by: Jonathan Waldman

My neighbor, Richard DeLuca, recently gifted me this book. His message on the book says it all:

“I am hopeful that, after you read this book, you will have greater insight that will contribute to solving the mystery of the localized RUSTING of the postal truck roofs!!!”

Remember how I was – and still am – completely flummoxed by why only the left-top part of the postal vans gets discolored? BTW, they came and fixed all of them once. The problem is back again!

In any case, back to the book.

Fascinating!!

Boy, did I learn a lot about rust! Did you know that rust has felled bridges and killed many people, sunk ships, caused house fires, and nearly brought down the Statue of Liberty? It has caused the crash of an F-16, torn apart the fuselage of a commercial plane midflight, shut down oil pipelines, and nearly caused a reactor meltdown!

Rust costs America more than $400 billion – with a “B” – per year, more than all other natural disasters combined.

Now I am so sensitized to the damage rust causes that I notice it everywhere. Bridges, lampposts, road signs, banisters… everywhere I look, I see rust. I think Sharmila got a little peeved during our trip to Chicago two weeks ago, where I kept pointing out rust on virtually every physical structure imaginable downtown!

The book is structured to give you insight into rust in the first chapter. Then it gets into a series of stories – some short, some long – but all very entertaining.

On the fact side, you will learn that, other than a handful of finance, banking, and insurance companies, virtually every Fortune 500 company has to deal with this pestilence. You will learn that rust exists in space too, thanks to atomic oxygen rather than molecular oxygen. You will also learn that there are two types of rust: red Fe₂O₃ (hematite) and black Fe₃O₄ (magnetite).

On the story side, you will learn how two guys illegally scaling the Statue of Liberty eventually exposed the massive scale of corrosion inside. There is also the story of a photographer who illegally created beautiful photographs of rust in the remains of the Bethlehem Steel Works, which are not open to the public. And then there is the intriguing difficulty of building cans that can safely hold liquids!

The most fascinating story to me was about the pig – not the squealing kind, but the one that travels inside a pipeline for inspection purposes. In fact, the book’s longest chapter is dedicated to tracking such a pig as it runs through the nearly 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

I have to mention one hilarious moment in the book.

The protagonist in that pipeline chapter is a quirky gentleman named Bhaskar (who happens to be Bengali, like me). Coincidentally, he is married to an American woman – whose name also starts with a “B” – Bonnie. They eventually had two children, whom they named Brij and Brianna.

The license plate on Bonnie’s van is: “B TEAM”

I almost fell off my chair laughing.

I loved the book. I think you will too.

If anybody wants to borrow it from me, let me know!