The crowd is roaring as the runners streak down the track toward the finish line.  It is a close race.  I’m standing along the fence with my fingers through the chain-link, leaning forward for a better view.  Our guy is in second place.

Next to me, on my left, my friend Doug is yelling encouragement to our guy.  On my right stands Dan, who is yelling even louder.  Dan has a POWERFUL voice to say the least.

Just a couple of feet before the tape, our guy pulls into the lead and wins the race and we go nuts, cheering. 

Dan grins from ear to ear and turns to Doug and me and says about the winner---as if we hadn’t figured it out yet---“He’s CHEMISTRY major!”

Dan has taught chemistry for 40 years.  There are more professional chemists, chemistry teachers, researchers and doctors running around out there in the world who have Dan to thank for at least a portion of their educations than you can shake an Erlenmeyer flask at.

Not only has he TAUGHT chemistry---he has DONE chemistry, working on research projects through the years and continuing to publish papers and work in such distinguished places as the Oakridge National Laboratory.

On our many bicycle rides and cross-country ski journeys together, I am constantly amazed at his knowledge of other topics, including philosophy, the history of science, biological evolution, religion and the proper way to paddle a canoe.  In fact, regarding that last topic, he once instructed me from an inverted position as we went through a pipe under a bridge upside down.

“That’s <blub blub> not quite <blub blub> how it is <blub> supposed to be <blub blub> done.”

I’m forever testing his knowledge by deliberately throwing out tidbits of misinformation, just to see if he catches them.

“Why, everyone knows that tri-ethylene-phosphate will only bond with esters of nickelodeon sleasium in the presence of a leviticum catalyst,” I’ll say to a group of science illiterates. 

“Harrrumpphhh!” Dan will say, choking on his coffee, and then he’ll drop into the conversation to correct the one or two little deliberate mispronunciations or errors of fact I have used. He’s such a card!

Back to that powerful voice:  it is powerful. 

When we see a loose dog along our bike route, we make Dan go first.  The dog will race out to attack Dan’s ankle.  Dan will wait until just the right moment and then aim his cannon of a voice at the dog and yell, “NO! BAD DOG! YOU GO HOME!” and the dog, who is ALREADY home, will, if it weighs more than 30 pounds, flip over backwards from the shock of the sound waves, and will run to somebody ELSE’S home and we will never see it again.

If the dog is smaller than 30 pounds, it will go airborne.  I have seen Dan keep as many as 3 small attacking dogs simultaneously suspended in midair for up to 14 seconds just by yelling at them.

He is famous for a lot of things, and one of them is accessibility to his students. He usually keeps office hours until sometime around 1:00 a.m.  Now, this does mean that he may doze off in his office during “normal” hours, but that is perfectly acceptable. One of the biology professors told me that just the other day he was in the classroom across from Dan’s office and a chemical question came up.  He hollered across the hall:  “DAN?” 

A pause.  Then, “HUH?  WHAT?”

The biologist hollered the question across the hall, and the answer immediately came booming back.

He is retiring in May.  Man, oh man, is that big grin, that big voice, that big brain and that big hearted guy going to be missed.

                            © by Jim Whitehouse

                                                    Index