Remembering the Old Cobb

In 2007, Russell Bussiere, a longtime friend of our family, went missing while hunting in the same woods he had for as long as anyone can remember. A massive search and rescue operation was launched, including the National Guard, N.H. Fish and Game Department, and many volunteers. It was a tough search through snow and cold, and after a couple of weeks, the search was downgraded to a "recovery", instead of "rescue".

Smaller search parties journeyed out periodically, including cadaver-sniffing dogs, but to no avail. The winter of '07 & '08 brought a lot of snow to the area, further hampering efforts. Once the snow melted, small groups once again searched, hoping for closure, and after a couple of weeks, one friend of the family perservered and found Russell's body. Due to circumstances, nobody was able to determine how he died, but at least closure had been attained.

Russell loved the woods where he died, and knew them quite well. He also worked with granite for a major portion of his working life, and passed on his granite curb-setting business to his family, who still carry it on.

One of the most prevalent things I remember when I think of Russell is that he called his close friends "Cobb" a lot, and I always wondered what it meant. It's not a widespread word, and seems to be contained within the boundaries of the Suncook/Allenstown area of New Hampshire for some reason. I have done a little searching on it, and the closest I can come up with is an old Australian word "Cobber", meaning friend. I don't know if Russell ever went to Australia, but he was in the military as a young man, so it could have filtered down and around the world somehow and got shortened to "Cobb".

The reason why so many people turned out to help search for Russell is that he helped a lot of people over his lifetime. He was certainly his own man, and he could be very direct and to the point many times, but you always knew where he stood. Through the hard exterior, you always knew that he cared about people.

A few of his family members and I went to the spot where he was found, and placed this very fitting piece of Swenson Gray granite curbing to memorialize the man who called his friends Cobb. The bottle of Budweiser was left by his son Michael, as Russell did enjoy his refreshments:)

Rest easy, Cobb.