Brian's Graduation Day at Texas Tech

We made the trip over the weekend to see Brian graduate from Texas Tech with this Bachelor of Science in Architecture. I had not been back to Lubbock for 25 years. Most of you that know me know that I graduated from Texas Tech with my law degree. The drive was not nearly as long or as hard as I remembered. My wife, Cindy, had also graduated from Texas Tech with her law degree.
One of the great things about Lubbock, population 210,000, is the ease with which one can navigate the town. The streets that go in the north-south directions are by the alphabet. Starting at the east side of town, the streets are labeled Avenue A, Avenue B, and so on to Avenue Z. Then you cross University (which goes through the University) and the street names are in alphabetical order: Albany, Boston, and so on. The east-west streets are mainly numbered: 1st Street, 2nd Street, and so on starting at the north end of town. The main east-west streets are Broadway (which goes downtown to the Lubbock County Courthouse), 19th Street (which crosses in from of Texas Tech and goes right by the law school), 34th Street, 50th Street, 66th Street, and 82nd Street on the south side.
I was amazed at how quickly all of that came back to me. The apartment complex where I lived most of the time is still there. So many places that I remember have not changed one bit in the last 25 years.
We found the house that Brian shared with another architecture student. Of course, it was not difficult to find. The house was nice, but what really impressed me was the way he has matured over the years. Seeing him in his own place, managing his own business, and driving himself to reach his goal with such dedication and discipline gave me faith that he will succeed. I am proud of him for those things. Both of my sons have grown into strong, positive, and motivated men. What more could you ask for?

What I did not really remember, at least until it slapped me in the face, was how quickly winter weather could hit in Lubbock and how harsh it could be. We woke up Saturday morning (the ceremony was scheduled for 9 a.m.) to find my car covered with snow (see the photograph below). Of course, I was not adequately prepared for snow or 21 degree temperatures with 20 mph winds.
The streets were covered with a sheet of ice. The parking lot at Spirit Arena at Texas Tech was covered with ice. None of us brought heavy enough coats for the bitterly cold wind. Okay, enough whining about the weather. We did gather our composure and got the arena in plenty of time.
This place was new since I had been there, and I have to say, it is a gorgeous arena. This is the place where the Texas Tech basketball teams play. They had it set up beautifully for the graduation. Below is a photo showing the set up before the graduates entered the arena.
There were about 1000 of them graduating at this time. Texas Tech had so many December graduates, there were actually 3 graduation ceremonies. The post graduate degrees were on the Friday evening before. Brian's group (the 9 a.m. Saturday morning ceremony) included the schools of architecture, art, and engineering. Then there was a third ceremony Saturday afternoon that included the business schools. This was just December. Can you imagine how huge the May ceremonies would be?
The picture below shows Brian right after they called his name and he received his pin. (They gave them their actual diplomas at the reception in the Architecture building after the graduation ceremony). Trust me, Brian is in that picture. If you look closely, he is the red head walking by the guy in the blue robe just to the right of the center of the picture.

The picture below is my son, Brian, holding his diploma just after receiving it at the reception at the architecture building. I really have a hard time expressing how happy I am for him. I've never seen such dedication as he showed in accomplishing this. By the way, he did it in 3 and a half years.
Okay, the kid has been in college for the last 3 1/2 years so let him have his long hair and beard. Actually, I think he looks pretty cool. It will go soon enough, at least, until he is CEO of his own architecture firm, then he can grow it back.

Congratulations, Brian!

After the graduation ceremony was finished, Cindy and I decided to get nostalgic and look around the law school. After all, we each spent 3 years of our lives there.

Texas Tech, apparently, is building an attachment onto the law school. They are calling it a "professional development center". I don't really know if that is part of the law school or something else altogether. However, the law school building was open, so we went in.

This is the front of the building. The front door is just to the right of this picture.

Below is the front door of the Law Library where I spent many hours reading, studying, and doing research. I think those are the same doors that were there 25 years ago.
I went up to the second level to get this picture. This is the hallway just inside the front door of the law school. There are three levels. Classrooms are on the 1st and 2nd floors. The third floor has offices, and some smaller meeting rooms. I remember this building like I graduated from there last year. It really has not changed.

After you get inside, this picture below shows the main hallway on the first floor. This is immediately to the right after you get through the front door. There are large auditorium styly classrooms down the right side of this hallway. The lounge and commons areas are to the left.

This is the lounge in the center of the first floor. One thing to recall about law school is the quiet. The entire building was very quiet all the time. Even in the lounge. People were reading or studying all over the place. If you talked to your friends, the conversation was never loud. There was no shouting down the hallway at your buddy. There were no food fights.

The picture below is the commons area. It was basically a room with tables for sitting at with a coke or a snack. There are a couple of changes. When I was there, we only had two soda vending machines: Coke and Dr. Pepper. There was one snack vending machine there. Now, there are several vending machines and some kind of a buffet set up (to the left). We spent quite a bit of time in this room between classes, that is when we weren't in the library or in our assigned study carrel reading the next day's assignments or doing research for some paper.

This is one of the large auditorium style classrooms. I actually had several classes in this room. Also, this is the room where I took my Bar Exam in 1982. You know, it all seemed so much bigger when I was a law student. This used to be a very chilling view when the professor was standing in front of the class just waiting to slice some poor unsuspecting, unprepared law student to ribbons, figuratively of course.

This the final view of the school from 19th Street. This is probably the most memorable view of the outside of the building that I have. This is the way I remember the outside of the law school.

We had a very good time all in all. We celebrated Brian's graduation even more on Saturday night at Stella's Restaurant on 50th Street. We got to look around town and see the old places.

Brian seemed sad to see this part of his life come to an end. I understand. He has been in this situation with his friends for a long time. I think he has really enjoyed his college time. He plans on going on to graduate school. I am anxious to see how he progresses from here.