Memory
Faulty Exhaust, Firm Friendship
When I returned home from the Service in the spring of 1946, my father had moved his dental practice from Park City to Salt Lake. He and my mother had purchased a home at 2059 East 900 South just off of Foothill Boulevard. The Eyring family lived about three or four blocks west of my parents on 900 South in the original Monument Park Ward. My mother told me of Dr. Eyring’s fame as a scientist and I was anxious to meet the great man. I recall on a number of occasions walking by the Eyring brick home on 900 South and seeing Hal Eyring, a tall, slender, dark-headed teenage boy playing basketball in their driveway. I think he played on the varsity basketball team for East High School.
I was enrolled in a pre-med pre-dental program at the University of Utah and used the bus system to get to and from school. I caught the bus on 900 South near our home to 1300 East, and transferred to another bus to get to the university. Early one morning while waiting for the bus to take me to my usual eight o’clock class, Dr. Eyring drove by in his rather beat-up old car and offered me a ride to school. I jumped in and this began a very pleasant, and for me, fortuitous relationship. For the next two years, from 1946-1948 when I was married, Dr. Eyring picked me up at that bus stop many times. We always drove through the south gates of Fort Douglass up to the campus.
Several things about those rides with this famous scientist stand out in my mind. First, he was a delightful, friendly, unpretentious man—I liked him almost immediately. He had a quick wit and an engaging sense of humor, and he always spoke with great candor. Second, there was a leak in the exhaust system of his car and carbon monoxide seeped up through the floor boards, just about asphyxiating me by the time we reached the university. It didn’t seem to bother Dr. Eyring so I never mentioned it to him. The incongruity of a great scientist driving an old car with a faulty exhaust system always made me chuckle.
My soon-to-be wife’s brother, Dr. Truman Woodruff, was a Rhodes Scholar studying for his PhD at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California at the time. In the summer of 1946 Truman came to Salt Lake City specifically to take an advanced Chemistry course from Dr. Eyring. Truman confirmed to all of us the fame and international reputation of Professor Eyring. In our early morning discussions on the way to the University, Professor Eyring remembered Truman as a very capable student. I, of course, hoped my relationship with Truman would enhance my standing with Dr. Eyring.
When I graduated from the University of Utah in 1949, I applied to one dental school, The University of the Pacific in San Francisco, California. I needed two letters of recommendation and who better to write a letter in my behalf that the Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Utah and world-renowned scientist—my friend, Dr. Eyring. I feel certain his letter had much to do with my acceptance into the school.
Six years elapsed before I heard from Dr. Eyring again. I had graduated from dental school and was enrolled in the graduate orthodontic program at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. It was a surprise and pleasure to receive a note in the mail from Dr. Eyring inviting me to a lecture he was presenting at the University. In the note, he included the date, time and location of the building on the UW campus. I think he had obtained my address in Seattle from my mother. I was impressed that he had been following my progress in professional schools through my mother and flattered that he would take the time to invite me to his lecture. As I recall I had difficulty finding the amphitheater where he was lecturing so I arrived a few minutes after he had been introduced and started his lecture. Since there were over one hundred men and women in attendance, he didn’t know I was sitting there among the egghead graduate Chemistry students and professors. Although I had studied Chemistry up through Biochemistry—Chemistry was my favorite subject—I didn’t understand much of what he said and I told him so after the admirers and well-wishers had left. I shook his hand, thanked him for inviting me, and told him I didn’t understand most of his lecture. He replied in his typical self-deprecating manner, “Blaine, don’t worry, there are many things I don’t understand either.”
This brief meeting at the University of Washington brought to a close my relationship with one of the most interesting and likable men I have ever known.