Monthly Archives: November 2020

Thanksgiving in 1956 fell just after the rebellion in Hungary, begun as a student revolt, was crushed by the Soviet military. It was a somber time but American students rushed to raise relief funds, doing what they could to alleviate … Continue reading →

As we come to the end of one of the strangest semesters in Rice history, I find myself longing for a party–and I don’t even like parties. In 1932, they stayed up all the way until midnight (and don’t forget … Continue reading →

I can no longer recall what began my immersion in 1927 but it’s sure a hard place to leave. The Roaring Twenties were really interesting, even at the little old Institute. The fads of the 1920s in particular were everything … Continue reading →

Last week I spent some time digging around in old drawings looking for something I never found. But I also found something I never looked for–a drawing that had been heinously mislabeled. Normally it works out really well if you … Continue reading →

I mentioned last time how good–with one sorrowful exception–the Italian cypresses in the main quad are looking.  All kidding aside, it’s really nice to see them apparently thriving. There’s another sad tree situation to report, though. The beautiful Chinese pistaches … Continue reading →

The mysterious dark doorway down at the end of this row is the entrance to the Woodson’s vault: What’s in there is top secret, of course, so secret that sometimes even we don’t know what’s what. Here’s a current head … Continue reading →

I try not to burden you all with too much Tsanoff correspondence but I never touch one of these letters without feeling almost overwhelming gratitude that they fell into my hands. Even though most of them are fairly mundane all … Continue reading →