My deepest sympathy to Sarges loved ones on his passing. He was a close friend from elementary school thru jr high and high school, and he always had a ready grin and warm interest in others. Hope he had a happy life after school days. 

Sarge and I grew up together. We were across-the-street neighbors for many years before he moved half a mile away to Wildwood. In those early days his back yard abutted Gidding's Field, which would eventually become a portion of the Beltway near Old Georgetown Road. I remember Sarge as always mechanically curious, including the day he got caught stuffing a screw driver into the tail pipe of a school bus parked in front of Grosvenor Elementary School to see what would happen when the bus' engine was ignited. Or meticulously constructing an independent suspension system for a go cart he was building. He was the first in the neighborhood to get a 10 speed bike and was always changing out components, which I swore made our bike hikes around the greater D.C. area easier for him than me. He even once towed me a good part of the way home from Sugar Loaf Mountain when my bike's derailleur snapped. Construction sites attracted him, be it biking parts of the unfinished Beltway to view its progress or much earlier, when we got caught playing in the piles of dirt of early in the construction of the Wildwood Shopping Center and were brought home in the back of a squad car. One winter, as pre-teens, we vacationed in Florida and spent a lot of time the beach building elaborate sand castles with tunnels and bridges and ramps to carry a descending ball to it's date with the sea. We lost contact over the years. The last time I saw Sarge--long long ago in a galaxy far far away--I visited him in his apartment in Virginia. He'd become an engineer. Funny, how the images of destiny are so often etched upon the curiosities of childhood. I recently had the vague feeling that Sarge had rejoined non-material reality and yet the news still came as a shock. Thanks, Sarge, for stimulating the mountains of shared memories I forgot that I'd forgotten! See you on the other side one of these days!  

Sarge, we go way back starting in kindergarten at Alta Vista - it is a unique and affectionate bond. You were a regular at my summer birthday party each year -- you will always be my grade school pal. 

Our hearts go out to you at this time and in the days ahead.

National Funeral Home & Memorial Park

Robert Sargent

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OBITUARY

Robert A. Sargent

28 February, 1949 – 1 December, 2017

National Funeral Home & Memorial Park

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