Not a “curt” farewell, a “Kurt” farewell. Get it? Nothing like being corny two days in a row. This time it’s not because I’m tired – it’s because I’m sad and trying to make the best of a sad turn of events. Our good friend Kurt Oian, technical director at the RTG for the last six years, is moving back to Texas and last night was a farewell dinner of sorts. (He’s not going until early July, but this felt like goodbye.) Kurt is going to be teaching technical theater stuff at a high school in or close to Houston and he is so excited- and I am certain that he will be wonderful. Kurt has a great sense of humor, tons of energy, and he’s an optimist- all good traits for a teacher in this day and age. He leaves behind a theater that is so deeply in his debt. The guy who was there earlier ran the shop a bit like the crabby soup nazi on ‘Seinfeld’- except that there was nothing funny about it. He treated his volunteers like they were nuisances more than anything – and if he could have squashed them like cockroaches, he probably would have. The shop was a nasty, unhappy place and very few people were crazy enough to want to volunteer for it. Kurt was a delightful breath of fresh air after all that and it says something about him that his farewell potluck at the RTG drew a full house- standing room only.
Anyway, last night we were going to head down to Illinois to take Kurt to Ted’s Montana Grille, an amazing restaurant. (it’s a small chain, and Kathy and I ate at one in D.C.) But it just wasn’t quite in the cards, and we ended up going to Famous Dave’s B-B-Q in Kenosha instead . . . and in turns out that Kurt had never been there, so that was nearly as exciting. (We’ll have Bison Meatloaf another day.) Mostly it was just a happy evening of laughing and reminiscing with Kurt, the Barrows, and with Clay and Sharon Johnson. (They also work at the RTG, and Kurt is the #1 housesitter for all of us. I guess we’re all going to have to cancel our vacations until further notice, or take our dogs along. That’s the tricky part- finding a housesitter who’s also a dog-lover. In fact, it’s pretty certain that our dogs love Kurt ten times more than they love us – – – plus if something were to happen, Kurt is the kind of housesitter who could re-shingle the roof or enlarge the back patio without breaking a sweat.)
Anyway, Kurt is about to step out of our lives and we can’t help but feel poorer for the loss- yet richer for the gain of having this happy-go-lucky yet surprisingly-profound and endlessly-generous tall Texan in our midst.
pictured: on our way back to the car after our dinner, Kurt stops to visit a canine in the car next to ours.
Pictures of Kurt’s RTG farewell potluck are on my RTG page- and you’ll also see him on the Clean Sweep page.