Bob's brief bio

Bob was born in 1934 and led a busy life until circa 2007: spent a lot of time in airports and on airplanes (so, well-read) - lived in 27 locations on three continents (traveled on three more). Had one wife (died 1987) and have three sons, three granddaughters, and one grandson. Did a lot of different things including infantry rifleman (Korea draftee), Fulbright Scholar (University of Melbourne – B.Ed. – 1960), computer programmer (IBM – 1960-1987 - mainly attended meetings and wrote reports), teacher (Central Texas College – 1987-1992 – data processing).

Favorite books include most PGW, Quiller-Couch’s “The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1918”, Ricks’ “The Oxford Book of English Verse”, McGann’s “The New Oxford Book of Romantic Period Verse”, Harington’s “Orlando Furioso” (also Slavit’s abridged translation), the Norton “The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850”), Putnam’s “Don Quixote” (also Montgomery’s), Dewey’s “The Quest for Certainty”, Stallings’ “The Nature of Things”, and Hudson’s “Far Away and Long Ago”.

Favorite movies include: 1959 "On the Beach" featuring me (as the Planesman) and Fred Astaire, 1998 “The Parent Trap”, 2003 “Secondhand Lions”.

Favorite philosophers include Hume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume), Dewey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey), Toulmin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Toulmin)

Favorite quotes include: "Not only is the universe stranger than we know, it is stranger than we can know." (variously worded, variously attributed - mainly to J. B. S. Haldane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.B.S.Haldane )

Favorite songs include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onefor_My_Baby_(and_One_More_for_the_Road) - Fred Astaire: One for My Baby (dance & song) - YouTube and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanie_with_the_Light_Brown_Hair

Favorite songsmiths include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Foster and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Porter

Summary:

Bob was born amid alien corn
and marched only to syncopated drumming
he met lots of strange people
dropped beautiful petals down soundless wells
lived over long good times gone

Rules:
Be the best you can be.
Do unto others as you would be done unto.
Pay to those who follow the debts you owe to those who went before.
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Smell the roses.

Faith:
Atheist by temperament; agnostic by intellect; high church by tradition; transactional epistemologist by choice