I was squinting at a sheet of slides this afternoon when I noticed that they all had the same date stamp: March 22, 1988. They must have been taken by Tommy Lavergne, who would still have been a relative newcomer to Rice at that time. Tommy has occasionally been a bit fast and loose with the date stamps but I’m inclined to think this is right. They all seem to have been taken at the same time–the light is beautiful–and it does look like Spring.

The pictures also show clearly the dramatic change the last thirty years have brought to campus. Many of them were taken from high up, either on or in buildings, so you can get a good look at the wide open spaces, now vanished. There are a lot of these images so today is just the first batch:

In this second one the top floor of Allen Center is going up:

Bonus: Just by coincidence I had my picture taken by Tommy this afternoon. I plopped down as he was getting set up to take someone else’s photo and he shot this nice one without even really trying. If I look happy it’s because I was.

In another odd turn, his colleague Brandon Martin caught me gabbing on my cell phone earlier in the day. I wonder how I missed Jeff Fitlow!