Goodbye Dr. Bob

Dr. Robert Phillips, better known as Bob to the Lanza lab people, passed away this Sunday and here is my very insignificant remembrance. If a doctorate degree still holds some classical and substantial importance, relating to the besting of obstacles, making of tough choices and living with them, not letting life merely take its course as one watches from the sidelines, and, finally, the opening up of the mind, I can safely say that Bob was deserving of it more than (much more than) any of us and anyone else that I know of. And he did it all while taking himself not too seriously, with refreshing cynicism and a great sense of humor. A person who, after working in a blue collar position for many years, decides to pursue B.S, M.S, and PhD degrees in his 40s must overcome self-doubts and the doubts of others the likes of which I will never know and never be able to appreciate. Perhaps this is why humility and self-effacement came so naturally to him. Perhaps this is why he never seemed to think of any kind of work as below him. I think there is something enormously important that Bob embodied. It didn't directly have to do with him doing a doctorate which was the only time I knew him. But it was about working very very hard for your dreams, whatever they might be, and being humble in the process. Goodbye Bob. I was lucky to have known you.