TJ at W&L

May 4, 2018

For some reason it occurred to me I ought to write down somewhere the story of Thomas Jefferson at W&L.

By TJ at W&L I mean this portrait.

Here is what the W&L art collection says about the painting: Oil painting of Thomas Jefferson. He is seated with his body facing slightly to his right and face turned to look at the
viewer. He wears a dark coat, open at the neck and revealing a ruffled shirt and stock. The coat has a high collar that
appears to be tied in the back of the neck with black ribbons. He has short wavy salt and pepper hair and brown eyes.
More notes from the collections file- Loaned to the Governor's Executive Mansion in Richmond Virginia in February 1994, returned in August 2003.
And -
Plaque on the frame reads:
1743 THOMAS JEFFERSON 1826
BY HEALY AFTER STUART
ON LOAN FROM WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY, obviously put there by the state of Virginia.
This painting was given to W&L by Dr. William N. Mercer in 1875 (6/22/1875) and was painted in 1860. The valuation in W&L's records is $150,000.

What follows is the story of how the portrait left Lexington and then came home.

At some time in the 90s former Gov. Linwood Holton, a W&L grad, either asked W&L to lend the painting to the Governor's Mansion or was asked to facilitate the loan. Time marched on and there was no offer from Virginia to return the painting. Jim Whitehead, treasurer of the university and unofficial head of W&L art collecting (Reeves Center), evidently somehow brought this story up in conversation with Dick Haynes, the founder of the Texas law firm Haynes and Boone, and a former W&L trustee who came on the board when I did in 1987. Dick decided he would help Jim get the painting back. One day probably in 2002 Dick called me at my NewMarket/ Albemarle office and said he needed some help from a powerful Virginian. That was not I, but it turned out I could help. I told Dick I happened to have a meeting with Tim Kaine, Virginia's Lt. Gov. at the time and son in law of Gov. Holton, and that I would ask him about getting the loaned portrait back to Lexington. That actually did work and after Peter Grover talked to the state art collection guy TJ came back to Lexington.
As I reflect on this and read Dick's last paragraph in the letter from 2003 below, I wonder if the W&L records are correct about the amount of time TJ was in Richmond. If Dick has been thinking about this for 20 years, that would put the loan back at least to 1983. Holton was Governor 1970- 1974. Could the loan have been in 1974 not 1994? On the other hand Dick did not become a trustee until 1987. Or perhaps Dick exaggerated about the time spent thinking about TJ and it was really closer to 8 years. I don't know.
What I do know is that Dick sent one of his firm's young lawyer's with UVA ties to Richmond to scout out the location and condition of the painting at the Governor's Mansion. That lawyer was Shawn Urelius who came to Virginia from Haynes and Boone to be an in house lawyer at Hamilton Beech and then joined Albemarle. Guessing from Shawn's estimated law school graduation date, that visit would have been in about 1996.
As a footnote, Dick Haynes, a great guy, and a very distinguished alum of W&L, died in 2006.

 At present TJ is on display in the President's House at W&L. Will Dudley, the president, is from Charlottesville so this seems very appropriate.

New York April 2018

There were two purposes for this trip- to visit Michael and Jeanie (and Caillou) (I can’t believe Michael has been living here for a couple of years and we haven’t been here yet), and to get Connie on her way to Moscow for 3 weeks.

It was cold and wet both in Richmond and in NY when we left, and the plane sat on the runway in Richmond for two hours. Eventually we had to go back to the gate to refuel, and it seemed like about half the passengers left to find other ways to where they were going. The cold and drizzle at LaGuardia was a shock. We found our way to the taxi line and were sent to one. The taxi driver could not get his key to open the trunk at first and then his meter would not count at first. Welcome to NY.

Michael lives in Brooklyn Heights and our hotel, the Even, a “fitness hotel” was near there. Near the elevators they have a two floor fitness room with machines on one floor and weights on the other floor. In our tiny room (no room to sit, and no room for both of us to stand and move around) there was a fitness bar on the wall with three different sets of fitness cords, a yoga mat and a couple of different foam things to stand on or to roll around on as well as a fitness ball.

For dinner Thursday night we met Michael and Jeanie at French Louie’s restaurant, a cold 20 minute walk from the hotel. Ellen Miller, John’s daughter in law, is the manager of the restaurant and, though not working that night, must have seen the reservation and ordered up a couple of complimentary appetizers for us. They were excellent and much appreciated. Our waiter named Barnett was from the Tidewater Va area and made us feel at home.

In the morning we walked (again very cold to me- I wish I had brought a stocking cap) to Prospect Park to meet Michael and Jeanie for the dog party. Every morning the park has a set time period when dogs can be off leash and so it is a big crowd and a little bit of mayhem as the dogs chase balls, stick and each other around. Caillou has several friends in the group and so she loves her morning outing.

Then we picked up a couple of breakfast tacos and walked to Michael and Jeanie’s apartment on Park Place (I think Jill lived on Prospect Place in the same neighborhood back in 1999 or 2000).

The apartment is a cozy 1 1/2 bedroom on the bottom floor of a brownstone. It even has enough of a yard to require cutting with a push mower and that, along with trash and snow removal, is part of Michael’s renter duties in return for a little break on the rent. As might be expected those jobs are never done well enough for the other tenants.

We were piling up the walking steps today- next we walked with Michael to see his office which was back toward our hotel and then beyond it. We saw Ethan Hawke walking his dog on the way. We met Noah and the accountant whose name I have forgotten at the office. The DoMP just moved in and so things are not settled. The accountant lives in NOLA and is only in Brooklyn temporarily and actually staying at the office, so there were towels and groceries around as well as boxes of office equipment. DoMP is not spending the partners' money lavishly.

The next item for the day after getting cleaned up was to meet Michael for lunch and then the Tenement Museum in Lower Manhattan. This involved my first solo trip on the NY subway system in a very long time and I have lots of suggestions for the MTA if they ask, starting with more and better placed, bigger subway maps. I don’t see how someone for whom English isn’t the first language and not from NY can find the way around.

Our first choice for lunch, Russ and Daughters, would have involved an hour and a half wait so we moved on to a tiny place called Dimes which was excellent. There was a crowd there too and I think it was due to people coming out for the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Tenement Museum was way beyond my expectations. I did not know it existed but Connie had heard of it as had Michael. Our tour was called Hard Times. There are actually 9 other tours like Irish Bar and Sweat Shops all in different apartments of the same building. We went into an un-restored tenement lived in by a German Jewish family in the 1870s and then went to a restored tenement next door occupied by a Sicilian family in 1930. We learned a lot about how they lived and the family histories. Our guide Darryl was terrific! The museum also had a great little book shop specializing in immigrant stories. I would definitely go back.

More walking to dinner- I still haven’t looked at my mileage for today but Connie said she logged in more than 20,000 steps. Dinner was a French place called Claudette and also was excellent.

Our final activity on this long but great day was going to the Broadway show called Dear Evan Hanson. As a total surprise we ran into Nancy Spencer G Hartt, away from her twins for the first time, in NY to visit friends. The musical show won Tonys in 2016 and was good but very disturbing- a high school nerd digs himself an email hole that is pretty much impossible to get out of. It says a lot about the internet and Facebook, and it made me glad I don’t have teens any more in this era.

We all 4 took the subway home. I was a little reluctant to separate from M&J since a few stops before we got off, the prototypical crazy schizo got on our car and sat right across from us, with all the expected ranting against different groups of people and super coarse language.

The next morning M&J&C came to our pet friendly hotel for breakfast. Caillou has been very shy around us but was very friendly with another person staying in the hotel, who actually started tearing up a little because she lost her dog, a Golden, 9 years ago, from cancer after getting her thru her cancer.

Then M&J&C left and Connie did her final packing and left for JFK and Moscow on Aeroflot. She texted me a few times during the rest of the day until her plane left about one hour late.

Later I met Michael in Mid town for a walking tour of some of the historic buildings like the Waldorf-Astoria, the Citibank building, the GE building, Grand Central, the Chrysler, Daily News, and others. Our guide James had loads of old photos from the internet of the area before the building and then as the buildings were going up as well as lots of stories. Because it was Saturday we could not look in on the Grand Central lost and found- everything from hundreds of cell phones to suitcases and prosthetics. About 60% get found.

Michael and I then met Jeanie at Rose’s a small restaurant between his apartment and my hotel. Burger, French fries, beer and gelato.  I walked back to the hotel by way of the Barclays Center where everyone was all duded up for a big league boxing event of some sort, but not for me.

Sunday- The most interesting event of the day was getting checked and rechecked at TSA security because of an object in my carry on bag. No such objections were raised in Richmond on the way up. I thought the problem was something related to the knitting Connie gave me to carry back, but it wasn't- it was a miniature version of one of those Leatherman multipurpose tools that i had stuck in my Dopp kit who knows how long ago and forgotten. Anyway, now I am back home and fending for myself.

Tampa March 2018

Venice and Tampa FL March 15-18, 2018

Wednesday, March 14- Connie went to Venice a day ahead to visit Kathy Muscarella and her sister. I don’t exactly know what went on that night but Connie told me that she and Kathy’s sister got into a preposition reciting contest and ended up disagreeing on what counts as a proper preposition.

Thursday- 

I flew into Tampa from Richmond (28 degrees when I left, about 65 on arrival), rented a Chevy from Hertz (new deal to me- you rent a midsize car, go to the lot and pick whichever one you want) and drove about an hour 15 minutes to Venice. Google did not let me get lost except when I went off on my own to try to find some lunch, without very much success.
A small side note- Between RIC and ATL there was a 104 (!!) mile per hour tailwind so we got there a little early.

We had early dinner reservations with John and Kathy so we got going on a walk almost as soon as I got there. The walk took us around the neighborhood or development which, although probably naturally a swamp and so a lot of trees and wetlands were destroyed in making the development, seemed very well laid out. There are lots of bike paths, nature walks, planting, ponds, plus playgrounds, an athletic center, etc, but no shuffleboard courts. Pickle ball seems to have replaced it. Kathy tried hard to show me the local gator but he didn’t show.

For dinner we went to Fins which is the informal version of its neighbor Sharkey’s, located right on Venice Beach. Kathy and John told us about how during Hurricane Irma this past year all the water off Venice Beach got sucked out for about a mile. I had something new- Lobster Nachos for dinner. It was decadent and wonderful.

Then it was driving back to Tampa to go to Jim and Kaki’s condo for the rest of the weekend. The condo is on Harbor Island which is mostly residential and right in the middle of downtown, near the arena where the Tampa Lightning play ice hockey.

We watched basketball most of the evening and a whole lot over the weekend.

Our family and friends bracket pool ended up with probably 25 players and about 40 different entries.

Friday-

Connie and I slept very late for us while Jim got up early, went for a 4 mile run and brought home the papers. After a breakfast of new and different cereals plus fresh fruit, we all went for a 5.5 mile walk along the River Walk up the Hillsborough River. We passed the distinctive University of Tampa campus with its main building being the old Plante Hotel, the new Municipal Rowing Center (judging from the graffiti along the sea wall, a lot of university rowing squads come down to Tampa for training), lots of banks, lots of construction, and then we ended up at an old factory now converted to eateries called The Armature. An armature is the thing that turns in a dynamo or electric motor. There was a tent outside the factory and a pretty big gathering of parents and medical students waiting for the announcement of placements in graduate programs on Match Day. We talked to a guy going to LSU Shreveport in Urology and his parents. Seeing this made Jim and Kaki wonder about how Chris and Martha’s daughter, Virginia, newly married, Kaki’s niece, and W&L grad was going to do in her placement back at Medical College of Virginia. It turns out she placed at her 5th choice, Washington U. in St. Louis, which is a great program but probably a lot farther from home than she really wanted.

                                                   Plaque from along the River Walk

Back at the condo after several thousand steps, we got ready for our outing, which was supposed to be to the Wichi Wachi mermaid show, but we figured out we were going to miss the last show. Luckily for me there is a Hertz branch right in the Marriott within 5 minutes of the condo so I turned in my car early and saved a few $. We regrouped, got a great lunch at a classic old Tampa take out place called Wright’s, and went for a nice amble around the waterfront at St. Petersburg. The highlights were a look (only) in a well presented gelato shop, a chocolate shop, a spice shop, and a Russian store.

As if that wasn’t enough walking, dinner was a 25 minute walk away at CENA (pronounced Chee- ena), a great Italian restaurant, where I had butternut squash lasagna- total comfort food. Then I took my first Uber ride since we ran out of energy for the 25 minute walk back to the condo.

The basketball continued with all of us pulling for the underdogs in spite of what we chose in our bracket. The evening ended up with Connie and me staying up to watch the first half of the overall number one seeded UVA Wahoos/ UMBC Retrievers game. It was tied at halftime 21-21 but it was also late so we went to bed. When I woke up in the middle of the night Connie checked the game and found out UVA lost in a monumental defeat- the first ever in tournament history that a number one seed has lost to a number 16 seed. It was a sad way to end the season for a great group of players and a superb coach. It also was such a shock I had a hard time getting back to sleep.

Saturday- March 17, St. Patrick’s Day

We slept in late again, getting over the sadness of UVA’s loss. But we rallied for a 10 mile bike ride along Bayshore, so in the opposite direction from the River Walk. I was last of course, had a hard time negotiating the other bikers in both directions, the walkers and runners, the strollers, dogs and people on their cell phones, and women yelling “share the road”. I have discovered I really, really like a nice padded bike seat and heck with the extra weight. Only Jim survived the ride without falling and unbruised.

                                                            I grew a tree out of my head

On to the next outing, which was to Lettuce Lake Park, admission $2 for the car. There is a boardwalk over the swampy land full of water hibiscus, water lettuce, cypress knees, poison ivy and creeper and other vegetation. We had great views fairly close up of Roseate Spoonbill, White Ibis and a new bird for me- a Limpkin, sitting on a branch probably looking for his favorite food, snails. We also saw a gator at a distance.

                                                                       White Ibis

When we got back it was more basketball and Jim’s cooking for dinner- air cooked French fries and water cooked grouper burgers. Grouper sandwiches are apparently a big thing in Tampa. We loved watching Loyola pull out a victory and Sister Marie.

Sunday- March 18

On our walk we saw all the leftovers from some heavy St. Patrick’s Day partying along the River Walk and got a good view of the river dyed bright green. The route was a little different today, with a trip across the river to the University side and a walk thru the Office Exchange which is now a restaurant but used to be a stables. Many photos of famous visitors to Tampa on the walls.

We did not visit David and Katie and kids this trip because they were on Spring Vacation up in DC but we did drive by their new house.

                                                             This time I grew a tower

                                                          The Babe, a babe, and a gator

Airport, home without problems, and GodSpell at FPC before back to the routine and cold weather. Snow expected Wednesday!!