It's been a hard week at the office, and only slightly related to being
the surviving hard-working staff person in a two-person program with a
staff vacancy.

The slight relationship is that the vacant workstation
(open-office-style-Dilbert-partitions), which is next to mine, has been
temporarily occupied this week by a new employee in another position
whose workstation is not yet ready.

He smokes. Not in the office of course, no one can smoke anywhere inside
a public building these days. It's not the smoke. It's the sound. 

The cough. A little throat-clearing dry Grim Reaper's chuckle. Just like
my mother used to make. I can hear its echoes in my little boy's mind
across more than three decades...before it was silenced after the
unsuccessful surgery for lung cancer. 

Sound. It can transport you. 

_____________________________________
Dan Becker
Executive Director, RHDC
Raleigh Historic Districts Commission
[log in to unmask] 
919/890-3678

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