Remembering Bob

Bob and I came to Willamette within a year of each other. What I will
always remember about Bob was his amazing sense of humor. His wit was
dry and he never missed a trick. Any reference you might make, he would
pick right up on and let you know he appreciated it. Back in the day
when Charlie Wallace could not get through a benediction without a Monty
Python reference, we would always share a knowing laugh or follow up
with other one-liners from the same or similar bits. I don't think I
ever had a conversation with Bob when we didn't laugh about something.
Usually, we laughed a lot.

Because our careers at Willamette began in proximity to each other, we
tended to be very close to each other in the order of march for things
like Convocation and Commencement. For Commencement 2011 we marched
together and sat next to each other for the entire ceremony. It was not
the first time...but it was the last time that I got to spend with Bob.
We shared some observations and enjoyed a few laughs, as always.

Bob and I both participated in the very first days of days of
Worldviews, a time of bold experimentation which is to say it was a time
when we plunged in to an enterprise not quite sure what we were doing.
Something kind of magical happened that first year when on a typical
Friday, after class was over, sometimes you just stepped out of your
building perhaps to breathe some fresh air and to utter a sigh of
relief. You'd look around and there would be colleagues who had also
just finished teaching and soon we would be chatting. What did you do
today? How did you handle that John Stuart Mill reading? What began as
something completely spontaneous eventually got institutionalized into
regular Friday gatherings or seminars for those teaching in Worldviews.
The tradition continues today with the College Colloquium faculty. I
can't remember if Bob was one of the architects of Worldviews--I have
the sense that he was--but he was certainly an important voice in those
early years. He was a smart, compassionate man with a wonderful laugh
and like Ken said, I already miss him a lot!

Ron Loftus

--
Ronald P. Loftus
Director, Center for Asian Studies
Professor of Japanese Language and East Asian History
Department of Japanese and Chinese
Willamette University
900 State St.
Salem, OR 97301
Tel.: 503 370-6275, 503 507-9391(cell)
Fax: 503 375-5398
http://www.willamette.edu/~rloftus/