Office Vacation

Office Vacation

I remember the day, fourteen years ago, when I vacated my office. The university had given me a short deadline to get this done, so I requested an extension. They denied my request (without explanation) and told me they would charge me for every day I went over the announced date. I therefore recruited the head of department (Harvey Siegel) to assist with the work, along with my wife and a handyman we were employing at the time (he had a truck and handyman’s hands). We showed up one day soon after and carried out in boxes my many books and papers; it wasn’t light work. Given the urgency of the deadline, it wasn’t possible to take all the books (the truck was too small for one thing and the workers were getting tired). I therefore left many books in a big pile on my office floor. I instructed the departmental assistant to let any graduate students help themselves to my erstwhile library, which apparently they did. This was just one incident out of many, but it has a special poignancy.