Looking Back at Iconic RFH Metal Shop Teacher Bob Carter Through the Rosiest of Goggles

“Happiness lies not in doing what you like to do, but in liking what you have to do.”

That was the motto of longtime RFH metal shop teacher, Bob Carter, in his happy life that was “lived with passion,” his daughter Alison said. And for a bunch of RFH teens who had to go to school, Bob Carter gave them a creative, hands-on something to like a lot while drudging through the sometime doldrums in the “have-to-do” academics of RFH.

Metal shop. Yes, once upon a time, there was a metal shop class at RFH. Yes, there was. Metal shop. You don’t hear of such classes anymore. Oh, there’s still a wood shop class, but it’s been nevermore to the metal shop days for some time — probably since Carter’s ’60s, ’70s and ’80s RFH days.

But, back in the day of the RFH welding dinosaur, Bob Carter taught his metal shop class. It was something he, too, had to do. And he liked it — that teaching thing he had to do — and passed that heavy metal passion on to his students. He was their ferrous metal — their magnet. In the process of his teaching pull, Bob also headed the high school’s Fine and Industrial Arts Department.

And in the bigger picture process of all this Carter-inspired RFH schooling, many longtime friendships were fused solid with the strength of that molten metal freeze. No heat to take here. No rose-colored goggles needed to be involved in this RFH story of guidance and kinship between one teacher and many staff members and students. The view was just fine without the tint. The sparks were all the brighter.

Sparks aside, you didn’t have to take metal shop at RFH to remember Bob Carter’s gleaming kind face and mentoring ways. And he was a teacher talked about around the halls, at the lockers and in the cafeteria and lounges as one of the best.

Needless to say, a lot of solid memories seared with a shiny, metallic finish were created through Carter time. The strength of the ties that were bound by shop talk and all that fusing stood the test of time — ironclad.

Many never forgot that one shop teacher’s way with melding lives in a solidarity to “like what you have to do.”

So, when Bob Carter died just over a year ago, on April 24, 2024, at 92, his family and those whose lives he touched from RFH worked on reuniting to honor his memory. That celebration of his life happened at the family’s longtime Little Silver home on Saturday.

And it was an RFH star-studded event just for Bob and his wife, Ann, who passed away a couple of short months after he did.

Former RFH students Paul Blesse and Mark Stender, both students of Bob’s, and RFHers Rob and Skip Swikart, old family friends, gathered with retired RFH French teacher Winifred Steele-Burnett and former Fair Haven Willow Street (now Sickles) School Principal Dick Warga, among others. And, of course, Bob and Ann’s children, Bill and Alison hosted.

Everyone being together in the name of Bob Carter? Well, shop was in session again — another lesson of liking what you have to do. Sometimes you have to say goodbye. Liking it? That’s the work in progress. And to make the grade, Alison and Bill “even offered some of Mr. Carter‘s old tools to the students who showed up!” Blesse said.

Call it a precious metal work legacy passed on like a secret note in school.

The note? It would read that Bob Carter “was a beloved teacher, husband, friend, father and grandfather, who maintained his signature kindness, cheerfulness and generosity to the very end of his 92 years,” Alison said in a post last year about her dad’s death. “He was a born teacher and teaching was the common thread throughout his life. After retiring from RFH, he travelled the world training 3M employees to repair optical fiber connectors in the field. After retiring from 3M, he taught men how to manage their prostate cancer, offering his experience with and research on alternative and conventional treatments. And throughout my and my brother’s life, by example he taught us compassion, integrity and humor.”

In class and out, through the years, up until Saturday, this is what lessons learned by Bob Carter looked like …

— Photos/Paul Blesse and the Carter family

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