The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it --Omar Khayyam
It's all about time isn't it? Once we were skipping down windy beaches looking for agates and now we're skipping dental appointments because we forgot. Recently I've written about those other times in the lives of the remarkable people who share the present times with me in this stack of rented spaces. My friend Lou Barrett, the ex-cop, refers to all of us as "inmates." In a sense Lou is right because we've been sentenced to life terms for the unforgivable offense of growing old. But we are still the same individuals responsible for creating those other times, some of which were exceptionally well lived.
Like the one architect Joy Gannett designed. Do a deep probe into the inner souls of thousands of retired strivers and you will find a high number of them did not truly enjoy going to work every day. That wasn't Joy. He loved what he did and knew what he wanted to spend his life doing from as far back as junior high school. It was in a mechanical drawing class where he was given an assignment to draw the plans for a house basement where a slab of concrete would be poured on the ground for the floor. On his finished drawing he penned "ROR" and handed it in to the teacher who later asked him what those initials meant. The teacher loved his reply: "Rough On Rats."
Joy was born in the early morning hours of October 13, 1926 in the family home in Oakland, California. He was named Joy to honor his mother's family name: Joy. A few years later his parents divorced and Joy was often sent to visit his mother's brother in Stockton where he and his cousin Tim Joy, who was one year older, became lifelong brothers.
Joy enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944 and was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on his way to what would have been the invasion of Japan when the dropping of the atomic bombs ended the war. With the support of the G.I. Bill, Joy enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his degree in Architecture. Joy and Delores (Dotty) Phillips were married in his senior year and their family grew to include Martha, Marshall, and Alice.
Joy worked for a number of different firms as he developed his own skills in a complex profession that demands both artistic and structural expertise to achieve creation of buildings that are both reliably sound and aesthetically in harmony with their location. One of Joy's many projects was working as a member of the team that designed the Veteran's hospital on Pill Hill next to Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon.
Replacing his cousin Tim Joy as a resident at Russellville Park, Joy, with his quiet wit and wonderful singing voice --in high school and the army he participated in bands as a drummer-- joins that elite confederacy of talents that define the unique spirituality of this home for the still active players in life's mysterious game.
