Every day an adventure

Several years ago I inherited the job of editor of our Berkeley Place Association newsletter, the Poohbah, from a friend and neighbor. It was sort of temporary while Mary, then the editor was on an extensive European trip, but it morphed into permanent, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I don’t mind; in fact, I’m glad to do my bit for the neighborhood because it’s a great place to live.

Along with the job, I inherited the woman who was designing it—a graphic designer, I’m not. We’ve worked together smoothly for several years and developed a nice give-and-take in our working relationship. In fact, she designed my cookbook and did a super job. But I knew nothing about her as a person.

My good friend Subie distributes the Poohbah, and was astounded that I’d never met Amy, the designer. “We must take her to lunch,” she said. And so today, we met Amy for lunch.

I’m not sure what I expected, but I think it was someone older, perhaps a little Bohemian. Amy is a bit younger than my youngest child and looks ten years younger than that. She has a four-year-old child and says she does her best work after he’s asleep. And Bohemian she’s not—she’s a graduate of TCU and would fit right in on that campus today.

We had a delightful lunch, chatted about design work and the Poohbah and probably bored her with too many tales about our families and adventures. We probably won’t meet often, but it’s terrific to have a face and a person to match with the name.

                                                                                          Wednesday morning

Oops. Didn’t finish this last night, because I went to the TCU Scholarship Dinner—a huge and impressive affair honoring scholarship recipients and donors. There are well over 900 scholarships available to TCU students.

The dinner was held in the Ed and Rae Schollmeier Arena, where the usual basketball floor was covered with temporary carpet and filled with beautifully decorated tables. What most impressed me was that TCU knows how to do it with class and precision. Everywhere we turned there was someone to help us—my host, friend and neighbor Mary (she who gifted me the Poohbah), had called ahead to be sure there was a golf cart to take us from parking to the concourse; inside there was someone stationed to show us the elevator, and on the floor level someone  else guided us through halls to the dining area. Same when we reversed, where TCU police gallantly opened doors.

Although I only spoke to a couple of people I knew from my TCU days, I spotted many other familiar faces. As I said to Mary, some of them have aged. Her reply was, “So have we.” There were easily a thousand people there, maybe more.

Fun, briefly, to be back in the academic world, but even when I was there full time I rarely participated in the big, showy events—so it was almost a new adventure for me.

Back to routine today.