Farewell to a Colleague

Dear Becky,

I’m writing this on behalf of Uncle Milton Bennion, Aunt Lucy May Van Cott and Aunt Dolores Dore Eccles. They--like all of us--are going to miss you, would love you to stay, but wish you all the best. True, we didn’t know these three as people, but even as buildings each housed such personality.

As a home for professors, classrooms, labs and darkrooms, Milt’s place felt the most academic. Remember the great views of soccer practice and the basement storage dungeon with heavy locks and chains?

Lucy was more like a warm, dark cave. She gave us a taste of privacy and control with doors that closed and windows that opened. How rare and wonderful to have so many offices and so few cubicles.

Dore showed such hospitality, flexibility and desire to grow. Views mattered to her and she provided a great variety including those of her husband George’s bridge and the Olympic torch relay.

All of these places kept us warm, sometimes way too warm. Milt and Lucy May made certain summer days almost unbearable, but offered a welcome shelter from winter storms. Dore sought to bring comfort in every season, warmth in winter, cool shade in summer, but she could be temperamental, sometimes emulating a sauna or freezer. She had the newest roof but the most likely to leak.

Each tried their best with what they had. They sought to welcome and keep us. All of them invited us to come early and stay late. They each hosted breakfast bagels, potluck holiday lunches and birthday desserts--as well as their own distinctive bugs and not just of the software variety.

Thanks for welcoming me to Milt’s place way back in November 1997. Thanks for helping make Lucy’s halls a little brighter. Thanks for sharing Dore’s great views of blue sky, clouds and storms. Thanks most of all for smiling through so many moments of our weeks, months and years together.

All the best in your new adventures,