It was probably sometime toward the middle of 2015 that I began to think of the joke as a potential reality. In those action packed work days, we spent a lot of time sitting around the conference tables of the Peabody Essex Museum planning, talking, and dreaming about how to fill more than 20,000 square feet of museum gallery space in thoughtful, engaging, and creative ways. Our tight knit group of coworkers turned friends, which included Jim and Ed, had all been hired within about eighteen months of one another and, consequently, had become both personally and professionally close.
