RIP - R.L. (Bob) Burns, Sr.

This one's a long, personal post, so feel free to skip. Bob Burns passed away late last year, although I didn't know it until it showed up a couple months ago in the obit section of C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News). . Bob was a fellow chemist, and a graduate of Rutgers University. Somehow he ended up working in State College, Pennsylvania, home of Penn State University, and one of my alma maters. . I first crossed paths with Bob in the late 90's when I had to revise our company's Chemical Hygiene Plan, which at the time was a holy mess. Most CHP's are 20-30 pages long; ours was a 600-page monstrosity. Having no idea where to begin, I went out to a Usenet site and yelped for help. Bob not only responded, but also offered to send me a copy of the CHP he developed for his company. I quickly accepted, and it became the template for our CHP. . The story might have ended there with no first-hand contact, but by a stroke of luck about a year later, I had to make a business trip to a customer about 40 miles outside State College. So I flew in the night before, and met him where he worked. He gave me a tour of the place, we chit-chatted, and I got to thank him for sharing the CHP. . About a year after that, we crossed paths again - this time at the ACS national convention in Las Vegas. Neither he nor I care for gambling, so after the meetings, we shared a dinner and a bottle of wine at the casino's Mexican restaurant, then both learned exactly what is meant by a "traditional Vegas show". There's a longer story there. but we swore each other to secrecy. . Bob retired in 2003. He wasn't big on communicating by e-mail, but I'd occasionally send him a "funny", chide him about the woeful state of Rutgers athletics, and see how he was liking retirement. . He in turn would give me a short update, pooh-pooh us cretins who followed collegiate sports (he felt that the NCAA was totally irrelevant to a place of higher academic learning), and chide me for not being retired yet. His automatic e-mail signature read, "When you're retired, every day is Saturday". A couple years ago, it just worked out to where Rutgers University wound up playing Arizona State University (my other alma mater) in a bowl game here in Phoenix. I had him half talked into coming out with his wife to see the game. . The last time I checked up on him, he had bad news. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Which left me feeling like I had put my foot in my mouth. Naturally, he was bummed, but said he had his family around him to give him lots of support, so he was in good hands. I never heard from him again. . Regardless of your spiritual/religious beliefs; the truth is (as my plumber racquetball-playing philosophizing buddy notes) most of us are only going to be remembered here on earth for about two succeeding generations. For instance, I recall my grandparents, but my great-grandparents were long gone when I came into this world. For all extents and purposes, those great-grandparents - their dreams, accomplishments, thoughts, loves, lives and people's memories of them - have disappeared. . So this post is in remembrance of Bob Burns. You can read the career aspects of his life in the April 13 issue of C&EN. But that doesn't tell you about his essence. I have no photo of him. but as long as this blog exists (and who knows how long Google will allow that), he will not be totally forgotten. He had a dry wit, would go out of his way to help a total stranger, loved his family and chemistry, and his passing leaves this world a slightly sadder place.