Lunchtime

Birdwatching from the picnic table in North Park's back yard: flicker, robin, catbird (again with this "shy" bird!), grackle.

Dinnertime

Found me at Positive Vibe Cafe, with a surprising group of Valentine Museum alumni. Actually, I don't know what surprised me, after all, T told me who would be there; I know people get older; others of us see each other around all the time (Maggi, e.g., and Gregg, whose band played). Oddly, a professional colleague I run into often was two tables away. Perhaps it was surprising to see that group at one table, as we didn't socialize up the chain of command quite that much.

Many of us laborers in the mines of urban history did socialize, for lunch and after hours. I fondly recall T, the other Greg, and the summer intern at Jamestown; T, G, and I at the State Fair; G and his now-wife having CDF and I over for games night; and Jane's "house cooling" party, featuring the talking Last Supper clock and the "GO AWAY" door mat. I remember the lunchtime discussion of Time's article on Gen X.

I remember eating at the first Bottom's Up Pizza on 17th (?) St. We sat in cheap molded plastic chairs on the sidewalk on a warm evening and looked up at the closed train station, the abandoned RR Y, and the skyline beyond.

All that, plus Richmond History Seminars, curating two exhibitions, and being immersed in the Cook Collection. It was a perfect first job.

You know what else was odd? I feel certain that that restaurant / training ground occupies the space where I took ballet lessons in the 1970s.