  On the occasion of a symposium honoring my collegue Adrian Melissinos, I gave
an informal, personal review of bottom quark physics. This paper is a writeup
of that talk. I first summarize the early days, the decade from the discovery
through the determination of the b quark's rough features. I note a change in
objective which occurred around 1990, with the new emphasis being USING the b
quark, to probe the Standard Model and to search for physics `beyond the
Standard Model'. I review the flavor sector of the Standard Model, showing why
the b quark is such a useful probe. I then discuss three topics of current
interest: the determination of V_ub; studies of rare hadronic B decays; and the
radiative penguin decay b -> s gamma.
