"I didn't have the heart to tell him that Baskin Robbins had also left," Kenneth Miller told Imabro, "but all the same, its very telling, he didn't even seem upset that he was being uprooted and leaving his community, his friends, the only things he ever knew."
Maybe Bobby isn't upset because he's the last of what has been a vast residential exodus from this cozy Lincoln neighborhood, located just north of the hustle and bustle of industrial Sacramento. Ten years ago, this neighborhood consisted of cookie cutter houses, wives playing tennis during the day, the sounds of school yard kids rustling and lunch bells.
Now its all but a ghost town.
While some have politely blamed the economy, others tell a much gloomier and darker tale. One that they say caused this exodus to begin ten years ago to date, but only became noticeably five years ago.
"The day Rochard pulled up with his mustang and unloaded the first box, the first thing I did was look at my wife and say, 'there is no fucking way I am living next to this fruit basket.'" We actually fought for days. My wife volunteers every month down at the Humane Society, so she believes every species deserves a chance. But she finally came around after he asked her if she could drop like 20 years, 30 pounds and fly to Phoenix for a weekend 'shoot.'"
And so it began, days that used to be filled with gleeful children playing on swingsets and romantic married couples on evening walks, now replaced with the sound of a roaring mustang. The annual neighborhood garage and yard sale usually the center square of socializing and welcoming spring, now a hostile war zone of those hiding and avoiding conversations with Rochard."He's just annoying to me. He was always talking about him and Hefner being buds, or revving up his "'stang" and "cruising" the neighborhood. He was like finger nails across a chalk board, or as my wife used to say, gasoline inside your intestines. However you wanna put it, it was uncomfortable. I know we lost Chili's over him, I'm still ticked." Kenneth continued.
Its true, a once thriving Chili's bar and Grill, now just another cookie cutter corporate wasteland.
"We tried to stay in business, but I couldn't keep the waitresses hired." Bill Rickom, former GM of Lincoln's Chilis Bar and Grill, told Imabro in a non-exclusive interview.
"He was constantly in here offering the waitresses rides, telling them he'd take them cruising in his "'stang." He would just sit in the bar and stare at them. Sometimes he'd hand them aluminum Playboy business cards. Our bartender girl told me that the cards always appeared old and she questioned if he even worked there."
Other neighbors, like some that asked to have their identities concealed due to fears that Rochard might figure out how to use Google, used more elaborate methods to try to get Rochard to move out.
"We tried everything to get him to leave, hell, we even had some of the neighbors convince him that they were parking their cars in our driveway and that we didn't actually live there, just so he'd think we left. I know one neighbor replaced the yard with dirt, he was trying to send a message to Rochard. In a biblical sense, the message was that Rochard causes vast droughts and famine. None of it worked though."
At one point, most residents claimed that most of their lives had been transformed from suburban paradise, to a life spent on the run from being cornered by Rochard and being forced to listen to his stories and politics.
We interviewed several local Drs. throughout the community, they all agreed that while Rochard is annoying, its not something that will effect long term health and most former residents should expect to feel 100 percent again within a month after relocating.
"The important thing is to get right back on the saddle. Start interacting with people again, go to community events and invite new neighbors over. The key in getting Rochard out of your mind is being proactive and having a positive attitude."
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