Jan and I read the news today here in Tokyo, and we felt absolute devastated. Although our paths had gone in somewhat different directions in the last few years and we saw less of Bob, it wasn't because we thought
or felt the less of him. Our shared time here brought us together in so very many ways, and I never enjoyed working with anyone more than Bob.
Perhaps two of those times stand out as most memorable. One was the chance to work with Bob along with David Goodney as members of the "troika" in the first iteration of Victorian World Views. There wasn't a
better person than Bob with whom to navigate uncharted waters, and his unflagging enthusiasm, his willingness to work endless hours and his camraderie made the job enormously fun and rewarding.
The second time was when Bob was associate dean and Julie Carson had to take a leave of absence for about 8 months. I joined Bob in the deanery for that time, and Bob maintained throughout a delirious sense that the
universe had finally had the good sense to turn the asylum over to the inmates. He took the oddities of the job and turned them all into great stories. He turned the discomfort of the unrelenting round of appointments for people like us who lacked the experience to schedule toilet breaks into long stories about what how the motormen on the Chicago buses used to solve the problem through the use of a "motorman's friend,"
a small tank strapped to the ankle and supplied by a hose that ran down the leg from the upper regions. Or the gusto with which he reported back from a national convention of associate deans that he had attended with
the comforting news that all the other associate deans he met agreed with him that the most important and absorbing part of the job was moving furniture.
He was a great friend and a wonderful colleague. I miss him terribly already.
Ken Nolley
Professor of English and Film Studies, Willamette University
