Bob was born on September 29 ^th , 1941, to William and Mary Johnston in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. He was the fourth of seven sons. Bill and Mary finally got it right when a daughter, Loretta Ann, was born in 1955.  The family moved to Spokane in 1943 where Bill found a job with the Great Northern Railway where he worked as a brakeman for 28 years. Bob attended St. Patrick School in Hillyard where the Holy Names Sisters taught him that he was  " a child of God", and more importantly, that if he was a child of God, so was every other person.  He then attended Gonzaga Prep where he learned that he was "a child of the universe" and, like every person on this planet, he had a right to be here. Gonzaga University followed where he learned that "No man is an Island". Among the most important lessons taught to him by the Jesuits was the Ignatian principle of Presupposition which admonishes us to "Beware of condemning any man's action. Consider your neighbor's intention, which is often honest and innocent, even though his act seems bad in outward appearance". He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy in 1963. While attending GU, he worked 40 hours a week at Wonder Bread Bakery in Spokane to pay his way through college.  He wore his blue collar proudly.  "Work is love made visible." He loved lifting and loading, pushing and shoving. He never missed a single day's work in 37 years. "Bless the hands of the working man – he knows his soul is his own."

His job as a teamster was interrupted by his three years of service in the U.S. Army where he was stationed in Washington D.C. for a year and served his final year (1967-1968) as a Sergeant, in Vietnam.

Bob was part of the local artistic community. He was a self-taught calligrapher and began selling his works in Riverfront Park in 1985. He was one of the original 30 members of Northwest Artists – a cooperative in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He was juried and accepted by "The Art on the Green" and "Yuletide", among others.

Bob was pious about his Irish Catholic heritage. He considered himself a "practicing Catholic" in that he tried to live by what he was taught at home and in the Catholic schools.When asked if he had become a Protestant, he gave James Joyce'sanswer: "I said I lost my faith – I didn't say I lost my mind." Bob mourned that he could not in good conscience assert all the canons of the Catholic faith, but he honored those that he could.

In this adventure called life Bob stood in appreciation at the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials in Washington D.C. He knelt in prayer at the tomb of John Donne in St. Paul Cathedral in London, viewed the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, the Last Supper in Milan, the statue of David in Florence, and the Pieta at the Vatican. Bob walked where Caesar walked.

Between scrabble matches and racquetball, waterskiing and Bloomsday, Bob found time to go to "The Fantasticks" off Broadway in New York, walked the Freedom Trail in Boston, saw the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, and visited the Alamo in San Antonio. Luckily, he was also able to wonder at Lake Louise, Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, the Craters of the Moon, and Mount Olympus.

But for Bob, there was no place like home. A continuing source of happiness in his life was his ever present extended family which included six brothers – Jim, Jerry, Denny, Dave, Gord and Bill and their spouses, Liz, Helen, Anna, Diana, Ronda and Renie, and one sister, Lori, and her husband Michael. Having no children of his own, Bob found special joy in his nieces – Cheryl, Lucy, Anna, Teresa, Mary, Laura, Karen, Debbie, Jennifer, Amy, Jackie, Katie, Kelly, Clara, Andrea, Erin, Barbara, Christina, Megan, Stephanie, Kathleen, Jamie, Patti and Maria; and his nephews – Gregory, Douglas, Brian, Bradley, Mark, Emerson, Kevin, Dennis, Eric, David, Robert, Jeremy, Michael, Tommy, Joseph, Paul and Daniel.

Bob loved poetry. He "fled Him down the nights and down the days." He knew the ecstasy and depression of unrequited love. As Dante had his Beatrice, and Petrarch had his Laura, Bob had his "idée fixe ". All this turmoil came to an end when he married Hazel Ward in 1999. "Finally'" as he said, "I found someone who could put up with me" His life was then blessed with the expansion of his family to include Hazel's children: Michele, Tim, Sherri, Jeff, and grandchildren (who called him Papa and loved him dearly): Alysa, Zach, Alex, Tiona and Peyton.And there is truth to the old saying "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be."