Saturday morning was unusual; it was the first Saturday morning without a
basketball practice since late October. To fill the time, we made a family
outing to midtown KC, picked up a few things at Wild Oats, an organic grocer,
then headed over to Waldo on a whim. See, we got a certificate for a
Persian rug from A.–a good friend who runs a gallery in south-central Kansas
City, just beyond the Plaza and the campus of UMKC. We don’t get over
there often; in fact, we hadn’t been in at least a year. Originally from
Persia, just before it switched to Iran in ’35, A., now 80-something, gifted us
a generous certificate for a 3×5 carpet from his shop; we’ve put off the visit
for the past seven months because of the chaos of our incongruent
schedules.
A life-long chemist by trade, A. wasn’t at the shop. His son-in-law,
J., was filling in. He called A. on the phone, handed it off to me.
A. and I visited for a few minutes, much like we used to, back when I was an
undergraduate ghostwriting monthly letters to antique dealers on his
behalf. We met because he and his late wife, P., were alums of my alma
mater; I was the recipient of the first award named for his wife, the first
recipient after her passing. And I thanked him with a letter. He
invited me to lunch at the Kabob House, and so on. Over the phone, A. said
he was disappointed to miss us Saturday, but he hoped we would return this week
to have lunch with him. He was giving a talk on chemistry to a group of
boy scouts in the afternoon. Couldn’t be at the gallery Saturday for that
reason.