Nearly Incandescent From So Much Interaction

With so many people of such brain power and achievement over this action-packed period of hours. Whew!

Africans, Europeans, Usians, Afro-Latins, Caribbeanists, artists-musicians-dancers-scholars, academics, non-academics -- what everyone had in common was a high level of accomplishment and a personal relationship with Bob Thompson of love and respect.

I am trashed, physically from all this -- so much standing, so much sitting in non-ergonomic seating, all of which play havoc with the damaged cervical and spinal vertebrae -- but the experiences, the new knowledged I acquired, the new relationships, the strengthening of previous ones -- more than made this weekend at Yale worthwhile. I am so appreciative of this privilege.

There was the same number of women participating in this event as featured presenters and honorees as men, which so often in this context is not the case. There were men and women of color -- latinos, Caribbeanists, Africans, in at least equal numbers as white Americans. This IS who Dr. Thompson is. I talked with the principal organizer of this symposium and dinner in honor of Dr. Thompson's life achievement, and his contributions to Yale, and mentioned this. He said, "You wouldn't have dared tried anything else if you are honoring Bob." There are so many of such accomplishment that have been influenced directly by him, it was a terrible and lengthy process to whittle down the qualified candidates to anything remotely manageable, and then fill the few available slots. They put in tremendous hours to get this right.
Among the large number of brilliant take-aways, it's impossible to pick and choose, which one best liked, but maybe it was learning about Malian botanical magics and, again, re Mali, the artist of bird masquerade.