Nov 26
Friends,
A few of my former staff persons from 10-15 years ago, of whom I have been especially fond, arranged a reunion for lunch yesterday at the Kimbell Museum Café. It was the first of a few more I hope to attend on the run up to an eventual and inevitable career punctuation. I’m yet to know if it will be a comma, a period or an exclamation point.
Not everyone in that office era could attend, but the five of us who could had a blast catching up with each other. There’s been a lot of water under the FM1189 bridge. One now teaches at the University of Arkansas College of Architecture. Another is an Associate Principal at HKS in the Fort Worth Office. Our fabulous Administrative Assistant is now the “Director of Delight” (Marketing Manager) for a growing desert-oriented temptation merchandizer. Our summer part-timer is now the Director of Ministry to Students for the United Methodist Church in Central Texas, based at the University of Texas at Arlington. Then there is me.
I can’t tell you about all that we talked, but we spanned from children, through the current generation of students, all the way to the rise of fundamentalism leading us to the recent days of terror. We used to work together, but we also played a bit together too. At least they did. I can see how they all have been an important part of my life, and apparently I did not affect them too negatively.
While at the “Lou Kahn Cathedral” I ran into a few folks with whom I’ve been acquainted and got the old, “James knows everybody” shtick they used to throw at me over a decade ago. After the extended lunch and informal photography (see attached) we parted. On the way toward the gift shop I ran into a couple of my favorite Kahn worshipping friend/colleagues, Paul Dennehy and Mark Gunderson. Knowing them well I uttered, “Don’t you fellows have anything better to do than to hang at the Kimbell all afternoon?”, to which Mark replied, “As if there could be a better place?”
Truth. It hurts, but it can also heal.
Thankful for all things,
An old architect washed up on the bank of the Brazos,
James
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