Designing Life

By Design...
How can understanding  design be so vitally important?
Uncle Herbie has told me a story about his time in the Korean War. I will not tell it as well as he does, but I will give you the highlights.

Herbert I. Cohen is in a ditch digging trenches in Korea.
A superior officer yells out, "Does anyone here type?"
Herbert I. Cohen calls back, "Me!"
He didn't hesitate and tells me it was worth a try, the worst thing that could happen was that he would end up digging ditches when they found out he was a poor typist - and since he was already doing that, this seemed like a good idea.

"Report to building ****"
"Yes, Sir" said Herbert I. Cohen

After cleaning up, Herbert I. Cohen stood facing building ****.
He decided to go around to the back of the building and go in through that door.
Once through the door a doctor asked him, "What are you doing here?"
He replied, "I'm here for my assignment."
The doctor said, "Come this way."
And that is how Herbert I. Cohen stopped digging ditches and became a surgical assistant.
(He later went to Johns Hopkins and became a doctor.)

He laughs at this part of the story and tells me, "I knew if I went in the front door I'd have to type and they would know I wasn't very good, but if I went in the back door something else might happen."

Herbert I. Cohen went in the back door because as Uncle Herbie recently explained to me, "You basically know what happens in the front of a building, so I figured I had a better chance for something interesting at the back." This is about design and a certainty in the structure of an environment.

I kept thinking about my lawyer's office. I hate the building. In order to make every tenant feel that they have a "front" entrance the architecture rambles and it is unclear which door to enter and what stairway or elevator to use. This is not the sort of building that Herbert I. Cohen entered on his way to becoming Dr. Cohen and then Uncle Herbie.

I later asked him if they ever figured out that he never reported for typing. He said, "OH, yes, but it was months later and we were going home. They asked where I was and I told them 'I went to building **** and reported for duty.' And I had. And I went there every day."

"Didn't someone notice that you weren't typing?"
"Yes, eventually they asked where I was working and I told them 'surgery' and they said, 'Cohen, you were supposed to be typing!' and I said, 'this is what they asked me to do when I arrived.' and that's the truth!"

I love Uncle Herbie.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
aka Uncle Herbie's Niece