I currently have sixteen benches on my property. Three of them are down in the play area for when we gather folks for a game of cornhole or croquet, three of them are around the upper driveway and are used for staging various activities (like building new benches!), two of them are in the Cecil Garden and are used for reflection while hand watering the garden, and the other eight are spread out strategically across the back hillside so that while wandering the paths on the hillside, I or anyone else can sit and reflect on the beauty and wonders of this amazing California landscape. In case you haven’t figured it out, I am a big fan of benches. This probably harkens back to all those times on vacation whether at a theme park or some quaint European city when my back has preferred the comfort of repose rather than walking around. In my family lore, everyone knows that while they ride the thrill rides or shop the back alleys, Dad is usually seeking out a nice bench on which to sit while the family does what the family wants to do.
It’s interesting that I am so positive and prolific with my benches on this hilltop because I was considerably less positive about them in the world of academia. For years I sat on fundraising boards at places like Cornell and the College of Staten Island and learned that the one thing that academic fundraisers hate is benches. Many people who want to donate to a university and be remembered in posterity, think in terms of donating money for a bench that will bear their name. This is a very typical tactic in fundraising. Solicit $1,000 for a bench, spend $200 on that bench, another $50 for a plaque and put the other $750 into the coffers of the endowment. Pretty straightforward fundraising tactic. The problem is, that has been going on for so long that big universities like Cornell have more than enough benches to satisfy all the old walk-averse alumni like me…and then some. I sat in more than a few meeting where the development people railed about not needing any more benches and about finding some new tactic other than benches with which to lure alumni donors. The problem is, nothing quite works as well as a bench in a large pastoral campus setting where alumni like to wander around reliving their misspent youth as they rest their weary bones. Who hasn’t sat on a dedicated bench somewhere pleasant and thought to themselves…”maybe I should donate a bench so that my grandkids can sit here one day and remember me…”
During the few years I sat on the board at the College of Staten Island, someone came up with the brilliant and unique idea of soliciting named benches as a fundraising tactic. Therein lies the difference between an endowed university and a public institution. The public institutions are way behind in their thinking. I tried to enlighten them about how little the campus probably needed benches and I was told that the opposite was actually the case. There was a specific dearth of benches and that they were actually much in demand. Furthermore, why stop at just plain old benches. These days, what students want and need are benches where they can recharge their electronic equipment like phones, tablets and laptops. Someone has gotten out ahead of this demand by producing benches with photovoltaic umbrellas that could allow people to sit and recharge while giving them a place to study outdoors. Hmmm. Hard to disagree with that. So, I donated to one such bench (technically a set of benches) and had them named for my friends Gary & Oswaldo (Gary was the Provost) and Bill and Bonnie (Bill was the President). I recall there were three naming opportunities, so I guess the third was in the name of Kim and I. And you thought a bench was just a bench.
As we have started walking the neighborhood here on this hilltop more and more, I have developed a series of small roadside boulders at strategic locations along the various walks that we take. These are places where I can sit and rest my lower back either before or after a particular hill that needs to be climbed along the way. There is one spot down the big hill by Mike & Melisa’s house on Camino Elena where there are no convenient boulders. When I mentioned the wish that there be a bench at that spot, I learned that Faraj & Yasuko, who have been walking these roads a lot longer than we have, had suggested that idea to Mike & Melisa several years ago. That reaffirmation suddenly gave my idea some currency and got me past the “Rich is just so lazy” thought that I suspect was rattling around in someone’s head.
I decided to take matters into my own hands. One of our upper driveway benches, the one we call our Goodbye Bench since it faces down the driveway and we like to sit there to wave goodbye to our visitors as they leave, has gotten fairly weathered. I decided that this would be the perfect excuse to buy a new bench to replace that one and then I could take the old one and place it in that spot down the hill on Camino Elena that Faraj and Mike had discussed as the best placement for a roadside bench. It’s a bit presumptuous of me to do this, but I am nothing if not forward in our neighborhood. No one would be surprised if I placed a bench there, both because they know who I am and, indeed, we openly discussed just that a week or two ago. The new bench has arrived and I plan on sitting on one of my other benches this morning and assemble the new bench to replace the old Goodbye Bench. Once that’s done, I will toss the old bench in my truck and drive it down and place it on the intended spot and see who notices it first. I fully expect a few snide comments from some quarter and perhaps even having the bench repositioned or even removed and discarded (it is private property after all). That’s all OK, but I do hope it is left to serve its purpose. I think the older, more rustic-looking bench will fit in and be aesthetically pleasant, but then again, its not my yard, right? As a joke, I asked Mike if he would mind if I ran an extension cord from his garage up to where the bench was so that I could put both a charging station and perhaps a minifridge for cold water. I intended that as a classic diversion with the thought that refusing that unreasonable suggestion might make the placement of the bench alone seem more reasonable and acceptable. We’ll see. I may get a bench out of this exercise or I may just get benched altogether.