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Here's a nice pin. Its nice pin on it. Let me put that back. I'll give it. OK, thank you and I think we're having some comments from some other people. I know Ken Simons is here from the Black Law Students Association. And so I'm

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Ken Simon, president of the Black Law Association with our vice president, and when we heard that the law school would be having a party for Mr. Trent, we wanted to be here. Not simply because of his longevity but because of the substance of his

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work and and the real power of the fact that a law school and Ivy League law school like University of Pennsylvania has a Ray Trent collection. It's not because Mr. Trent went around and sort of said I want this collection and you ought to

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honor me. He didn't. It's because of the great work that he did. And I think it's, you know, one of the things I've thought about is this whole notion of when we you know, in our careers we do things and we sort

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of want to do well and you don't go around asking people to say I've done well, you simply do the work and you hope that someday people say job well done, and today is about that for you. Mr. Trent, I say job well

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done. Thank you. And BLSA will continue to honor his legacy long after the day. We have a Ray Trent lecture. We've had it for 6 years. Rachel Barrera, I don't think is here with us, but as the vice president, the president, you started that

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lecture and we recently had it this month so we say thank you and we look forward to honoring you and for many years. Thank you. The Ray Trent lecture series. The whole time I've been here,

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I've always had a great love for the students. That's what really kept me here for almost 50 years. Here, here. I came here every day. With the exception of sickness, which I rarely had a problem with, if I woke up, I got up and

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I came to work, and my job led me to an interesting pastime. I used to read footnotes. Not the body or the purpose of the law in the articles, I leave it up to these great law school students and the professors and by reading

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the footnotes that led me to something like 10,000 selected articles which I've shared with authors, students, and what have you. I think if you want to know anything about Ray Trent, you have to ask the people who know me because there's no way that

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I could tell you anything about myself, even though someone once said that if you don't toot your horn, it will be silent all day. But everyone that came here to celebrate my retirement, a heartfelt thank you and it's very difficult

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some times to say certain things because if you stay here for 50 years, you will get that emotional moment that will hit you like it did just a few moments ago. Just a great law school. In so many ways. And if I keep talking about

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how great the law school is, you'll have to get a rowboat. Now you do get these moments of how you feel because having had a chance to meet people from all over the world there is no way that you could ever quantify that

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experience. That's what makes the law school such a great place because of the different people that you've met, great professors. I always remember Louis B. Schwartz and Professor Schwarz, sometimes I would just stand back and look at this man and say to him, how in the

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world could someone be that academically gifted, but that's common in Penn Law school. And since I know any number of graduates and they talk about their experience, when you come up against a Penn Law graduate, he is a formidable opponent. In fact, my friend Marvin Benton

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I don't know if the Dean remembers him or not, lives in a $400,000 home. He's getting to have one done for, to be built for a million dollars. Now, he has some kind of suit against the government. I think they talked, they're talking about

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settling it. He gave the government all they could handle. And some of these judges will tell you how well prepared the Penn law student is. And I tell every student that comes here, they picked the right place. The ones that don't go to Penn, they go

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to Harvard. Anyhow, and all I can tell you is that I've just enjoyed being here. I don't know when I might have retired if I didn't run into the mishap that I did from

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a health perspective but it's just been great being here for the number of years that I was here and like I think remember Vernon saying to me, he said once, he's a part of the law schools brick and mortar. I must

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remember to kiss each brick of the mortar to make it an enduring structure. They should kiss you. But I think that's about as much as I can say because I would just go on and continue to talk about how great the law school is

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because it does have that type effect upon you and I mean, and to get into this place, I mean you almost have you have to be off the charts intellectually. And again, the faculty is, there is no way, there is

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isn't better faculty in the whole country. I mean all you have to do is the biographies and you're impressed the number of students that come here, the way they support the law school and from 1964 up to now, in terms of how this

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law school has increased in greater stature, stature. What more can I say? And there's just so many superlatives that you could mention about the law school. Of course, there is a downside, but then we accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, or forget who's been

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between. And I'm glad you've been a part of the law school for 49 years. And if I had to do it all over again in my life, I would come back to Penn. I know. So, well, Mr. Trent, we just wanted to give you

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this on behalf of all, so we know you love footnotes and we love that, and we know that you love to read things that lead you to other things. So this is a personal favorite from a bunch of us, and we hope that you

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enjoy. OK, thank you very much. Example of what I was trying to say. The people here have really been good to me. I mean, of course we have those you'll never be able to get along with in your life, but

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on balance it's been a great experience and I was talking to Professor Zesnik. I was hoping to wait around to see who was retire first, but unfortunately I have to make sure that I come to retirement. I hope I'm still alive.

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So. But like I said it's just been a great experience and again, thanks everyone for coming out and showing your appreciation. I think this will be one of the moments at Penn Law School that I shall never forget and

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thanks to each and everyone that's in this room. You've made it possible for me to appreciate the tradition of Penn Law School, which is quite a tradition. That's a cold day outside. That means that this must be hell because for the

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last almost 40 years, I've been thinking and saying that it'll be a cold day in hell before Ray Trent retires. So there we go. But I did wanna, it's funny we're here because you were one of the first people I met here in 1976. And the other

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two, who had a huge impact on me with you were the other gentlemen giants of this law school, Lou Schwartz, whose portrait is there, and Leo Levin. And to me, you were the third of that trio who really taught generations of students what Penn Law is

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about and how to treat one another fairly and you are part of that triumvirate, so thank you so much, Ray, for being there for so many hours. To talk about the Penn Law School, every opportunity that I got, if you would stop me for a

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few moments, you'd have to get the quality of this law school because that's the type of effect that it had upon you. And here again the people who had a chance to be and that just resonates within oneself and

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like I say I'll never forget that as long as I live and don't look for me to die anytime soon because it may be hazardous to my health. I don't have to go and I don't want to close this, but I do want to say,

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I may be the only one here. I was actually here when you, when you came to the law school. I wasn't I literally was probably playing out there in my shorts, but I literally was at Penn Law School

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when you were here and later came back, you may not remember this during the 70s, and worked in the library for Judge Higginbotham, and I remember when you were there and other people in the library and how nice

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you were to me as sort of a young whippersnapper college student at the time, but let me, let me just note that, you know, we all know sort of what makes an institution great. And we talk about, you

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know, all the incredible visibility about Penn around the world and all the wonderful people who come through here and go off and do all sorts of incredible things but an institution to many, to a large extent is a function

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of the people who like Ray commit to it over a period of time and you can take the measure of a place by the attachment, the love they have and what they represent and I can't think of anybody who for a longer period of

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time has been so involved emotionally, psychologically, and has had love for this institution and it's obviously is reciprocated by everyone in this room, and you know, obviously you may be technically retiring, but there obviously is always an open door for Ray Trent

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to come back and, and look at his, the Ray Trent book collection and check out the library. So again. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to just add a few words to what I've heard already and I don't want to

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be redundant, but what uh characterizes Ray Trent is the generosity of spirit and an ethic of caring. Those things you've picked up on, in each of your comments about him, but I, as a person who's been a beneficiary of his as

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a scholar, and publishing works and trying to find sources and tracking them down, Ray can tell you I've been to see him I don't know how many times and I'm never disappointed and not just with the the material that he found. And he's been

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kind of modest in saying that he only read the footnotes. Don't believe that. Don't believe that. Don't believe the hype because he really, he knew what he was handing you. He never handed you a bad source and to just hand

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you a source that he hadn't read, you'd have got a lot of trash in there. But no, you didn't get that with Ray. You got with Ray this kind of commitment to Penn, this commitment to scholarship, and it's tribute to the family

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named Trent. I happen to have had the opportunity of interviewing his father, I think he was 93, 94 years old when I interviewed him. Mr. Fred, 94 years old, Mr. Fred Trent. And when you meet his father and you see this kind of indomitable

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will, this sort of almost obsession with being present, you know, not missing a day, not being late, that kind of thing. He brought from that kind of a very prominent Trent family, and I think

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that the fact that so many people out here on a date in such inclement weather is a testimony to what Ray means to all of us. Thank you. We have a beautiful cake. I don't know where you want us to cut it for you

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or do you wanna go over and cut it. If you cut it for me, we'll cut it for you. So I encourage everybody to continue to enjoy yourselves.