A Note from Tom

A Note from Tom.  That's Tom Buresh, our Architecture Department chair for ten or so (good) years. He sent it in May 2018, taped to the package they'd left for me here in the office. From my 'R' party (I'd told him I wanted to use only the letter R, not the full word--and Tom was humoring me). I never went to the party--bad sport on my part (!)--but they were celebrating other retiring faculty, so I didn't feel too remiss. These "life events," why are we bound by them? Or better, why do we invent such clunky names to describe them? Too boxed and too limiting. It's never that simple. (Lars, for example--made such a big to-do about leaving Rice--and then changed his mind, even as he walked out the door--and is now holding forth again at the University of Miami.)

But I want to thank Tom in any case. Not just the note (and the gift from Ron!) but for the subtle humor with which he graced us over this decade. Me in particular, when I'd stop in late afternoons on a Tuesday or Thursday--at 5, heading for the evening class. He'd be in there (the chair's office)--I knew because the door was open--you could see from the hall--and then that voice, slightly wry, "Did you bring the guitar?"

He helped me immensely that year--mainly by listening to my leaving-quanderies so patiently--how to make a go of it. I trusted him, too...
_____

The fragment of wrapping paper and a scrap of tape, still attached...


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