We all share the same human experience. So we all know the heartfelt loss at the passing of an individual such as Gene Smith. I was Gene's first graduate student. When I first met Gene at UCSD, little did I know how intimately I was to get to know him. After all, I was working in UCSD's infrared astronomy group and Gene was an optical astronomer. But life has a funny way of throwing people together. And as I started working on my thesis topic, the observation and interpretation of QSO hydrogen emission lines, the senior person in the IR group (Tom Soifer) left UCSD for Caltech and Gene was the obvious replacement. Over the next years I spent a lot of time with Gene at observatories and interpreting the data. My thesis observations were a major effort involving 15 observing runs on the Lick 3 meter, Kitt Peak 4 meter, and the Cerro Tololo 4 meter. That kind of observing time comes to a grad student only when his advisor makes your project the major focus of his own research and then steps back to allow you to take most of the glory. And there are lots of stories. The trip to Cerro Tololo is still vivid in my mind. It involves building two (not one) of the most sensitive near-IR spectrometer systems in the world and having them fail one after the other, days before the trip to South America. Packing up all of the equipment anyway in the hope that we'd fix all of the problems down there. Fighting with the airlines over accepting the oversized equipment boxes even though you had cleared the way for this a month before and had letters from the airline to prove it. Finding a hammer to open the sealed boxes from somewhere behind the airline counters, redistributing the contents, packing the overweight portion of the equipment under your arms and running to the gate before the plane takes off. I remember getting to my seat and Gene looking at my sweaty face and saying: "Rick, let me buy you a few scotches!". But the horror of that trip was just beginning. When we arrived at Cerro Tololo headquarters the airlines had shattered all of the optics in the photometer mounting bracket and we had lost the eyepiece--yes, in those days we guided with an eyepiece and I was to ride around all nights kneeling on cushions in the Cassegrain equipment cage. But the Cerro Tololo staff worked miracles. They rebuilt the photometer and made a new eyepiece. We had also managed to revive one of the two failed spectrometers. It was not as sensitive as before, but it was still the most sensitive in the world. Then we went up the mountain. We mounted our equipment. The night was promising to be beautiful. The sun set. We openned the slit. The spectrometer failed. The detector was dead. We scrambled. We got the observatory near-IR system mounted. At least we would get some data. We pointed to our first object. The observatory spectrometer filterwheel would not move. It was locked up and we couldn't see out. We scrambled again and brought the spectrometer up to room temperture as fast as we could from liquid nitrogen temperture. We fixed the filterwheel and recooled the spectrometer. We remounted the spectrometer. It was almost 1:30 AM. The clouds rolled in and we closed the dome. We sat in clouds all that night and for the rest of our 5 night run. We packed our equipment. We went home. Through it all there was Gene's famous smile and an "Oh well. Better luck next time." As I look back on it now I realize that at least we got to visit a Pisco distillery. I spent a lot of time with Gene at observatories. We shared stories. We shared wine. We talked a lot. He was a wonderful man. He had a great love for science and for life. I was especially taken with his love for teaching and bringing science to the public. We all come into this world the same way, empty handed. Gene left the world with his arms full. He leaves a tremendous legacy both human and scientific. Gene, thank you for your great contributions to my life. You have lived a large and bountiful life. We will miss you. In closing I would like to offer some poetry. The selection is the final verses of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, one of my father's favorite poems and one of mine as well. This is the same selection that I read at the death of my father. "Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits--and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! Ah, Moon of my Delight, who know'st no wane, The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again: How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same Garden after me--in vain! And when Thyself with shinning Foot shall pass Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, And in this joyous Errand reach the Spot Where I made one--turn down an empty glass!" --Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Fitzgerald first translation Rick Puetter