In 1967, an odd set of circumstances let me to Christian Brothers College (now CBU) in Memphis Tennessee to major in Mechanical Engineering. By rights, no engineering school should have accepted me as I’d only had a semester of math in the HS seminary I attended. But CBU took a chance and I managed to graduate in four years. It was the tumultuous time of Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, drugs, and rock. Many of us marched in the garbage-workers strike that was the prelude to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis my freshman year.

While those years shaped me, I hadn’t returned for a visit in over 45 years. But much to my surprise, I was named Alumnus of the Year in 2016. Debra convinced me to return from Sri Lanka for the award ceremony, and I’m glad she did. We met with the current students, my life-long favorite professor Ray Brown, a few old friends, and enjoyed the wonderful Gala Ball award ceremony sponsored by Fed-Ex. I was pressed into participating in a video to keep me from a rambling speech. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLklvsG0DQ )

As long as we were going to Memphis, we decided to tack on a couple of days to enjoy the great blues music scene on Beale Street. We love live music, and it was fun to have so many choices all on one area.  But the real surprise was the recently renovated Civil Rights Museum built around the very Lorraine Motel room where MLK spent his last night. Maybe I was so moved out of a sense of deja vu, but the whole museum was outstanding. I highly recommend it if anyone ever gets to Memphis.