No one expects warm rays of sunshine to invade a basement, but the Friends' basement area had that particular blessing almost every Tuesday of the month. Arnie Henkel, volunteer and Friend, died suddenly on that day and, due to circumstances beyond mortal control, we never were able to bid him farewell. Affable, able-bodied, chubby, charming Arnie is gone from our midst and only the memories of his grin, laughter, and jokes remain, along with his tins of Danish cookies. There is a little less cheer among the basement crew, but we bustle along, remembering that once upon a time a happy comrade was among us and for that time we are grateful.
Interesting things happen in the basement.
Back in the spring of 1999, a few University of Texas students came downstairs to work on a photographic project. A month or so later, two of them returned in high chagrin, looking for a misplaced UT library textbook. Apparently, one of the students had brought it with her and put it down on a stack of the collection waiting to be processed for the upcoming Book Sale. The students hunted around through boxes in the area they had used, but to no avail. Leaving the title of the book with us, they left, hoping we would find it and call.