Retrospective

About 35 years ago, I went to DeBarr Hall at OU on a non-football game Saturday (now simply called the Chemistry Building, since Dr. DeBarr was found to be quite active in the Klan), to run an experiment in the lab. The experiment was an organic synthesis based on the Grignard (pronounced grin-yard) reaction, a catalytic reaction done on the surface of a magnesium catalyst. The reaction requires the magnesium metal to be floated in ether, while the reactant chemicals are dripped slowly onto the metal. The trick is to get the reaction started, then slowly meter in the reactants, to sustain the reaction. This must be well controlled, or the reaction will happen all of a sudden, and being exothermic, the ether will boil away and a nice little magnesium fire will result.

What I thought was a well controlled reaction, wasn't. When it did take off, it did what it was supposed to, and began to cook off all the ether. Our PhD candidate had also come in by then, and he helped me keep the reaction flask cooled off by adding ether, until we got it cooled down enough to shut the reaction down. He had gone out to feed his cattle that morning, and he was dropping cattle dung all over the lab floor from his waffle stomper hiking boots, as we ran back and forth to get more ether. I was dodging the slippery piles as we worked in and out of the fume hood, to keep the reaction from lighting off. We were successful.

Post reaction analysis indicated I hadn't created a single desirable product from the reaction. I went back in the lab, cleaned up the mess in the fume hood, then swept the floor and fertilized the oleanders outside DeBarr Hall.

My prof, the PhD candidate, and I mutually decided my abilities were probably more supportive of an analytical or custodial future, rather than organic synthesis. I chose the analytical.