Nash Gallery was housed just inside the Regis Center for Art in the West Bank Arts Quarter—at least that’s what the colorful banners hanging from the light posts along Twenty-first Avenue called the area. It was near O. Meredith Wilson Library as Benny had promised, on that part of the University of Minnesota campus known as the West Bank because it was located on the western shore of the Mississippi River. I had gone to the U, mostly on the East Bank. Graduated cum laude, thank you very much. Yet all this was new to me. I remembered the library and, now that I saw it, the Rarig Theater. I also remembered the Viking Bar on Nineteenth and Riverside. The rest—Barker Center for Dance, Ted Mann Concert Hall, Ferguson Hall, the parking ramp that I would have used if I had known it was there—when did all that happen? You really should start paying attention to the alumni magazine, my inner voice told me. A sign on an easel outside the entrance to the gallery read WELCOME MFA SHOW. I presumed MFA meant master of fine art and this was an exhibit of the students’ work.
