox.

Of course, few people take their passions as far as the man standing outside of Fenway, hoping to steer people away from Hell. Few people leave their future wife over the choice of a church. Few people would ruin a relationship with their brother because of a book. And few people would decide to have no consistent income or shelter to spread the word of God.

That is the tale of Bob Whetstone… the ‘Jesus Guy’.

***

The birthdate on Bob’s birth certificate reads July 29^th, 1949. The date of significance, though, is July 17^th 1977. This is Bob’s “spiritual birthday”, or the day he was finally saved.

The first 28 years of his life were certainly unique but, in his opinion, insignificant. Growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a city named after the birthplace of Jesus, Bob didn’t lead a religious life. He had a relatively close family, and was particularly close to his brother, Tom.

Bob worked a variety of jobs as a young adult, driving trucks for Roadway Express and crunching numbers for GNC Finance. Yet he couldn’t identify a particular skill, relying on inconsistent jobs that he wasn’t very good at.

“I didn’t really have a career,” Bob said, “That’s the one thing I can say. I liked to work, I was honest. I just didn’t have any real talents. Some people are musicians or artists. I didn’t have that.”

Bob eventually packed up his bags and traveled to the northwest. He had a particular love for the outdoors, and eventually discovered a talent for fly-fishing.  He lived in rest areas and traded fishing lessons for food.

“It was wonderful, it was beautiful,” Bob said, “I love the outdoors. It was the only thing that was real to me. It seemed like other things were fake somehow.

“That’s when I started realizing something was more, and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have a clue.”

Bob had dismissed the Bible as a “fairytale”, but when his sister handed his mom several Christian books, Bob felt compelled to start reading.

“That’s when the Holy Spirit started working on me and showing me that this was really what I was looking for,” he explained, “I really didn’t care about God; I wasn’t a religious person at all. My religion was nature.”

Bob began fascinating over Christianity and eventually found himself “saved”. That date was July 17^th 1977, the day Bob’s relationship with God was established, and the day many of his other relationships began to deteriorate.

***

Bob had been seeing a woman, who he wished to remain unnamed, for several years. While Bob’s inconsistent income made them apprehensive about marriage, he acknowledged that the two probably would have wed.

The two had started bickering over whose church to attend. Bob was willing to compromise; they’d visit his church in the morning and her church at night. She needed a day to think about it.

“And I got saved that night,” Bob said, “I called her up and I said ‘I’m saved and I’m going to heaven and I want you to go to my church.’ My life had dramatically changed.

“And she didn’t want to go out with me no more.”

Bob found further isolation in his own family when his sister-in-law forced her husband to sever ties with him. Tom had been a public schoolteacher for 15 years and suddenly wanted to become a Christian schoolteacher. His wife, who organized the curriculum for Tom’s entire district, wouldn’t allow it.

“I think his wife was putting pressure on him,” Bob said, “She didn’t want him to change. So he wasn’t allowed to talk to me.”

With an unexpected change in perspective and no one to rely on, Bob traveled to Boston to attend the Baptist Bible College. One summer evening after his second year at the school, Bob met a mysterious woman, a “prophet”, who showed him the picture that now accompanies him everywhere.

“The lord sent her to me,” Bob said, “I never met her before in my life. God called me to take this picture out. That day God spoke to me through her.”

Soon, Bob was traveling around the country attending large public gatherings. Churches in the area allowed Bob to crash in the pews and raid their fridge in exchange for public advertising. Bob was fine with that, since he had no other source for shelter or income.

“God took care of me for 27 years,” Bob says, referring to the fact that he now receives social security, “I didn’t ask for anything, not a single penny. When I needed something, I asked God.

“I had people give me money. Not all the time, just when I needed stuff. People I never met, don’t even know their names, would walk right up to me with a hundred dollar bill! Whoever does that?”

With the random donations, Bob’s been able to afford to take his sign to the beaches of Miami. It was during one of these trips that Bob stopped by his father’s apartment and learned of Tom’s condition.

Diabetes had been common in the Whetstone family, and Tom had been unable to avoid the curse. The disease was destroying his kidneys, left him 90% blind and put him on his deathbed. Bob soon learned of another bombshell: his sister-in-law had killed herself.

“All this stuff happened to his family,” Bob said, “So I prayed for him, and I planned on seeing him.”

With the barrier between him and his brother suddenly gone, Bob rushed to Pennsylvania to visit Tom. When he walked in the hospital room, he could tell his brother had changed.

“I knew he was different,” he explained, “He said ‘we’re more than brothers now’. He said that he had almost died and had finally made peace with God. I could see that he was different. He was smiling and happy.

“And I said, ‘Praise God, I’ve been praying for you for 30 years!”

That was the last time Bob would see his brother. Tom died less than three months later.

***

As the rain continues to fall, Bob is reminded of his brother, and the good times that the two had together.

“We always used to play out in the woods, in the rain,” Bob said, “Those were always the best times.”

Right then, an intoxicated individual approaches and begins berating Bob with insults. The man calls him “nuts” and “a Jesus Freak”. Bob lets it roll off his shoulders.

“I don’t care what they say to me, they can tell me to go to Hell,” he said, “It’s when people start blasting Jesus that I get angry.”

So he doesn’t care that people might think he’s crazy?

“Well some people maybe think I’m a little too radical,” he ponders aloud, “but if they talk to me a little bit, they usually realize I’m not some kind of nut cake.

“I’m basically just a normal guy… a normal guy with a different passion.”