Every Day Is A Beautiful Day

 

What does a Frenchman have for breakfast? I'm not sure, I've never been to France and as far as I know I don't have a drop of French blood in me. But I do love French bread, and I like to imagine that a French breakfast might be a cup of hot & black and a baguette. And so, left over from supper with friends, that's what I'm having this morning. Smeared with garlic butter left over from basting the Thanksgiving turkey. Tasty: I'd post a picture except that I've already eaten it. 

Robert and I have been friends more than 81 years, at least from 1942, when we went to each other's seventh birthday parties. We grew up on Massalina Bayou and went to Cove School together, class of 1949. Robert and I walked two mornings a week for years in our seventies and into our eighties, and during our walks we loved to reminisce about life - - Robert's stories always being much more fascinating than mine. Robert ran marathons for years, trained, conditioned himself, and ran, including finishing the Boston Marathon when he was about 55 years old. Robert quoted Dizzy Dean, "If ya done it, it ain't braggin'" and he done it. I have a bottle of Steen's pure Louisiana cane syrup here to give Robert the next Time we get together.

Pic: I ain't braggin' - - that's me on the roof of my Cove School building in August 2010! Amy Moody snapped that shot of me. The summer of 2010, I supervised a crew who were working on the school, doing things that I wanted done to make it look presentable before I announced the building's being named for Bill Lloyd. I'd ordered a bronze plaque, and it's mounted on the front of the building to the right side of the doors at the main front entrance. 

Bill Lloyd was an extraordinary man of generosity and kindness, who renovated the building, in some situations quite singlehandedly, as we were getting it ready to turn over to Holy Nativity Episcopal School to use as the main school building. 

I worked on the building with Bill starting in 1998 or 1999, and we became close friends. He was remarkable. Bill appreciated every day of life. When he was dying with brain cancer he used to say "Every Day Is A Beautiful Day" - - one day at his lake house, as everyone else in his family ran inside to escape the lightning storm, he lay in the pond and enjoyed nature's wild display. Life is short, and we haven't much Time. 

In fact, Time is ALL we have, so use and enjoy, cherish and relish!

If it's true, it ain't braggin' so I'm telling this. Yesterday Linda and I were stunned beyond words at HNES chapel service, the announcement that Holy Nativity Episcopal School's new building is being named for us: The Linda and Tom Weller STREAM Building. STREAM is science, technology, robotics, engineering, art, mathematics. 

There are details out, I'm not going into them except to thank most dear friend Carolyn Cramer for her key role in this. The honor is beyond words of gratitude. 

The new building is pictured, to be at the south end of the Bill Lloyd Building, between the school building and the old basketball court, Hamilton Avenue at 2nd Street. 

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What else can I say? If a building is named for you, you live forever! 

In all this, RSF&PTL

T88&c