I met Father Busa at one of the early Computers and the Humanities
conferences, and in 1985 invited him to present at UC Davis. The night
before, at dinner, we were telling jokes, and I told the one about the
cannibal who had eaten both Protestant and Catholic missionaries, and had
an ecumenical movement. Since the Italians at the table didn't quite
understand, the always understanding Father Busa translated, if somewhat
grimly. The next night, at a banquet, we took turns regaling each other
with computer horror stories. Father Busa admitted that a while before,
two sets of the *Index,* on tape, were to be transported to a new location,
and two trucks were hired. Someone, however, mixed up the sets, and sure
enough, one truck crashed and burned. That might have been the end of
decades of work, but Father Busa and probably Thomas Aquinas got it all
back together.
He was not only a great and towering man, he was a very human man,
Kevin Roddy
University of California, Davis