Bob ‘the Bullet’ Biniak tributes

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Groundbreaking skateboarder Bob Biniak was so uneasy with fame that he once drove around the block seven times before dropping his wife off at a Westside gallery show of skateboarding photographs that undoubtedly featured him.

The last time he hopped on his skateboard — his wife wasn’t sure when that was — he was wearing flip-flops that, of course, led to disaster. As he was coming down a hill, a car pulled out of a driveway. To avoid it, he tried to brake with his foot. ‘The tip of the flip-flop touches, and he grinds his foot to the bone,’ said his wife, Charlene Capitolo-Biniak.

One of Robert Edward Biniak’s nicknames was based on his initials, REB, which led to ‘Rebel.’

‘He was a wild boy,’ his wife said, and laughed. ‘I knew who I was marrying.’

‘He also was the goofy, funny husband doing inappropriate things to get my goat,’ she said. ‘He would put a smile on your face in a second.’

His wife sent out the following e-mail regarding tributes being held for Biniak, who died of a heart attack at 51, and a fund set up for memorial donations to benefit the 5-year-old daughter he left behind.

-- Valerie J. Nelson