Deceased March 29, 1999
View alumni profile (log in required)
In Memory
Bob and I were roommates in freshman year, on the third floor of Stearns. On the surface, it seemed a combining of opposites—I was studious and shy, a graduate of a private school; Bob was a football player from a public school in Fitchburg. In many ways we weren’t very compatible—in fact, we never even ate a meal together in our entire time at Amherst.
Yet Bob was no stereotype, and he didn’t stereotype others, including me. As roommates often do, we talked a lot, often late at night—about relationships, religion, life in general. Bob was a Catholic, a former altar boy, and faith was a fundamental part of his being. Looking back to those days, I remember him as considerate, respectful of our differences and a decent person in the best sense of the word. The fact that we didn’t become closer friends at that time probably had as much to do with me as with him.
After graduation, we lost contact for about 10 years. I was living in Toronto, and one day I got a letter from Bob, indicating he was coming to Toronto for a marathon. (In the years after graduation, he had become serious about fitness and health—partly, I think, because of a family history of cardiac problems.) He proposed that we break our long-standing pattern and actually eat a meal together. Until that moment, I’d never even realized that we hadn’t ever done so, and it gave us a chance to talk again and catch up on what had been happening in our lives. As sometimes happens with people from the past, our lives had changed in similar ways; in the end, we became friends, rather than former roommates. Like me, Bob had become a psychologist, but whereas I became a teacher, he became a therapist, settling in Rhode Island, where I’d grown up. We talked about our views of psychology and therapy, relationships and life in general—much as we had talked in freshman year. I discovered that as both a therapist and a person, Bob was what is often called a humanist; he was concerned with peoples’ needs and trying to understand them in their own terms.
Over the next 20 years, we kept an irregular contact—mostly when I would be visiting Rhode Island to see my parents. Sometimes we’d get together, more often it was just a phone conversation. Bob had a gentle nature and positive outlook that was evident in any interaction—about people, his family, his friends, his clients—and was willing to go out of his way to be helpful. For example, I remember how, as my mother began to show signs of dementia about seven years ago, Bob did research on my behalf about care facilities in Rhode Island, and other resources. He also took the time to follow up to see if he could do anything else. Of course, I was a friend, but I sensed that wasn’t why he did it. Mostly it was because he had seen many times how such situations affect people and trying to help was simply the right thing to do.
I learned of Bob’s death when my father saw his death notice in the Providence paper. I hadn’t spoken to Bob in a year or so—one of those cases where we think, “I can do it later.” Now, that won’t happen, and I can’t really express how that saddens me. By renewing contact with me, 10 years after Amherst, Bob reminded me in a very direct way that life is full of possible friendships, if we take advantage of the opportunities as they come our way. I’m happy to have had the opportunity to know Bob; I just wish there’d been more time.
Bill Glassman ’69