EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 STRUGGLES

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. once wrote an interesting piece about working hard at something you’re not good at. The idea is counterintuitive, contrary to what some great thinkers said. Joseph Campbell, for example, wrote that we should follow our bliss. Shouldn't we concentrate on what energy and talents we have in areas of our strengths and talents?

 It makes me think of my own life. Are there examples therein?

 I once tried architecture. I was horrible at it, but I learned that fitting an idea to its setting was not only sublime, but functional. I learned lessons about such ideas as articulation, modulation, balance, and form that can relate to almost all professional endeavors. I also become an emotional companion to some of the most wonderful expressions of creativity ever imagined by humans. To follow our bliss, mustn't we first have to determine what bliss is?

I tried sports and was terrible at it. But I learned that it’s okay to be knocked down and lose as long as you get up and keep going. I learned that fear is transitory if you will it so.

I tried music and was terrible at it. But I learned that to strive to get a little better at something each day is of more value than seeking to be an overnight success. I learned that prodigies aren't good teachers. Prodigies say, "Just do it. That's what I do. That's all there is to it." The good teachers are the ones who have struggled to become good at it and are best friends with hard work. And, of course, I learned that nothing can heal like music.

What was I ever good at? I don’t know. Not much I guess, except picking friends and finding a wife. Oh, and I learned that one way to be successful in a profession is to be willing to do the things that others don't like to do. Usually these are things that it is hard for anyone to be good at. In my profession, it also involves the ability to see the good and beauty of places that history has treated unfairly, places most people find deplorable, places where people must pick themselves up and continue the struggle.

Regrets

Feeling old today. It happens sometimes. This week, an old friend in the urban planning profession died, unexpectedly they say. Ron Newman was his name, and he was an extraordinarily fine person. I happen to be blessed that way with friends and colleagues. Among other professional accomplishments, Ron was the director of the Capitol Zoning District office. It enforced a state law designed to protect the Arkansas State Capitol grounds and the Governor’s Mansion from being overwhelmed by tall, tawdry buildings and incompatible, i.e. crappy, land uses. That law was passed back when lawmakers cared about such things.

I served on the Mansion Area advisory committee, so Ron and I worked closely for a number of years. It’s good to work with good people. Ron and his wife moved to Colorado years ago and I’ve only seen him once, I think, since. Hearing of his death made me feel sad, old, and mortal. I'm glad I knew him, and regret I didn't see him more often.

Speaking of feeling old, you should have seen me yesterday. Once a year or so, I have to climb a ladder and remove leaves and debris from the gutters on a shop building at our farm. The cornice is 12 feet off the ground and it takes a few steps to get within reach of the gutters. The building is 60 feet long and I have a total reach of about a “phantom.” That’s about six nautical feet, or the length of a fathom according to my beloved United States Navy.

If my “gazintas” and “timeses” bear trusting, that’s about 10 trips up and down the ladder. I know that my wife and others think that I’m just turning 50, but that’s not true. My muscles and joints can attest to that this morning with perfect certainty.

I did buy a new ladder this year. It’s fiberglass, aluminum, rustproof, and much more stable than the relic I used previously. It’s one heavy summich, though. My shoulders can testify.

Oh well. As long as I’m climbing ladders, I’m on the right side of the grass, so they say. My Sainted Mother always said, “a little hard work never hurt nobody.” She well knew about hard work. She once told me how, as a young girl, she would pick to the end of a cotton row and sneak a short break while nobody was looking. While “being excused,” she would dream of finding a shiny new lady’s wristwatch lying on the grass.

I guess regrets are just nature’s way of telling us things are going to be okay as long as you have hope.

R.I.P old friend.
 The world is a better
place because
 you were here.

Chapter 28: (Cont._3)

The first week in June went along without incident for a couple of days. Everyone was busy and the weather was still just bearable. Work had begun on converting downtown Little Rock into a “mall.” Nobody’s perfect, not even urban planners.

On Tuesday, I received a fine offer for a short, all-expense-paid trip to St. Louis, Missouri. Remember the project that Jack Castin was working on for a company there? He had prepared a nice rendering of the plan. They had it printed and mounted only to find that it was too large to be transported by airline. Oops.

The miscalculation proved to be my good luck, though. Tom called me in and asked how I would like to transport the drawing to Missouri in the back seat of one of the company cars, a Ford, “Crown Vic.”

“Sure,” I said, immediately thinking of being away from Brenda.

Tom must have read my mind, for he said, “That girlfriend of yours still out of school for the summer?”

“Yeah.”

“Take her with you,” if she wants to go,” he said. “You ever been to St. Louis?”

“Just to change planes at the airport.”

“Never seen the Arch?”

 “Nope.”

“There’s a Louis Sullivan Building downtown.”

“The Wainwright Building.”

“I think that’s it, he said. Near Busch Stadium. I seem to remember that he designed some famous tomb or other there too.”

“The Wainwright Tomb,” I said, “In the Bellfountaine Cemetery.” How could I remember that? I couldn’t even had recalled my name at that moment without thinking first.

“You do know your architecture,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Jack will show you where to deliver the drawing. Christie has a check for your expenses.”

“Yes sir.”

He tossed me a set of car keys. “Have fun,” he said.

We did.

The Wainwright Tomb: St. Louis

My Redacted Life: Chapter 20

“What’s with you?” someone asked at the office next morning. “You look like you just inherited a fortune.” I didn’t answer, just went about my work. We had received another round of funding for the Hope urban renewal project and it was time to start work on the design manual. To this end, the firm had arranged the temporary loan of a young architect from one of the state’s largest firms. It would provide a unique opportunity for me to benefit from high-quality professionalism.

His name was Charles Witsell, a native of Little Rock and a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He would become one of the leading experts on the history of architecture in Little Rock. He was talented, brilliant, and generous, and I was going to have the opportunity to work with him.

I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Working with one of the state’s most brilliant young architects and getting ready for a date with one of the state’s most beautiful women. It couldn’t get much better than this.

Oh yes it could. I received another raise. I was headed for the big time. My head could hardly fit through the office door.

I took to having “lunch walks” with Charles Witsell. He would tell me about the buildings in Little Rock, their origin, and their architectural history. Once, when he had to go home at lunch for some reason, I rode with him. He and his wife, Becky, were restoring one of the most architecturally significant homes in the original section of Little Rock. Later, a photo of him and Becky at work on a staircase in the home would appear in an issue of National Geographic.

The Fredrick Hanger House:
The Witsells' original home.

That day, though, he treated me to a quick driving tour of the area known locally as “The Quapaw Quarter.” The highway department, following a never-ceasing strategy of sacrificing neighborhoods to the motorized vehicle whenever possible, had severed the area into two parts with Interstate 30. Much of the western portion remained and our trip proved instructive.

He demonstrated the impact of topography in the settlement patterns of the original city. They couldn’t afford total separation of the social classes in the olden days. Someone had to take care of the mansions and the folks who lived in them. Domestic workers had to live within walking distance of their employing families. Topography, along with social class were the founding principles of human settlement.

Higher was better in those days for two reasons, health and flooding. The higher elevations meant less exposure to unhealthy air and insects. The higher elevations also provided more protection from the periodic rampages of the Arkansas River and its nearby tributaries. So the rich lived the high life and the poor lived the low life. Some things never change.

We motored along street after street, observing clusters of magnificent homes. As the streets serving them would drop in elevation, the homes would drop in size. It was a good lesson in how cities settle, and it helped me understand my profession better.

It also germinated a seed inside me that would grow into a lasting preference for the old versus the new. I had no idea at the time that another person who loomed large in my life, already held those feelings. It might prove important.

Life is both funny and interconnected at times. I was about to find out to what degree.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont._4)

Somehow, I made it through the first day at my new job. One of the drafters invited me to walk across the street into what was then the Worthen Bank Building and lunch at a place there. Not bad, a little pricey for me, but I was trying to make friends. I hadn’t thought before about how having one’s meals provided seven days a week helped manage a budget.

Anyway, I learned that my new workmate had worked with Tom Hodges at another firm. When Tom left to start a new company with Jim Vines, the drafter left with him. I understood, then, his suspicions about me. He had made a great gamble leaving a secure job on a bet that he would become a “key player” in the new firm. Hell, I would have disliked me too.

Jim told me to spend the afternoon reading stuff they had done. Tom came in about mid-afternoon, or should I say he “blew” in, resembling a controlled cyclone. He stormed through drafting room, checked on the work, came to me, and asked if I was getting along all right. I said yes. He nodded and disappeared into his office. I noticed the two drafters looking at one another with what I could only imagine as fear in their eyes. I would discover why, later though.

Five o’clock came. Nobody moved to leave. I continued to read. Jim had come by about four and we made plans for him to pick me up next morning, all ready for an overnight trip. At last, I vouchsafed it safe to leave. No one stopped me.

I walked home on the right (north) side of Capitol Avenue. Of course, directly across the street was the Worthen high-rise. Men with briefcases in hand, and women in nice short skirts were pouring out as if there might have been a fire alarm. I dodged them and headed west.

Crossing Center Street, I encountered a restaurant called The Volkshouse. I would soon learn that it featured German beer and a Polish-sausage sandwich that I remember with a loving tremble. The building still stands. The restaurant gave way to a real estate firm and, later, to a bank that remains until this day.

On the next block was a movie theater, the Capitol. It was to play a part in my life, more on that later.

On the northeast corner of Broadway and Capitol was a charming Jewish synagogue, soon to be demolished to make way for another high-rise bank and office building. Near it was what the the closest thing to a local phenomenon, in fast food restaurant, that Little Rock has known, The Minute Man restaurant, created by a man named Wes Hall. It endured for years, along with other franchises, before it sank beneath the waters of changing tastes. They’ve put a plaque on the present building where the original outlet stood. Plaques soften the pain that lasts from history lost forever, I suppose.

Then there was the Federal Building and main U.S. Post Office, the marvelous lobby of which has somehow endured decades of dreadful “plastic-architecture” additions and renewals.

Soon I was home, and the loneliness of my new life set in. Not really. I could miss the camaraderie of shipmates tossing off a few beers while “on the beach,” but I had a volume of T.S. Eliot’s poetry to keep me company, along with some dense and turgid volumes about urban planning. Incomprehensible or unreadable, I could choose.

Anchors aweigh!

Morning came. Capitol Avenue came alive. I showered and dressed. I made a cup of instant coffee and packed a change of clothes while I choked down the noxious liquid. Soon I was sitting on the steps of the handsome entry to the apartment building, waiting for my first real adventure into the complexities of my newly chosen profession. Back on the East Coast, my former shipmates worked at repairing rigging, chipping paint, and unlimbering watercraft for the day’s activities.

I imagined, as I sat there, the familiar sounds of work overlayered with sonatas of the most erudite profanity on the planet. Another day in the service of one’s country. But as for me, farewell to foreign shores, I was ready to sail with break of day.

Was I the fortunate one? Time would tell.

A detail of the lobby of the Little Rock
Post Office lobby by America's photographer:
Carol M. Highsmith
Library of Congress Collection