The next portion is here....
Hopefully, there will be something here for anyone that reads it....comments, as always are welcome...even if you just comment to let me know that you read it....thanks
The drive to the airport and the flight were a blur. Thoughts bombarded Jillian’s head and concentration was a major effort. Memories of Dad, his favorite hat perched on his head, salt and pepper hair, always needing cut, flying out both sides and the back in the wind, his same tweed jacket, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, with suede patches at the elbow, moving briskly as he made his way to class. Confidence, intelligence, humorous, accurate, purposeful were all things that immediately come to mind when given the opportunity to describe Harrison Barton.
Harrison Barton was a strange being. His passion in life was his daughter, his purpose in life to teach the intricacies of Applied Mathematics. His daughter was his alone to raise following the crash that claimed his wife when Jill was barely two. Jill had always kept him centered. Harry, as his friends and close colleagues knew him, was the product of an unconventional childhood. Not a horrible one, but one that not every child grows to appreciate. Abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth, his father, a traveling salesman with an international wire company, Harrison was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather was a great guy, the ultimate showman. He had an ability to make people laugh, which he claimed was developed during his late teens and early twenties, because of the time he spent as a clown in the circus. He never proved that was the case, but Jill had pulled out a pair of enormous blue leather clown shoes out of the back of his closet once, so the belief is there for her. Grandpa Barton was also a very shrewd businessman. He started a hardware store in the middle of the depression, and turned it into the largest hardware parts supplier in the Eastern United States by the mid-1930’s. When people would ask how he did it, he would smile and tap the side of his nose and say, “Because I could smell it”. No one ever really knew what that meant, but Jill always said that her dad could smell Math. No one else smelled it like him.
In a fog of nostalgia, Jillian descended the stairs at the terminal of Corporate Flyers Philadelphia office. Frank took her bags off the plane and had them loaded into the trunk of Bob’s car so that Jillian could reacquaint with her dad’s best friend and attorney. Jillian had not really cried yet and Bob was impressed with her manner, both professional and personable. Their conversation was light, Bob was up especially early and Jillian was up incredibly late.
“Did you get some sleep on the way?”
“I don’t think so, I was doing a lot of thinking and remembering. Something that dad and I usually did when we were together, but not something that I do a lot when we aren’t….you know what I mean? Busy schedules, classes, tests. You know all that stuff gets in the way sometimes.”
“Let’s get you to the hotel and let you get freshened up a little before we get to work. You even have time to get a little sleep, if you want. Our appointment isn’t until 11 with the funeral director.”
“I will see how I feel after I have a shower, maybe a little nap would be good.”
“Well, at any rate, here is my card, before I forget to give you one, it has all my numbers on it, office, home, cell, and email if you need it.”
The airport was small, and outside of Philadelphia proper, in the country, actually. The ride to the hotel was short and the arrangements for the room already made. Bob took her straight to her room and made sure that she was comfortable and that the room was acceptable. The hotel was gorgeous. The room was huge; the furniture was beautiful, and old. There was as much wood in the frame of the bed as there is in a lot of modern homes. She felt like she was home. This old inn had been here for as long as she could remember. The restaurant was one that visitors from other cities always wanted to sample. Not because it was advertised as the best, but because it wasn’t advertised at all. Anyone that had ever dined there raved about it…for 200 years. It was tradition to be the best. The whole town of Nesbitt was that way, the people, the schools, the university all were the best. That is what brought her dad here in the beginning.
Harrison didn’t teach at Nesbitt College because he was paid a large salary to do it. He didn’t teach here because he could be a famous teacher. He didn’t teach here because he thought that it was the most prestigious university in the world. No. He taught here because he could be associated with like minded faculty, believing that they were the best, and it was a great place to raise Jillian. And he was right.
As she showered, Jillian thought back to the days she spent growing up on this campus. The old house that they lived in with the huge staircase that wound up to the second floor. The old worn stair runner that softened the footsteps a little as you ran up and down. The massive handrail bordering the foyer, where she used to sit and watch as people came to see her father. He never tried to hide her, her always invited her to meet the visitors, no matter who they happened to be. The student in his Theoretical Mathematics class with the worst Grade Point Average, or the President of the College were all part of Jillian’s childhood circle of acquaintances. She was always well behaved in the company of visitors, usually playing at her daddy’s feet underneath his incredibly large desk.
Jillian remembered the first time she realized how intelligent her dad was, as she sat on the floor behind his desk and listened as he explained something, that she has since forgotten, to a young man sitting opposite him. They talked for what seemed like hours debating a single number. She didn’t have any idea what the number meant, but she knew it was important to her dad. The young man left in a huff after her dad had proved him wrong. Before the front door had closed, he had her by the hand and took her to the back yard to look at the stars.
“Look there, Jill, those are 'The Seven Sisters', the Pleiades” and then swept his hand over the sky and continued, “that bright one there, that is Sirius, the 'Dog Star',” and he went on, and on for several minutes explaining the heavens to her. She thought to herself, “Wow, is there anything that my daddy doesn’t know about?” Throughout her life, she was convinced that he knew everything.
She had no idea that he was not done impressing her just yet. Even in death, he had a few more things that were bound to shock her about the vastness of his knowledge.
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The drive to the airport and the flight were a blur. Thoughts bombarded Jillian’s head and concentration was a major effort. Memories of Dad, his favorite hat perched on his head, salt and pepper hair, always needing cut, flying out both sides and the back in the wind, his same tweed jacket, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, with suede patches at the elbow, moving briskly as he made his way to class. Confidence, intelligence, humorous, accurate, purposeful were all things that immediately come to mind when given the opportunity to describe Harrison Barton.
Harrison Barton was a strange being. His passion in life was his daughter, his purpose in life to teach the intricacies of Applied Mathematics. His daughter was his alone to raise following the crash that claimed his wife when Jill was barely two. Jill had always kept him centered. Harry, as his friends and close colleagues knew him, was the product of an unconventional childhood. Not a horrible one, but one that not every child grows to appreciate. Abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth, his father, a traveling salesman with an international wire company, Harrison was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather was a great guy, the ultimate showman. He had an ability to make people laugh, which he claimed was developed during his late teens and early twenties, because of the time he spent as a clown in the circus. He never proved that was the case, but Jill had pulled out a pair of enormous blue leather clown shoes out of the back of his closet once, so the belief is there for her. Grandpa Barton was also a very shrewd businessman. He started a hardware store in the middle of the depression, and turned it into the largest hardware parts supplier in the Eastern United States by the mid-1930’s. When people would ask how he did it, he would smile and tap the side of his nose and say, “Because I could smell it”. No one ever really knew what that meant, but Jill always said that her dad could smell Math. No one else smelled it like him.
In a fog of nostalgia, Jillian descended the stairs at the terminal of Corporate Flyers Philadelphia office. Frank took her bags off the plane and had them loaded into the trunk of Bob’s car so that Jillian could reacquaint with her dad’s best friend and attorney. Jillian had not really cried yet and Bob was impressed with her manner, both professional and personable. Their conversation was light, Bob was up especially early and Jillian was up incredibly late.
“Did you get some sleep on the way?”
“I don’t think so, I was doing a lot of thinking and remembering. Something that dad and I usually did when we were together, but not something that I do a lot when we aren’t….you know what I mean? Busy schedules, classes, tests. You know all that stuff gets in the way sometimes.”
“Let’s get you to the hotel and let you get freshened up a little before we get to work. You even have time to get a little sleep, if you want. Our appointment isn’t until 11 with the funeral director.”
“I will see how I feel after I have a shower, maybe a little nap would be good.”
“Well, at any rate, here is my card, before I forget to give you one, it has all my numbers on it, office, home, cell, and email if you need it.”
The airport was small, and outside of Philadelphia proper, in the country, actually. The ride to the hotel was short and the arrangements for the room already made. Bob took her straight to her room and made sure that she was comfortable and that the room was acceptable. The hotel was gorgeous. The room was huge; the furniture was beautiful, and old. There was as much wood in the frame of the bed as there is in a lot of modern homes. She felt like she was home. This old inn had been here for as long as she could remember. The restaurant was one that visitors from other cities always wanted to sample. Not because it was advertised as the best, but because it wasn’t advertised at all. Anyone that had ever dined there raved about it…for 200 years. It was tradition to be the best. The whole town of Nesbitt was that way, the people, the schools, the university all were the best. That is what brought her dad here in the beginning.
Harrison didn’t teach at Nesbitt College because he was paid a large salary to do it. He didn’t teach here because he could be a famous teacher. He didn’t teach here because he thought that it was the most prestigious university in the world. No. He taught here because he could be associated with like minded faculty, believing that they were the best, and it was a great place to raise Jillian. And he was right.
As she showered, Jillian thought back to the days she spent growing up on this campus. The old house that they lived in with the huge staircase that wound up to the second floor. The old worn stair runner that softened the footsteps a little as you ran up and down. The massive handrail bordering the foyer, where she used to sit and watch as people came to see her father. He never tried to hide her, her always invited her to meet the visitors, no matter who they happened to be. The student in his Theoretical Mathematics class with the worst Grade Point Average, or the President of the College were all part of Jillian’s childhood circle of acquaintances. She was always well behaved in the company of visitors, usually playing at her daddy’s feet underneath his incredibly large desk.
Jillian remembered the first time she realized how intelligent her dad was, as she sat on the floor behind his desk and listened as he explained something, that she has since forgotten, to a young man sitting opposite him. They talked for what seemed like hours debating a single number. She didn’t have any idea what the number meant, but she knew it was important to her dad. The young man left in a huff after her dad had proved him wrong. Before the front door had closed, he had her by the hand and took her to the back yard to look at the stars.
“Look there, Jill, those are 'The Seven Sisters', the Pleiades” and then swept his hand over the sky and continued, “that bright one there, that is Sirius, the 'Dog Star',” and he went on, and on for several minutes explaining the heavens to her. She thought to herself, “Wow, is there anything that my daddy doesn’t know about?” Throughout her life, she was convinced that he knew everything.
She had no idea that he was not done impressing her just yet. Even in death, he had a few more things that were bound to shock her about the vastness of his knowledge.
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