November 2021

This was one of the few images that hasn't changed from my days here; when I came to UH in August 1982 I had never been to Houston before much less seen the campus (and the neighboring area was unlike anything I had experienced in NC)

UH is the 3rd largest university in TX with 46,000+ students; U.S. News + World Report ranks UH as the 2nd most ethnically diverse research university in the nation; in 1953, UH established KUHT—the first educational television station in the nation

I lived on campus all 4 years at UH (90+% of students lived off-campus) with my first 2 years being here at Moody Towers; I remember the rooms were small with a large shared bathroom in the center of each floor

Today you can take Houston's light rail network to campus; even in 2020, only 2.6% of UH students are from outside of TX with an additional 7% of students being international

The Fertitta Center is home to UH basketball but we knew it as Hofheinz Pavilion; my first two years at UH the team was a combined 63-8 finishing national champion runner-up both years

Much of the credit for UH's improvement rests with Renu Khator who has been president and chancellor here since 2008; she's the first Indian American to lead a major research university in the US

Double Physichromie, Carlos Cruz-Diez, 2009; the colors do not exist on the surface itself but are perceived by the eye as a result of the parallel lines of color that intersect on the plane

The Hines College of Architecture is named for Gerald Hines (died in 2020 at age 95) who developed iconic buildings including the Houston Galleria, Transco (Williams) Tower, Pennzoil Place and many others around the world

Albertus Magnus, Gerhard Marcks, 1970; Elizabeth Warren completed her BA at UH in speech pathology, graduated from law school at Rutgers before returning to teach at the Bates Law School for 5 years

In high school I spent more time on tennis than studying so I knew freshman year at UH I needed to apply myself; I spent almost every day here at the MD Anderson Library studying until closing time

The inaugural class for the UH College of Medicine started in 2020; the new buildings occupy land that was just barren fields when I attended

I wish the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center had existed back in the 1980s; alums include Kenny Rogers, Tom Landry, Hakeem Olajuwon, Lizzo, Carl Lewis, Clyde Drexler, Jim Nantz, Jim Parsons and Dennis and Randy Quaid

Many hours were spent in the University Center where I started the College Bowl program, worked in student government and was one of the inaugural UH Ambassadors; the experience with campus activities greatly enhanced my time at UH

I'm amazed that the old building where Mary and I worked for the Alumni Association is still there; it is surrounded now by large, new construction so the options for this land are pretty limited

I spent my last 2 years at UH as a resident advisor in the Quad which I much preferred to Moody Towers; the Quad had been built in the 50s and was recently torn down (these new buildings are still called the Quad)

UH plays its home football games at TDECU Stadium; when I was a student, we played at the Astrodome but few students attended so there was always a push to move the games back to the campus

There are so many new buildings on campus that it's easy to get lost; when I visited, there were long lines of parents and students as they moved into the dorms despite the ongoing pandemic

The Calhoun Loft Apartments are emblematic of residential life as universities have tried to keep housing on par with nice apartments in town; I'm sure the quality of food has vastly improved (I still remember my first chicken fried steak!)

Landscape with Blue Trees, Jim Love, 1982-83; I went into the book store in the University Center and they were selling Phi Slama Jama gear taking me back to the fun years when I was a student here

UH now has the Bauer College of Business with modern facilities but, as a marketing major in the 1980s, my classes were all in the Heyne (yes, pronounced like the childish term for butt) Building

Standout programs at UH include the Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management and the new Hobby School of Public Affairs; UH is one of four public universities in Texas with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter

The University Center Satellite closed this year due to years of flooding damage and will be replaced with a new dining center; I remember seeing live coverage of the Challenger disaster here

Life Members of the UH Alumni Association have their names engraved on these pillars so I had to find mine; I worked for UH Alumni from 1986-88 publishing a quarterly newsletter, managing some of the alumni groups and putting on our annual awards dinner

UH made it to the Final Four in 2021 before losing to eventual champion Baylor; given the small number of students living on campus, I thrived at UH and especially enjoyed my last 2 years

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, 1931; if you're ever in Barcelona and enjoy Dali then take a day trip to Figueres to see his museum

The False Mirror, Rene Magritte, 1929; the Surrealist photographer Man Ray once owned this piece, which he described as a painting that sees as much as it itself is seen; it's said to be one of the inspirations for the 1952 CBS television eye logo

Cubist Landscape, Diego Rivera, 1912; as of 2018, Rivera held the record for highest price at auction for a work by a Latin American artist with his 1931 painting The Rivals, selling for $9.76 million

The Birth of the World, Joan Miro, 1915; a museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another in his adoptive city of Palma de Mallorca in 1981

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1943-1959; eight of Wright's buildings, including the Guggenheim, were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites under the title The 20th-century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright in 2019

Three Women, Fernand Leger, 1922; Three Women offers a machine-age update to a time-honored subject in the history of painting: the group portrait of female nudes in repose

Modern Art, Lynda Benglis, 1970-74; is the artist making a sarcastic statement or is this an expensive version of Manhattan cow patties?

Gladiators, Philip Guston, 1940; while working on Gladiators, Guston was also painting murals in NYC as a part of a WPA program in locations such as the Queensborough housing project in Long Island City

No. 5/No. 22, Mark Rothko, 1950; Rothko said, If you are only moved by color relationships, then you miss the point. I'm interested in expressing the big emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom

Untitled, Lee Bontecou, 1961; this work straddles the lines between painting and sculpture, mechanical and organic, and inviting and threatening; 1961 saw Bay of Pigs, Berlin Wall and first troops sent to Vietnam

Five Feet of Colorful Tools, Jim Dine, 1962; the artist incorporates images of everyday objects in his art, but unlike typical pop artists, includes personal passions and everyday experiences (his parents owned a hardware store)

Accumulation No. 1, Yayoi Kusama, 1962; when she first exhibited this work in New York critics were, perhaps not surprisingly, shocked by the sexualized transformation of an ordinary domestic object by a female artist

She-Goat, Pablo Picasso, 1950; this massive life-size bronze is a wonderful assemblage (ie Dumpster diving) of a wicker basket body, a palm leaf back and two ceramic flowerpots for the udder which was then cast

Paper Tiger, Thomas Bayrle, 1969; Bayrle is known for hypnotic works of mechanical repetition that, when viewed in full, sharpen into commentary, offering us insights into our relationship between consumerism, technology, propaganda, and desire

Twin, Robert Ryman, 1966; the scale of this piece required the use of a specially made 12-inch brush and thinned paint so that Ryman could complete each horizontal stroke without interruption

Sow, Alexander Calder, 1928; Calder’s first kinetic sculpture was of a duck, which he presented to his mother as a Christmas gift in 1909 when he was 11; it was made from a formed, brass sheet and rocked back and forth when touched

Retrospective Bust of a Woman, Salvador Dali, 1933; Dalí described Surrealist sculpture as created wholly for the purpose of materializing in a fetishistic way, with maximum tangible reality, ideas and fantasies of a delirious character (say what?)

RSVP I, Senga Nengudi, 2003; the exhibit consists of previously worn, dark-hued pantyhose partially knotted into pendulous, sand-filled sacks, then stretched and tethered to the wall in various changing arrangements evocative of dance movements

Untitled, Robert Gober, 1986; according to the museum, this work is far from commonplace, this bed is surreal: a personal space of dreaming and desire that is strangely generic, recalling a vague childhood memory (who writes this puffery?)

A Universe, Alexander Calder, 1934; Calder relocated to Paris in 1926, and became close friends with Joan Miró, a friendship that would last for decades; Calder won first prize at the 1952 Venice Biennale, which catapulted him to fame

Tulips, Jeff Koons, 1995-2004; Eli Broad was the only person to found two Fortune 500 companies in different industries, SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home; he died in April 2021 with an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion

The Broad opened in 2015 in downtown LA; the museum is named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad (rhymes with road), who financed the $140 million building

Two Marilyns, Andy Warhol, 1962; Warhol is regarded as one of the most well known appropriation artists and he often made use of publicity photographs and publicly available photographs not owned by him (lawsuits typically followed)

Rorschach, Andy Warhol, 1984; there were 26 works by Warhol at the Broad; the museum is distinctive in its exceptional dedication to the full arc of artists’ careers

Flag, Jasper Johns, 1967; Johns's 48-star Flag from 1958 was purchased in 2010 by hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen for an estimated $110 million, making it the most expensive painting ever by a living artist

Under the Table, Robert Therrien, 1994; with a table 10 ft tall, this work epitomizes the pieces at the Broad which seemed designed for the young, Instragram-obsessed crowd

Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Jeff Koons, 1988; unlike a typical art museum, the Broad has galleries dedicated to the works of specific artists; admission is free but, due to demand, reservations were required

Longing for Eternity, Yayoi Kusama, 2017; one of the most popular works at the Broad, you waited in line to peer inside this Infinity Mirror Room from 3 different viewpoints; each person had 30 seconds

In 1965 Yoyai Kusama produced her first Infinity Mirror Room; from outside Longing for Eternity, viewers peer through porthole-like windows into the dazzling, LED light–filled hexagonal chamber

Rabbit, Jeff Koons, 1986; one of the editions of Rabbit was the most expensive work sold by a living artist at auction, being sold for $91.1 million in May 2019 to billionaire hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen (until he surpassed this buying the Jasper Johns piece mentioned above the next year)

Purist Still Life, Roy Lichtenstein, 1975; the Broad Foundation has made $650 million in grants to improve education for underserved communities since it launched in 1999; the Broads also gave millions in support of gun control measures

Warhol's modest family roots (his parents immigrated from Slovakia) influenced his work: his mother's choice of lunchtime staple prompted his Campbell's Soup series (these two are from 1962)

Strips of Earth's Skin, El Anatsui, 2008; the museum contains an art vault which you pass through on elevators to the display floors; the Broad Art Foundation has made 8,500+ loans from this vault to 500+ museums around the world

I'm Sorry, Roy Lichtenstein, 1966; appropriating the visual language of American mass culture, such as Mickey Mouse, Coke and the funny pages, the artist found his niche by creating paintings that didn't seem to be art

Born in 1929, Yoyai Kusama is one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan; she moved to New York City in 1958 and was a part of the New York avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, especially in the pop-art movement

Self-Portrait, Andy Warhol, 1966; in 2002, the U.S. Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol; the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and features Warhol's painting 'Self-Portrait, 1964'

Balloon Dog (Blue), Jeff Koons, 1994-2000; this work is part of Koons's Celebration series which memorializes the rituals, icons and images surrounding birthdays, holidays and other party occasions

Next door to the Broad, is the iconic, Frank Geary-designed, Walt Disney Concert Hall which is home to the LA Philharmonic Orchestra; it was inspired by the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (also designed by Gehry)

Goldfish Bowl (bronze sculpture, 1977), Interior with Painting of Bather (right, 1997) and Black Flowers (left, 1961), Roy Lichtenstein; after serving a 3 year Army stint at the end of WW2, the artist graduated from Ohio State with a Masters in Fine Arts

Kusama is one of the most commercially successful contemporary artists; I loved her colorful sculptures at the NY Botanical Garden and her work always seems to be uplifting and smile-inducing

Couple, Jeff Koons, 2001; I had never seen an oil painting by Koons before and was impressed; when Koons moved to NYC in 1977 he first worked at the membership desk for the Museum of Modern Art

Things on the Wall, Roy Lichtenstein, 1973; one of the founders of American Pop Art, Lichtenstein's work Masterpiece sold for $165 million in 2017 with the proceeds used to create a fund for criminal justice reform

Yayoi Kusama says that art has become her way to express her mental problems; she has said she fights pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method she's found that relieved her illness is to keep creating art

Party Hat, Jeff Koons, 1995-97; critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons - some view his work as pioneering and of major historical importance while others dismiss his work as kitsch, crass, and based on cynical self-merchandising

Yosemite is the most stunning and unique place I've visited in all my travels (despite the significant recent fire damage); I wish I were younger and more mobile since I've only seen a tiny fraction of the park and hiking is the only means to see it

317 ft Vernal Fall is a torrent in late spring frequently drenching hikers; with the minimal snowpack in 2021 this is about the lowest water flow you'll see here

In this view from Glacier Point, Half Dome is at far left with the Liberty Cap and (barely visible) Nevada Fall just right of center; at 7214 feet (3200 ft directly above Curry Village), it's a spectacular view and can be reached by car

I'm at the top of Nevada Fall which (like Vernal Fall further down) lies on the Merced River; this had been one of CA's driest years on record so, many waterfalls, like Yosemite and Bridalveil, were barely a trickle

California ground squirrels are the most frequently seen animal here; others saw a bobcat 10 minutes before I passed them on the trail and a black bear near the base of Yosemite Falls the day before

It had snowed a couple of days prior to my visit with snow and ice still evident in the higher elevations and in shady spots; I had decided just the night before to visit so was lucky to find lodging in Curry Village

I stayed in Curry Village in this unheated tent with temperatures in the 20s the first night with no cell service or wifi; even in the off-season the tent was $400 for the 3 nights since there is very limited lodging inside the park

A guardrail at the top of Nevada Fall allows you to look over the edge straight down 594 feet to the base; after my visit I read the book Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite which details stories about the hundreds of people who have died in the park

Nevada Fall; most of the 5+ million annual visitors see only the 7 sq mi of Yosemite Valley (the park is 1187 sq mi); the park began requiring reservations to enter during peak periods (May 1-Sept 30) starting in 2020

The Steller jay is common in the park and is the only crested jay west of the Rocky Mountains; Lee says we took this trail when we hiked to the top of Half Dome in July 2000 but my memory is so poor that I didn't remember our route

Emerald Pool lies at the top of Vernal Fall with the smooth 20 degree slope surrounding it called the Silver Apron; despite warning signs, overheated hikers sometimes cool off here with 3 people swept over the falls on July 19, 2011 alone

The granite dome Liberty Cap rises 1700 ft from the top of Nevada Fall (on the right) to a peak elevation of 7080 ft; from Curry Village the hike was 9+ miles to Nevada Fall with 2200 ft of elevation gain

The most direct route to Vernal Fall was closed due to trail maintenance so I had to take the longer route on the John Muir Trail; lots of construction takes place throughout the valley between Labor Day and the first heavy snowfall

Looking downriver from the top of Nevada Fall; President Lincoln designated a forest reserve here in 1864 before John Muir succeeded in designating it a national park in 1890; in 1984 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Duke Homestead was built in 1852 by Washington Duke, on a 300 acre farm; the Union Army looted it during the Civil War leaving the family with little so they shifted from tobacco farming to tobacco processing, introducing cigarettes in 1881

This is a reconstruction of the first tobacco factory founded by Washington Duke in April 1865; the Duke children all worked here where they manufactured smoking tobacco

In 1839, bright leaf tobacco was discovered by a slave at a farm north of Durham; he fell asleep while watching a curing fire and then tossed charred logs on the dying embers which created a sudden drying heat, resulting in a bright yellow tobacco

Tobacco seeds are very small with about 300,000 in each ounce; the visitor center here features the Tobacco Museum, with exhibits about tobacco farming, processing and the history of tobacco

The Tobacco Museum features the world's largest (284) collection of spittoons (bought from a CT gentleman); this ironstone spittoon was made in England in July 1883

Liggett and Myers (this pack is from 1955) is the world's 4th largest tobacco company and headquartered in Durham; in 1911, a Supreme Court decision found the American Tobacco Co violated the Sherman Antitrust Act so Liggett and Myers was spun off

Cigarette machines were ubiquitous in the middle decades of the 1900s; it wasn't until 1964 that the US Surgeon General said - Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the US to warrant appropriate remedial action

This kitchen was an 1860 addition to Washington Duke's original 1852 house; in 1931 a Duke descendant donated the house to Duke University which gave it to the state of NC in 1974

First published in 1828, Lydia Child's The American Frugal Housewife was a very popular 19th-century manual for homemakers (would Artelia Duke have owned one?); interesting recipes and advice on housekeeping are detailed in no-nonsense prose

Duke founded the American Tobacco Co in 1890 and is best known for the introduction of modern cigarette manufacturing and marketing and his financial gift to Trinity College which became Duke University

The original American Tobacco Company logo (as shown in this early 1900s cast) featured Chief Powhatan; a 1911 Supreme Court ruling divided American Tobacco (ATC) into 4 companies: ATC, Liggett + Myers, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds

Reynolds moved to Winston-Salem in 1874 to start his own tobacco company eventually becoming the wealthiest person in North Carolina; in 1913, Reynolds developed a great innovation: the packaged cigarette

The American Tobacco Co used this Bag Jack from 1932 until 1977 to manufacture bags of Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco; before the invention of this machine the work would have typically been done by young Black boys

Genuine Durham smoking tobacco tin c. 1910; cigarette smoking is responsible for 480,000+ deaths per year in the US, including 41,000+ deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure

This Liberty Bell replica was made by RJ Reynolds employees and is made of tobacco; it weighs 300+ lbs and the tobacco could have been used to make 180,000 cigarettes

James Duke was an early marketing expert creating consumer demand for his specific brands rather than tobacco in general; on average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers

This tobacco curing barn dates from around 1870 and is originally from a farm in northern Durham County; the hand-harvest tobacco leaves were hung here for a week and cured from a stone furnace at 180 degree temperatures

After curing, the tobacco leaves were very dry and brittle; they were brought to the packhouse to be sorted based on their quality (size, color, texture, insect damage, etc)

This is the third tobacco factory (1869) Washington Duke built after rapidly out outgrowing the first two; the Dukes used this factory until 1874 when they moved to a facility in downtown Durham