I was lucky enough to have Tim Black as my colleague in the Social Science Department at Harold Washington College. We didn’t talk that much at school because we were either each teaching or Tim was running to a meeting. But our department still has and has had either one or two parties annually: a winter holiday party in a faculty member’s home and a summer party in a restaurant. Tim came to many of those parties, and for the holiday party, I sometimes gave him a ride since we lived pretty close to each other. These parties carried on into retirement so we’ve had the winter holiday party for over 50 years.
At the parties there were opportunities to talk . . . and to listen because, of course, Tim told stories: many, many stories and they were all interesting. He was also a good listener and showed he was interested in you. The 2018 holiday party took place in Jim Heard’s house in November, but it was close enough to December 7th that colleagues hung Happy 100th Birthday decorations and we celebrated Tim’s 100th privately. It was a great party. We will miss him.