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5:45 p.m. The driver’s 1969 Volkswagen
Beetle veered to the right off of the road-
way and crashed into a large tree on the
right shoulder. The man was not wearing
his seatbelt and it appears he was killed
instantly.
Everyone who reads Pease Porridge
knows that Bob drove a 1969 Beetle.
Bob brought it up many times over the
years and just recently in a popular col-
umn about unintended acceleration.
Everyone knew this because Bob was
unrivaled as a columnist in this industry.
Though he was certainly an analog guru
who could write about the nuances of a
very difficult subject area, he also talked
about everyday (and not so everyday)
life situations.
Bob told me many times that his col-
umn was about thinking. Whenever he
tackled a topic, he essentially welcomed
readers into a dialogue about how to
properly think about that topic, at least
from Bob’s point of view. But, if you wrote
to him, he would always consider your
point of view as well and tell you what he
thought.
Bob was greatly saddened by the
death of Jim Williams. As you may know,
Jim died recently after a massive stroke.
During the following days, Bob corre-
sponded with me about Jim. In one e-
mail, which I think says a lot about the
way Bob thought and lived, he said: “Jim
did write more huge SYMPHONIES of
big Apps. Systems. I wrote more small
ones. We always had very similar ideas
on helping Users with Analog problems:
We never turned down a request for
Analog help. We agreed on that.” Then,
Bob said: “I am very SCRUPULOUS
about taking my 5 or 7.5 mg of Couma-
din every day. I don’t know if Jim was on
Coumadin. Coumadin = Warfarin = Rat
Poison, good for preventing Strokes.”
Bob also asked me to reprint part of
a column on doctoring that he had writ-
ten years ago about how to tell if some-
one was having a stroke. This particular
column, “What’s All This Floobydust,
Anyhow? (Part 14),” contains a section
called DOCTORING STUFF, PART 4C—
STROKE DIAGNOSIS.
In Bob’s grief about Jim, his first
thought was to let the readers of this
magazine know how to tell if someone is
having a stroke. He starts off the section
of this column by writing: “Many people
know that in case of a heart attack or
stroke, it is very important to get the vic-
tim to medical care very quickly, within
much less than an hour. But what do we
know about diagnosing such an unhap-
py person?” And he goes on from there
to impart his knowledge on this topic
and hopefully help someone save a life
someday.
Unfortunately, we now have to say
goodbye to Bob and all the wisdom he
so generously shared over so many
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