ENCORE!

What can be better than repeating something that is happy?

And so off we go, TLC (The Lovely Courtney), TLW (The Little Woman), Roger (TLC’s Dad), #1 Son (Anthony) and myself (Me) to a student designer’s show. Having been to so many in Manhattan, and when I was in college myself, we would see some fresh new ideas from some fresh new minds. By this time we had just witnessed TLC winning one award: the Dora E. Kirby Award for the Highest Scholastic Achievement in Graphic Design, and missing another because of a mistake in time, as we headed to the Nan Rae Center (Internationally exhibited Chinese Brush Painter) for the Designer’s Exhibit.

By now a painful weekend was just beginning as my back started stabbing me for the rest of the weekend. Sitting up on hard chairs particularly was poison and trying to take my mind off the pain was difficult. But I decided to stick it out and try to enjoy something I was looking forward to.

Seeing poster art up on walls, portfolio pieces on tables and free standing art projects lit a fire in my mind as I could recall those special days when I was in college.

Seeing your stuff go up for public critique can be intimidating if you let it be, but if it is any good like it was in this center, you can start to relax and it builds your confidence. TLC’s work was not only good: it was well thought out, excellent and somehow seemed kind of special up there.

After floating through the exhibit, there was a call to order and we all drifted to where the crowd was gathering around a woman who represented the college. Suddenly she was handing out awards and whom do you think gets another, her third for the day? With the grace that becomes her, TLC steps forward and claims what is rightfully hers, and caught by surprise, you can’t help but feel bowled over!

You know, I never had the joy of a daughter achieving, let alone sharing a world of professionalism, but there it was in front of me, giving me a taste of it. Thanks to #1 Son in being so picky and waiting for the right woman to come along, I got a momentary joy of it. It made we want to see my own daughter Ellen, and to tell her I love her, that this is what it would have been like if she was given a chance in life. So I will stand aside and watch Roger feel it, and get a sense of the parenting that he and his wife Claire did that has so handsomely paid off in their beautiful daughter Courtney. GREAT JOB COURTNEY!