Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Our friend Dick Bennett has passed away

I had to wait until my emotions cleared before posting about DB. I really enjoyed reading all of the different posts about the connections with him and the way he had of personally connecting with so many!
From the beginning of my interaction with this site, I immediately became friends with Dick, because we seemed to understand each other. It wasn't hard to get to know the man, if you took a few moments and really listened to him. He was very kind hearted and at the same time misunderstood, because of his gruff exterior. I think it was his way of keeping the phonies at bay!
Our interactions over the years seem to mirror much of the way that he interacted with many of the rest of you. It seems he was great with the PM messages, and used it as his preferred method of interaction with the membership. We had many phone conversations in the past, but much more frequent was the occasional PM that contained his opinion on a subject, and every once in a great while, he would offer up a question on something! I never really knew if the question was sincere, or just a method he used to open another conversation.
Sometimes the messages were daily and at other times it would be a few weeks before another interaction, but you could always count on it happening! It seemed that anytime I asked a technical question, he had the answer at the tip of his tongue, and never had to refer to any materials, he had the info stored in his brain!
I was privileged enough to have his personal cell number on speed dial and if you had access to that phone number, you had a wealth of information available. I remember the first time I called him on his cell and he snapped at me as to how I got the number! I replied that he had sent it to me in a PM, so that I could call him in the future, and he laughed and said "Oh that's right"! I felt sort of "approved of" when I got that from him.
For the first couple years that I knew DB, he often referred to me as "NEWBIE", and I once asked him how long it took to be shed of that moniker? He replied that he would let me know when I got there, and guess what!!! That day never did arrive, but there was a time when he finally stopped referring to me as "NEWBIE", and maybe that was my graduation day? For him to officially tell me that would have been for him to admit that I actually knew something, and I believe it was just his way of telling me without ever really acknowledging it. He used that method with a lot of things and I imagine that the rest of you experienced the same thing in one way or another!
Every once in a while, an event like this reminds me of my own mortality and brings me back to earth again. It is too easy to get so taken up with daily life that we forget the importance of faith and friends on this journey we call life. The enjoyment we get from our self imposed journey and possessions, tend to transcend the "REAL" things that surround us and are available if we can only notice them, and it seems to take events like this to bring us back to reality and the really important things in life!
I am truly saddened with the loss of DB and felt like we had a kinship of sorts, as we were only 2 or 3 months apart in age (him being older). We grew up at the same time in this world, just on different paths and different locations, but we both experienced the same world history and watched the same world unfold. From 1948 until now, has been a great time to be alive, and one of the greatest treasures I gained in this time, is the insight and friendship given to me by others like Dick. These will carry me through to the end, but I will really miss the loss of future interaction with him. We have all lost a great friend--mentor--teacher--collector--historian!! Rest in peace Dick Bennett--Rest in Peace!!


Picture is Dick Bennett and Mick DsChida gutting a Tok 36B in the Iowa Gas parking lot--2011