Farewell to 2013

And hello next year!  

It's quiet around here.  The kitty is wondering where everyone went, but doesn't really mind.  He has his house back to himself -- and the two people he occasionally pays attention to when he's hungry.  And he doesn't have to worry about sharing the house with a dog, who pretty much ignores him.

We had a wonderful Christmas, with Annie, Margaret and Andrew here for a few days.  We had met up in New York City in 70 degree weather.  Mary and I had gone down for our anniversary and to celebrate the end of the semester and take in a show.  The city was packed, especially as we wandered around mid-town, between Broadway and 5th Avenue to take in all the Christmas sights, with the millions of smart people who had the same idea.  It was still fun to see the skating, and the light shows, and fancy stores, and the singing and dancing and bell-ringing Salvation Army Santa Clauses and elves.  

On Annie's advice we headed down to the High Line which is an elevated train track converted to a path, starting next to Madison Square Garden and going south.  I think the same people who were at Rockefeller Center the day before went here.  Or maybe it's just a big city.  Anyway, the trail is very nicely done, and little neighborhoods are springing up all around it.  We had our choice of restaurants when we finished and chose an authentic Mexican one.  It was all helped out by the warm weather. We saw Newsies, a musical about a strike by newspaper boys in the 1890s against Joseph Pulitzer's paper.  The singing was good, but the dancing was phenomenal.  Very entertaining.    

We tried to connect with Peter and Janet for Sunday brunch but it didn't work out.  We actually had brunch at a sidewalk cafe (in December!) with Margaret, Annie and Greg before heading back to Pittsfield.  The warm weather had reached up here, melting almost all the snow.  We had a dusting Christmas morning so we could claim a seasonal white ambiance.   

Andrew came up the next day on the plane, and we had a Christmas eve supper with John and Marilyn. They were having a houseful the next day.  In case you're wondering, the picture here after that supper was not posed.  Just candid. 

Joe called several times, from London and once from Paris.  His girlfriend had gone over to spend Christmas with him, and was generous enough to carry over gifts for him, for his birthday and for Christmas.  He had had Christmas dinner with a friend he met one summer working at the Embassy in Ottawa.

We touched base with almost everyone in both Dickson and Boyle families, from Mexico to Illinois, Rochester, Stonington and New Jersey.  We thought a fair amount of Pomfret at this time of year, and while those days are receding faster than we want, the memories of that happiness, are still fairly close to the surface.  We all crowded in, ate lots of food, played football, sledded, and pretty much made a wreck of their house.  

Each year, on return, we all got a letter from Grandma and Pop, thanking us for making the trek north and east, and reminding us, as if we needed reminding, how special that time was.

So here's a resolution for 2014.  Let's try to get together!  Any ideas?

Love from up here.     

How can it get any more Christmas-y?

The tree is up, so are the wreaths, Mary has been making cookies, the UPS guys are here too much, there's fire in the fireplace, and.... there's snow on the ground.  Where are Currier and Ives to paint a picture?  We have a few more things to do, like write a Christmas letter and .... and....and..... The list never ends.  But it's fun.

And one thing that is not fun, is I have one more paper due this Friday.  Then we'll have fun.  We're off to NYC for a couple of nights.  Wanna come?  We'll see Annie, and bring her home.  Margaret's also planning to be up in that neck of the woods for the weekend, before coming north.

Our big news was the first big snow of the year, which I bet folks in Pennington also got.  We know New York City got a lot since Annie sent us a photo.  Out in Rochester and Chicago we have a long way to catch up.  Anyway, it snowed all day Saturday, but teeny flakes, and then got a little more serious over night, so we woke up to about 6 inches of the white blanket.  Even though it was Sunday, we had our own little snow day and stayed home, except for a walk in the woods with snowshoes.  Exhilarating.  

We remembered that this was the weekend we had panned to go to Boston, for Mary's swim meet, but we cancelled since she had not been feeling well and so wasn't swimming.  So, good thing we didn't go since we probably would have gotten caught up in the mess.  Things work out.

Margaret finished her semester handing in her last paper.  She and Andrew are going to celebrate by going to a Beyonce concert.  Why didn't I think of that?  When is Beyonce coming to Pittsfield?  

We had a long chat with the Chicago folks who were getting ready to go out to Michigan to pick up Claire for the winter break.  Lur's parents continue to struggle health-wise.  Apparently, Myles is keeping everyone in good spirits though.  We have to see them!  We have to see Daniel dunk a basketball.

Out in Rochester, it sounds like the deer are taking over or at least feeling right at home in David and Paula's back yard.  They are expecting Jeffrey and Melodie up from DC and Matthew, Tina and Oliver on the big day.

Joe sent us a photo he took on his way to a Christmas party.  He was wearing his new kilt, along with Pop's tuxedo jacket and a bow tie.

And Peter wrote with some sad news that one of their friends from McCarter Theater has been accused of embezzlement.  He was a big supporter of Janet's work with the blind.

Another first to check off the bucket list - an auction.  Mary and I went to our first live auction with the fast talking and everything.  No pork bellies or cattle, but we did get a small rug.  We were outbid a few times on other rugs, and left before the furniture came up.  An hour plus was about all that I could handle.  

Other happy events?  Does the dentist count?   Finishing the second season of Homeland?  John and Marilyn came over for tea and cookies yesterday.They have been walking six miles a day.  Not sure what the snow will do to their hikes.  David says the path by the canal where he walks is plowed.  

At some point, I will have to tell you about our project to go back to Gabon this summer.  And about my thesis on historic preservation.  But they're still in the planning phase so we'll wait until they're a little firmer.

And that's all the news from up here.  We hope you all enjoying the anticipation and the joy of the season.

Love.  

Turkey and stuffing

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We checked in around the Dickson/Boyle nation, and it sounded like everyone managed to get to their destinations despite weather and illness really trying to undermine get-togethers.

We decided to overlook Mary's lingering cold and the Weather Channel's dire forecasts to depart early Wednesday morning (really early) for the drive first to New York to pick up Annie and then on down to Washington.  Driving rain meant slow going, but we kept imagining what it would have been like a few degrees colder.  I am sure we would have turned back,  But we arrived, with the weather turning south of New York, for an easier drive the rest of the way.  

We are starting a new tradition of some kind of Asian food on the night before Thanksgiving, so we had take out at Margaret and Andrew's place.  We were staying at Mary's friend Gerry's house, where we also had a spectacular turkey dinner with four pies (two pumpkin made by Annie and Margaret.)   We certainly missed Joe this year, but he called to say he was at work, but leaving to go have Thanksgiving dinner with his boss in London.   

Friday, Annie returned to New York, and we went to a movie "Nebraska" with Gerry, Andrew and Margaret.  Kind of depressing, but Andrew had the best review: it should be rated PG-55.  Kind of an old folks getting older movie.  But the son takes care of the Dad.  (Are you listening out there, sons?)  We weren't the only ones who went to a movie as we saw on Facebook that Janet and Johanna had gone to the new Hunger Games movie.  Probably a better choice than Nebraska.

The photo is from the previous weekend when Peter and Janet trekked up for the weekend, and Peter and I kept on trekking all the way to Dartmouth to go crown the Ivy League football champions, Princeton, in what should have been a rout.  Unfortunately, I proved to be a jinx, and the Tigers lost, but they still kept a share of the Ivy title.  Did I mention it was cold?  And that the field was pretty much all white with heavy, wet snow by the time Princeton decided to mount a comeback?  Mary and Janet had a warmer, "Lenox" ladies day, going out to lunch and shopping in quaint old Lenox.  

David and Paula had a quiet Thanksgiving, but also one filled with white stuff as they did not escape the storm.  We understand Matthew, Tina and Oliver were heading out to Cleveland for the day and that Jeffrey and Melodie had Thanksgiving nearby DC.

The Dundee Dicksons were all together with Lur's family, and Claire making the trip home for the holiday.

John and Marilyn had a houseful as well of daughters and their families.  He also sent us this link to a brief TV news item on the robotic arm which Brian, Kara's husband, has been working on.  Pretty incredible: http://www1.whdh.com/video/player/top-video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9582968

Did anyone notice that there was no mention of shopping on Thanksgiving?  Or the day after?  Until now.

I was surprised to go to church on Sunday and see that it was already the first Sunday of Advent.  You know what that means!  

With that, we'll close with a thankful appreciation for all our families.  

Love from over here.  

Panic time

We've come to that time of the academic semester best known as PANIC time. It's the moment when you realize you've been on auto-cruise and if you're going to finish everything by the end of the semester, serious changes in lifestyle have to be made.  Like skipping meals and sleep and just sitting at the computer and typing.  The good news is that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, at some point in mid-December when all of a sudden you become human again.

Needless to say, despite knowing it's panic time, I am still planning on going to Dartmouth this weekend with Peter to watch a football game and then going down to DC next week for Thanksgiving.  What's that the say about denial not being just a river in Egypt?  One paper down, two to go.  I think Margaret, Annie and Sean are in the same boat, but I think everyone else remembers those days.  

On the good news front, John and Marilyn have returned from Florida for the season's holidays.  They were greeted back the day they arrived with our first snow of the year.  Good timing.  Mary and I had dinner with them ad heard about their enviable schedule and Johnny's surfing attempts.  Sounds like one of those things better off having started at age 6.

More good news - Annie secured an internship this summer at Bank of America.  She had gone down to Charlotte NC for an interview and then heard last Friday, just in time to really enjoy her weekend.  We also enjoyed her good news up here.

To a certain extent.  We conducted our fourth "cleanse diet" last week, and so there was a limit to partying.  We each lost weight again, and hopefully got back on track, adding another food item to our no-no list.  Let's see if we can keep that list intact through Thanksgiving.

We spoke with David who had gone to Albany; he has been doing some expert witness testimony for legal clients.  I wonder how I can be an expert witness, for raking leaves.  Sounds like a good gig.

We also got a photo from Margaret who had gone to the White House to go bowling.  Really, the White House.  She was unimpressed by the bowling alley, but it looked like they were having fun.  I think there's a story there, but hopefully not so big a one that lands her in jail for trespassing.

We have gone to see two very good movies we recommend highly: Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave.  Actually, I am not sure Mary recommends the latter as it was so disturbing.  But it really brings home the brutality of slavery that no book has ever quite captured so glaringly.

Mary got together with Boyle ladies the other night - Marilyn, Erin her niece, Pat (nephew Michael's wife) and Annie (brother Michael's wife).  We also got our car "detailed" by Robbie (Coleen's son) who managed to get the stains out of the carpets and the seats that the pros in Maryland couldn't do.  Thanks.

Other than that, it is swimming, hiking, teaching and studying, hiking, teaching, swimming, studying, and then start all over again.  We have had a bit of a weather reprieve, though.

Hope you all are well, and an early wish for a Happy Thanksgiving.  Love from up here.          

It's Dark

So, we got to sleep an hour later.  Was it worth it?  It's 5pm and it's dark outside.  I remember not so long ago working in the garden until 9pm.  I did enjoy the extra hour though.  I think I'll enjoy the longer sunlight come spring.

Speaking of garden, we are eating the last of our lettuce tonight, with one small cherry tomato.  We still have to harvest some carrots.  It was a fantastic garden year.  Unfortunately, the deer have moved in, and while they seem to be focusing on the apples, we have seen them near the flower gardens. 

We just returned from a packed weekend in NYC, Princeton and Washington DC.  (The extra hour came in handy.)  Friday morning we got an early start and met up with Annie for coffee near her dorm.  She told us about Halloween in Philadelphia at an old prison turned museum, turned haunted house.  (See photo, in case you didn't guess.)  She also filled us in on her internship search for the summer.  We next went to Princeton where Peter joined us for a talk with the university preservation architect and a tour of the buildings designed by William Potter, the architect who did the old library in Pittsfield.  We were going to go to the library, but had to cut that short to make....

Dinner in Washington with Margaret and Andrew, and our friends, the Schwartz's, who we knew from South Africa and marathon days.,  Larry, at age 61, just ran in the Marine Corps Marathon.  A challenge.  Mary went to a sleep-over with her Peru friends and I had dinner with Peace Corps friends.  We are talking about a return trip to Gabon next summer, with a small group of people, hopefully to fix up one of schools which Peace Corps built in the 1960s.  Lots to do on that front, and more to tell later as those plans get off the ground.

We met up with Margaret and Andrew on Sunday for brunch/lunch and football watching/chatting.  They had just spent a week or so at Jeffrey and Melodie's watching their pets, in return for them watching D, while Margaret and Andrew went to Mexico.  Jeff and Melodie had gone to Honduras, for some island fun.  The photos on Facebook looked great.  

We headed back home on Monday, but stopped in Princeton one more time, to look at a file in the university archives on the architect - not much there.  But we did get a chance to see Peter again and have lunch.  Peter said Johanna was starting a new job, and that David had seen her last week when he was in NYC for a meeting.

We talked to Joe a few times.  He had gone to Jordan for a brief visit to see his girlfriend, and she had come to London for a return visit.  Nice to be close and jet-setters.  Joe thinks he has found an apartment.  

Lots of college football talk, from unusual quarters.  Hobart is not just a lacrosse school, and is seeking a spot in the playoffs for Division III (?).  And Peter was talking about how good the Princeton team is this year, which was confirmed when we saw the college football wrap-up on Sunday with the Princeton quarterback throwing for an NCAA record of 29 straight completed passes.  Princeton scored over 50 points for the fourth time this fall.  Where have I been?  UMass lost.

Some left-over news:  We had a nice visit from Mary Fort who had stopped by for a lunch as she was up here for a weekend on Mount Greylock. 

And the big news of the week was Mary's swim meet. She did well for her age group in breast stroke, but her relay team placed in the top ten in the country. My big news is that I was able to squeeze in a nap.

And on that news.....love from over here.

Official-dom

It's official, the outdoor furniture is stored away, and we are expecting our first frost this week.  No complaining, though, as it's been a pretty spectacular fall, with glorious sunny days.  In fact, the weather has been so good, it's hard to sit in a dark office and do school work.  

It's also official that I am now a member of the Pittsfield Historical Commission, and I have my first meeting tonight.  Will Garrison, the curator I worked with at Arrowhead this summer, is the chair of the commission, so he nominated me.  Mary and I went to the city council meeting where they approved the nomination (by unanimous vote - or maybe pro forma) and then I was sworn in and passed the on-line ethics course.  I am not sure all it entails, but I do remember submitting our own demolition request to the commission for a waiver before we could start work on this house.  

What else is official?  Okay, I gotta say it. It's official, our government is dysfunctional.  The Red Sox and the Cardinals are in the World Series, that's pretty official.  

Joe is officially in London now.  He left at the beginning of the shutdown.  We spoke to him last night, after two weeks of work.  He's working for the U.S. representative of a European bank.  The work sounds hard, as it's multilateral, meaning that he has to find common ground with other countries to get anything accomplished.  It used to be easier when we ran the world.  Of course, running our own country used to be easier.

Margaret, as I write, is on her way back from a weekend in Mexico.  She and Andrew had gone down for the wedding of one of her high school amigas.  We got a couple of photos, and it looked like she was having and fun and visiting a few of our old haunts.  

Annie had a weekend course, and she is busy with homework.  She still finds time for catching up with friends from Hamilton and Pomfret.  A nice benefit to being back in the U.S.

Birthdays this time of year are for Claire, Billy and Kathleen.  Wonderful.  

Mary is enjoying her new job, and likes the part-time status.  She got a little bored with Mr. Gotta-read-all-the-time and went down for a girls' weekend with Marj in Rhode Island for a night of giggling, I think.  

We talked to David who says their bathroom project is done, very quickly as well.  And, best of all, it looks nice.  

Anyone else with leaves?  Anyone need a leaf blower?  I found in our basement Pop's old leaf blower, the subject of his famous story about having a discussion with Mom over whether to buy one or continue to use his trusty rake.  He wanted the rake, Mom the leaf blower, and he ended his story by telling us he'd let us know how much the leaf blower cost. He told it better.

We actually have a natural leaf blower, the wind, which moves all our leaves into the woods. Pop's line about leaves - the family that leaves together, stays together.   

And on that note, love from over here.    

Hello Auden

The world stops with the birth of a family member.  Cares, worries, jobs, to-do lists, errands, they all come to a screeching halt.   Even baseball.  Wow.  Wonderful.  Congratulations to the Illinois clan. Everyone looks so happy, and Miles looks so big.  When did he grow up?  And Auden is beautiful.  And Jen looks strong and ready to go!  

Unfortunately, the government also came to a screeching halt.  But I have yet to read that this was due to Auden.  Margaret kept working, as her contract was already on last year's budget.  Joe was furloughed, and that had huge implications as he was set to move to London.  He was told one day that he should go to London, put a downpayment on an apartment and that he would get reimbursed.  Oh, and by the way, he would still be furloughed.  I thought he should call up his old St. Andrews classmates (Andrew and Kate) and stay with them, for 50 years.  Well, eventually all got sorted out, and he was packed out on Thursday and left for London on Saturday.   We heard he had arrived safely.  A new chapter, at least for the next 6 months.  Margaret and Andrew threw him a going away party Saturday night.

Births also remind us of birthdays.  Happy birthday Johanna, Janet and Paula.  David and Paula came to Pittsfield to spend her big day.  And Peter and Janet came up from NJ to join the festivities.   Mary baked a birthday.....strawberry rhubarb pie, and Peter made dinner the following night.  Thanks!  We brought out Grandma and Pop's photo albums from high school and college, and I even found my old honor cards from Far Hills Country Day.  Peter was a good sport.  

We had spent the day at Hancock Shaker Village for their fall country fair.  It was a beautiful, sunny, fall day and there were lots of exhibiters - Quilts, Shaker boxes, timber frame construction workshops, furniture.  Special.   Peter and I went for a hike into the state forest across the street, and the ladies went to Stockbridge.  At least one the guys went home for a nap.  ME!

David and Paula stayed over Sunday night and met up the next day for my tour at Arrowhead before heading back to Rochester.  Thanks!  

Cliff and Sheila were here this weekend, and we also went through photos, this time from scotland, reliving our adventures this summer.  Cliff also brought his chain saw, and we cut down about ten trees, and we have firewood for next year.  I have been splitting wood this summer, and we're ready for this winter.  And it's coming.  We turned on the heat this week, but we still have not had a frost so the garden continues to produce.  

We had many nice photos we wanted to put in the weekly letter, of Johnny surfing in Florida, of Paula's birthday, of Margaret outside the Bengals' bar for the patriots game, the woodpile, but this space was reserved for Auden.   

Love from this corner.  

Welcome Auden Leigh Jones

Congratulations to Jen and Bill for a healthy, happy girl.  

About the previous post

John's post talks about the ongoing restoration of the Berkshire Athaneum, and how it was designed by an architect named William A. Potter (no relation to my partner), who also designed an auditorium named Alexander Hall at Princeton. It looks like a close cousin of the Athaneum based on the photo in John's post.

Well, when I was an undergrad, and I'm told the rumor still makes the rounds today, the story was that a student had submitted the design of Alexander Hall as his senior thesis in Architecture, and that he had been failed and flunked out. The story went on that he had gone on to become a wealthy something or other and then gave the University a pot of money on the condition that it be used to build an auditorium according to the donor's specs. The donor hired an architect to act as the "front" and the building was built according to his F-grade senior thesis, and only when it was done did he reveal the true provenance of the design. Not true but it fueled a few late night bull sessions.

Equinox and Full Moon

Look out.  Weird things happen.  So far, not yet.  Fall means we wake up in the dark, it means the first frost this week, it means leaves and apples, it means breaking out the long sleeve shirts and sweaters.  What it should mean as well is that the cat should let us sleep in a little, that the grass should stop growing, that the garden should be done.  None of that has happened yet.  We are getting a bumper crop of tomatoes, after good crops of lettuce, beans, zucchini and cucumbers.  We even have some small peppers, and potatoes and carrots.  

As I sit down writing, Mary is on her way back from a weekend in DC, with Joe, Margaret, Andrew and Annie.  It sounded like a great time and I am sorry to have missed it.  I heard there was pizza, brunch, a walk through of the Mexican Cultural Institute.  When Mary called I actually did hear a fair amount of laughter in the background.  That's all good.

The big news from down there is it looks like Joe is moving.  To London.  How cool is that!  Book your rooms now.  It could happen fairly fast, but with all the paperwork, and then the the threat of government shutdown, the timing is up in the air.

I was unable to go because the UMass history class was coming to Pittsfield and the Berkshires.  I showed them around Herman Melville's home and then we traveled to Edith Wharton's Mount and the WEB Dubois Homesite.  I had not been to either of the other two, so it was nice to take in two more places. Still a lot to go.

Here's a weird thing, but I am not sure it was connected to the full moon.  I have turned a request to document a restoration project in Pittsfield into a Masters thesis.  The building being restored is the old Berkshire Athenaeum, the library, right on Park Square in the center of town.  My initial exploring into the background was the discovery that the architect who did the library (in 1876) was the same one (William A. Potter) who designed the Chancellor Green Library at Princeton.  Some of us grew up with the lore of that building, where Pop first met Grandma.  So, how does something like that happen?  The architect also did a few other buildings on the Princeton Campus - Alexander Hall and Witherspoon Hall, among others.

I guess another weird thing did happen.  We've been a little late renewing the registration of our cars.  Both had emission issues, and we had to get those fixed before the inspections.  When Mary finally took the Mitsubishi to the inspection, they told her she was driving a dangerous car, that the wheels could fall off, due to faulty "Tie-rods"?  Well, that happened the day before Mary was to drive to DC, so fortunately Johnny let us borrow his car (he's in Florida) and we got through the weekend.  Thank you!

Next weekend looks to be a fun one.  David called to say he and Paula were coming over for the Hancock Shaker Village fall fair.  Spontaneity is alive and well, as Peter and Janet  are also coming up.  More grist for the weekly letter!  David and Paula had been in NYC, for meetings but also went to see Jersey Boys which they report is well worth it.

Unfortunately, Andrew was unable to come, but they thought about it.  The good news is that next weekend is Bill and Jen's due date.  So, they are going to stay put.  Other news from Dundee comes by way of Facebook, with a photo of Daniel looking a little like a movie star.  

We love the change of seasons.  But we also love summer, and we'll be happy when you return.  Fast forward, and we can imagine all kinds of changes before then.  Wonderful.

Love from up here.  

Deja Vu all over again

Sunday we took Annie to New York City, and it seemed like a long time since we had been there.  In fact, it was just one month.  A lot happened in that interval, but driving into the city reminded us of heading down the first time to take Annie and a little worried about Johanna.  (She's on the rebound, back to work.)  Annie moved out of her apartment and into her dorm room, but grateful for Johanna putting her up for the month.  Annie took the train home Friday before Labor Day to pick up the rest of her stuff, and that explains our second trip down in a month.  Annie's dorm is new and very nice.  Greg came by to help unload the car, and then we went out for lunch before heading home.

Joe is back from Manila, and seems not to recommend that city for anyone's list of places to go.  Other places in the Philippines, perhaps, but he did not have time to go there.  Anyway, it took him a while to get over jet lag, but not that long to host a welcome home party for himself (we hear.)  

We got a message from Margaret this weekend from her perch at the Wolf Trap stage, where she and Andrew had gone for the Sound of Music sing-a-long.   Sounds like fun.  

Fun is also how we spent a couple of days in an off-the-grid part of Vermont for a few days this week.  I must say it feels very odd to be unreachable, even if for a couple of days.  Our friend Charlie has a rustic cabin on a lake about 10 minutes from Canada.  The only cell service is through Canada, actually.  We hiked and biked and canoed and swam, took naps, read and even pack in a nap or two.  Out canoeing one day I saw the biggest bird I have even seen, probably because it was perched on a tree fairly close to the ground.  We looked it up and it seems it was a young bald eagle.

Last weekend, Mary had stepped in to host her girl cousins for a picnic lunch.  As usual for these kinds of events, there are photos passed around, and the one here came with the assurance it was of Mary.  Her reaction?  "I have the same haircut!"  However, we later learned it was not of Mary at all, but of her brother Johnny!

One of Mary's games is to dream about what she wants to be i her next life.  This week she asked me after we dropped off Annie, if I were to go back to school, what would I want to take.  I reminded her I AM BACK IN SCHOOL!  Ugh!  And it starts this week.  But not just for me, as a few Dicksons are back in college: Annie, Margaret, Sean and Claire.  If I remember correctly, I will be coming up for air, probably around mid-December.    

We talked to David, who was coming over to Albany for a little work.  Unfortunately, that was when we were headed to Vermont.

The days are getting shorter, and we see leaves changing colors, and not just in northern Vermont.  We love the change of seasons, but we will miss summer.

Love from up here.  

It was a great trip

I'm a little overdue on passing along some observations about our trip to the Pacific Northwest, which remains one of my favorite regions. Now that the Johanna episode has largely passed, here they are.

First and foremost, many thanks to John and Mary and Janet's brother John and Roseanna and especially Sean for looking after Johanna while we debated whether to end the trip early.

Our cousin Hope Dean. If you don't get yourself out to Anacortes and the San Juan Islands with Hope as your elaborately prepared guide and teacher, you are definitely missing out on one of life's great experiences. She booked a ferry, drove to the ferry, drove all over San Juan Island and showed us the place, packed a great lunch of local berries, which we ate overlooking a harbor, and took us to two great dinner places. While I wish we all lived closer, this was certainly an unmatched experience. Did you know? British and American garrisons stationed on different parts of San Juan Island once got into a war in which the only casualty was a pig.

Our Canadian friends Bob and Merrilyn Mason, who live on a farm about an hour east of Vancouver. We stayed there for three days, our first visit since they hosted us at the 2010 Olympics. One night we had turkey and the next steaks, all raised on the premises.

Janet's cousin Christine Robbins and her husband Ed, with whom we had dinner near her house in Olympia one evening.

As you can tell, I like traveling where you get to see cousins and friends you don't get to see all that often. We did the same in Texas last spring.

Ferries. I could go out to this region for two weeks and spend the whole time riding ferries around all the bays and islands. It's as beautiful as any region can get. We had spectacular weather, almost all sunny and pleasantly warm.

Food. One problem when you travel is the frequent difficulty of finding healthy food. Not in the Pacific Northwest with its ample supplies of salmon and halibut. Janet gets the prize for the quip of the trip, one evening at a seafood dinner: "You don't see much tilapia around here."

On our last two visits to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, we had delightful seafood dinners at a restaurant named Anthony's, which is a small chain of sorts. We had dinner at three of the restaurants in the area – Anacortes, with Hope, Olympia, with Christine, and the airport again.

Dickson family lore features another seafood restaurant named Ivar's Fish House. It's now a chain called Ivar's House Of Salmon. It gets pretty awful reviews. The only time we had anything at an Ivar's was waiting for a ferry: we got ice cream cones at an outdoor snack bar attached to the restaurant.

One reason for the plentiful supply of salmon is an extensive system of fish hatcheries. We visited one and it was fascinating; the salmon live for eighteen months to two years in tanks fed by water from the nearby stream before being released to go down to the ocean. Their sense of something like smell of the water brings them back to the same hatchery to spawn. While less than ten percent of naturally hatched salmon survive, ninety percent of those from the hatcheries survive.

Serendipity. Twice we decided to just drive out of our way into the mountains and got rewarded both times with stunning alpine panoramas. One drive to a high meadow (with plenty of snow still around) featured hair-raising hairpin turns with no guard rails. Janet just put her head in her lap.

Seattle. Great town, pretty compact to get around in. But homeless people abounded. And we had one miserable day trying to drive from Canada down to Olympia, through Seattle, which meant taking the only decent route, I-5, which was a parking lot. Six hours for a trip that was supposed to take three.

It was fun to reprise some of our old trip to the World's Fair. We rode the monorail out to the Space Needle. We went to the top. We saw perhaps the very finest movie I have ever seen, an IMAX production called The Flight Of The Butterflies, about the discovery that monarchs over the course of three generations every year, migrate to a remote part of Mexico and back, in what was the US Pavilion at that fair.

Despite Seattle's obvious prosperity, the region as a whole seems a bit down. In nearly every town of any size there are at least one and usually more than one (1) pawnshop, (2) payday loan shop and check cashing shop and (3) Goodwill store. For one memorable town, called Concrete for some reason not known to us, the most impressive thing was the elaborate and fancy sign at the town entrance, which belied the very downtrodden look of the place.

Driving around the Olympia Peninsula, we had decided to drive down to the Pacific coast and spend one night in a coastal town. At Cape Flattery, we saw a seal catch a fish and head for a cave to eat it. Farther down the coast, the area became fogged in. Over the course of five minutes driving from sun into fog, the thermometer on our rental car registered a drop of ten degrees; and then a rise of twelve degrees going back. Ocean Shores, the coastal town where we stayed, was a foggy, depressing town without a single decent restaurant.

Sometimes if seems as if airlines and car rental companies have a secret plan to make travel as supremely miserable and senseless as possible. It's too long to recount here why this trip reinforces this suspicion, but if it's true, they are doing a very fine job indeed.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Isn't that a Judy Collins song?  Isn't that appropriate for August 2013?

Johanna knows where it went, but the good news is she is out of the hospital and on the mend.  Phew.  It was a rough week before the doctors decided surgery was required.  Peter and Janet had come back from the west coast early and help nudge the doctors in that direction.  I think doctors need a nudge. Anyway, we're hopeful and glad for Johanna.

Claire may know as well since she is off to college this coming weekend.  I bet there's been a fair amount of time getting ready, and I wondered if she got her new pencil case for college.  Daniel already started school, and he's a sophomore.  Can you believe it?  One day, before we know it, we'll be saying Miles is a sophomore.   

And the trees up here are beginning to wonder the same things about the lost summer.  They are giving off a faint touch of yellow, while a handful are positively turned.  Must be football season.

Busy doesn't even begin to describe our last few weeks.  Crazy is more like it.  But fun.  We gave Mary two beach chairs for her birthday, so we had to go to the beach.  And our old haunts in Rhode Island became our destination.  We stayed with Lew and Marj and spent the day at East Beach with Mary Fort and with Maura and Elsie.  This was our favorite beach because of the nice surf.  Unfortunately, the surf also had a few monster jelly fish, and we discovered that sometimes their tentacles get separated from their bodies, but still sting.  Anyway, it was fun catching up with Mary and Maura.  

From there we went up to New Bedford to continue my obsession with all things Melville this summer.  The whaling museum there is really spectacular, especially with a guide.  What a brutal, dangerous business it was to collect oil this way.  I'll take fracking any day.  (My timecapsulepilot blogpost has more, under the Summer with Herman tab.)

When we got home, our Charlie and his family were here, as well as Marj and her mother.  Then, after they left, friends from Peru came by for a couple of days.  In between I gave a talk on my Civil War exhibit at Arrowhead, attended by 4 people, all rounded up by Mary.  What a great fan.  In between, Mary hosted her swim team for a Sunday morning  swim around the lake and a pancake breakfast.  I slept.

While away, we got photos of Margaret and Andrew's camping trip with the wild and fairly aggressive/cheeky ponies in Chincoteague.  We also saw some photos from Jeffrey and Melodie on their camping trip, in Virginia, I think.

Joe wrote from Manila saying the torrential rainstorms are flooding and shutting down the city.  He even had the tropical version of a "snow day."  We also heard from Annie who likes her new job in the city.  

John and Marilyn have headed south and west on an extended vacation, with their family in Myrtle Beach and then head west.  Eventually, they will land back in their new house in Florida, for much of the fall, coming back up here for the holidays.  We went out with them before they left, and Johnny took us to the western mouth of the Hoosac Tunnel in North Adams, once the longest tunnel in the U.S.

It's harvest season, and the fence we put up in the garden has kept the critters safely away, and allowed us to have a good crop of lettuce, continuous since mid-July and beans and zucchini and a few cucumbers and peas.  The cool weather in August has meant only now are we seeing orange on the tomatoes.  Our fence was modeled after the Pomfret Meadow Rock Farm, split rail fence.  

Speaking of Pomfret we stopped at the old homestead on our way to Rhode Island.  They had put up a new fence for their horses, and made some nice changes to the kitchen,  I was fixated, though on one of the shutters, with slats falling and paint peeling.  Sorry Pop.  

On that wistful note, we hope all is well with you and will sign off.  Love from up here.

 

 

New York, New York

Sunday we took Annie down to New York.  We thought it was going to be an uneventful trip to drop her off, but, shortly before we left, we heard from Peter and Sean that Johanna was in the hospital.  She had called 911 with symptoms much like she had when she had the intestinal blockage 5-6 years ago.  The doctors have been stumped and as of this writing were ordering more tests.  Peter and Janet were in Seattle, and we kept them apprised as they were figuring out how and if to get back.  Sean has been a real trooper, staying at the hospital, and Annie's now with him. 

Annie's starting today at a campus work-study job, even though her classes don't begin for a few more weeks.  So, before school starts, she will be staying at Johanna's, on her couch. (Thanks Johanna!)  Then she'll move up town when her grad school housing opens up.  Oh to be young again.  

Johanna has started a new job at an architectural firm not too far from her apartment.  Sean's been busy himself this summer doing a legal internship in New Jersey.

It ends a nice, long visit here at the old homestead.  She had a few friends here in the last few weeks.  Joe came up for a week, by train.  Margaret and Andrew drove up for a long weekend, and we celebrated Mary's birthday in grand style.  We met Andrew's parents, and his mother's birthday was the day before Mary's so it was a double celebration.  Triple, counting the big engagement.  Lots of champagne.  

Lots of activities - Andrew and his father played golf with Johnny, Andrew's mother joined the Dickson girls for a tour of Stockbridge and the Rockwell Museum - they're having an exhibition of the drawings of the Disney movie, Snow White.  We took a pontoon boat out on the lake; there was swimming, and canoeing.  And shopping.  We went to a wonderful play called The Chosen, based on the novel by Chaim Potok.  A very nice week.

Joe didn't waste much time back in DC before taking off again, to a place I don't think any Dickson has ever been to yet.  He is in Manila for three weeks, having left on Sunday.  

You may have seen the pictures of Hillary and Barack a week ago, when the two met for lunch at the White House.  The story didn't mention that she also met Margaret, at a Fulbright event later that same day!  

We've been continuing our Melville summer here (and you get read my blog - http://timecapsulepilot.wordpress.com/summer-with-herman-melville/.  I have to watch that it doesn't become an obsession.)  Anyway, Sunday, Mary and I joined a group of hikers to climb Monument Mountain, repeating the walk that Melville took in 1850, where he met Nathaniel Hawthorne.  We didn't meet Hawthorne, but we met some interesting, unique folks and had great exchanges up and down the mountain.  At the top we had a champagne toast.  It was a clear day and we could see for miles all around.

A couple of recommendations to put on your movie list:  20 Feet from Stardom (about back-up singers for pop and rock groups) and Searching for Sugarman (about an American folk singer enormously popular, but only in South Africa and he never knew it.)

So that's pretty much it from up here.  Hope everyone is enjoying the summer.

Love, and a prayer for Johanna.

Anglo-philes

We're home.  Yippee.  And the cat's glad we are.  So are we.

We've discovered that we're partial to all things UK.  

-- Scotland - pints, wool, bagpipes, accents, history, Scotch, gardens, tea and porridge, Andy Murray, stone walls, Digestive Cookies, hiking with highland views, abbeys

-- England (Lake District, Liverpool) - accents, Beatles and the Mersey beat, weather, history, Tom Kittens (Beatrice Potter), kissing gates, tea and scones, gardens, Andy Murray, pints, fish and chips

-- Wales - hiking with coastal views, pints, history, accents, cathedrals, flower gardens, tea and Welsh cakes, sun, Tenby

Okay, some things we're not partial to, and we are going to start a campaign to assist our English-speaking bretheren (and sisteren):  indoor plumbing, namely showers and toilets that actually flush; wide roads, with more than one lane; and vegetables.

Anyway, it was a wonderful trip.  We have thousands of pictures and more than a few stories.  You have been warned.

As we were driving in the driveway after nearly 20 hours of straight travel, Annie came in right behind us from a long day of work. Someone has to.  Annie had been home a week or so, after she had gone white-water rafting in Idaho.  That sounded spectacular as well.  Annie has been holding down two jobs in Lee, and now she has a third.  This last one is in NYC and is a work-study job which starts in August.  

We talked to Joe and told him about our stroll through his college town.  What a great place to have gone to university, even if you can't go back and visit at the drop of a hat.    He had a big career decision while we were gone, and decided against moving overseas.  We also spoke with Margaret about their upcoming trip, coming up to Pittsfield next week.

From Dundee, we heard that Andrew and Lur had a great week up at Green Lake.  Danny has decided to drop football and focus on basketball, after turning his ankle.  Claire is going to have a big graduation party this weekend - are we invited, Claire?  

Peter and Janet are getting ready for their trip out to Seattle and Vancouver in a couple of weeks.  Peter's eagle eye also noticed the tie on the former President of Princeton in the most recent Alumni Weekly, which is included here.  We'll have to get another of Mom's ties out to the new President.  

The heat wave has even reached Rochester, but David has kept up his walking regime, and has the doctor's numbers to prove it.  That would make it all worthwhile, except that walking is worthwhile in itself.  

We've had some visitors since we've been home.  Charlie and his family came up last weekend, and we all went to the Williamstown Theater Festival to see a stage version of the Marx Brothers movie, Animal Crackers.  Very funny.  Then Mary's friend Gerry took a week off from her work in Arlington for a New England break.  When Mary went to pick up Gerry at the airport in Albany, she stopped by Colleen and Heather's birthday parties (they were born a year and a day apart), as Colleen was celebrating her 50th this year.  Happy Birthday.

 

A movie recommendation:  20 Feet from Stardom.  Great music, compelling story.  

Not one week back and we've slipped back in our routines, like we were never gone.  Gardening, swimming, UMass and Arrowhead, raspberries and cherries and blueberries.  And mowing the lawn.

Speaking of which, we had a sad moment last Saturday, at least for John.  Mary, not so much.  Our 20 year old lawn mower which had been so good for so long, has cut its last blade of grass.  I broke down and bought a self-propelled Toro.  Which broke down after 20 minutes and had to be taken back.  They just don't make 'em like......

On that sad (not so much) note, love from up here.  

 

 

Margaret's engaged!

And so is Andrew.  To each other.  

We're so happy. I think many in the family know already, but we are so thrilled, we're saying it again.

Congratulations!  

July 4 weekend

> Where are you celebrating? The sign above was on the back of more than one car, saying Dicksons of Inverness. We also learned that the English spelling of our name is with an "x". The Scottish spell it like we do. Feels like home to me.
>
> Except that it has been incredibly cold. I get a laugh when I see solar panels on houses or short-sleeved shirts for sale. Maybe the Scots are optimists.
>
> Anyway, we have left Scotland and are now in the Lake District in England. Guess what we found? The sun.
>
> Cliff and I finished the walk on the Great Glen Way on Thursday. Mary and Cliff's wife Sheila joined us the day before, having driven up from Edinburgh. They walked the last quarter mile with us up to Inverness Castle.
>
> Lots of stories, mostly about people we met along the way. We did this the easy way, staying in bed and breakfasts along the route. We averaged about 11 miles a day, roughly 5 hours of hiking.
>
> We're being tourists, taking in sites and pubs and shopping and eating. A lot.
>
> It's nice to keep up with everyone so far away. Wi-fi is everywhere. Annie was in Idaho, Joe had a big career decision, Margaret is camping, Jeffrey and Melodie celebrated their proposal and Andrew and Lur celebrated their wedding anniversary.
>
> We will be home a week from today and ready to enjoy more summer. Hope you are too. Love from over here.

Is it Father's Day?

Actually, it isn't. We're experiencing a little of the post-father's day letdown here.  A full case of the blahs.  It may have something to do with Monday and a storm bringing more rain.

Or, it may have to do with a nice afternoon/evening with David and Paula who stopped by here on their way home from a few days on the Cape.  We had a nice dinner and shared father stories.  Or tried to, if we could have remembered them. We did toast our own fathers, and remembered all they had done for us.

 It sounded like there had been quite a bit of rain out on the Cape, but they were still able to squeeze in a "whale watch" and good meals and walks.  Since I have never been to the Cape, they gave us some suggestions and encouragement for perhaps a September or mid-week visit in the fall.

Annie made it back from the weekend in Washington to see David and Paula.  She had been to Melodie's birthday party on Saturday evening, so when Jeffrey called to do the dutiful check-in, Annie surprised him being up here!

I had nice conversations with both Joe and Margaret as they did their dutiful as well.  More than that, with a surprise picnic table which appeared after my nap on Saturday.  I was not sure if I was still dreaming when I saw the table in the yard.  It will replace the one Peter "loaned" us in 1992 and has many family memories from our porch in Silver Spring to the outdoors here over that extended period.  I wonder how long Peter and Janet had used it.  It was not doing well, as boards were rotting away.

Earlier in the day, Mary and I drove down to Hyde Park, NY and checked off a visit to the FDR home.  We had been passing the signs for years on the Taconic Parkway, but were always in a rush to get wherever we were going.  So, we made this our destination and had a wonderful visit, with a promise to each other that there was more to see and that we would come back.  Our tour guide wondered how many people in the group could relate to FDR's upbringing with tutors at home, horse-riding and governesses and a 21 foot yacht present at the age of 17.  

We commoners found a diner up the road and had a great breakfast/brunch.  So there.  I love Fathers Day.

News from here:  we have a new garden fence.  It is the third since we owned it, and the first one I did not try to install myself.  Our garden is now more protected than Ft. Knox.  Take that groundhogs.  I just wish the vegetables would grow inside.  So much rain that there was actually flooding, which killed the marigold plants.  Oh well.  Hmm.  Maybe a roof?

Other news is that Annie has a summer job.  Two in fact.  Moreover, it looks like she got every job she applied for.  She will have a busy schedule and earn a little before starting classes.  

On the job front, Mary also got a new job, at least until the end of the school year which is this coming Friday.  She is tutoring a handful of students whose second language is English.  One of them is a Chinese girl in kindergarten, who has been in country just a few weeks.  Try to imagine what she's going through.

One of our highlights these past few weeks was dinner with Mary's niece and nephew, her brother Mike's children.  Nice to reconnect, and they are doing well.

This time next week, I will be in Ft. William, Scotland getting ready to start my trek up the Great Glen Way.  I don't know if it's psychosomatic, but my knees are beginning to hurt.  Better rest.

In the meantime, our routine continues, and we are enjoying summer.  We had our first campfire last Friday night, and I raised up enough courage to jump in the lake.  We also went to the movies, Before Midnight, which we liked but were not really 'gaga' over.   

Hope you all are enjoying summer.  Only 365 more days til Father's Day!

We sign out from here wishing you all happy barbecues, with this photo from our archives. Love from over here.    

 

Annie's home

Did you hear the cheering?  She flew into New York on Thursday and stayed there for a couple of days.  Then Saturday, Mary and I drove down to pick her up.  She reminded us of us.  She had a backpack, packed to the seams, and two roller suitcases, similarly packed.  She said she carried all three on the Beijing subway, getting to and from the airport.  Hard, but she has closed out an important chapter of her young adulthood, and those three suitcases are evidence.  

Welcome home.  She's on the job market this summer, and then will head back to NYC to start her organizational psychology program in August.  We drove by Teachers' College at Columbia, and I pointed out the dorm where I spent one summer.  Annie said she had applied for the same dorm!

Annie just missed the visit of our friend, Valerie, from Seattle, who had been here for a few days on a trip east.  We dropped her off at the bus station, as we headed to New York to get Annie.  We did the cultural tour of the county, north, south and center, with Valerie, going to MassMoca for art, to Arrowhead for Herman Melville's story, and then to the Guthrie Center for open mic night.  In between, we ate and talked and hiked a little.  John and Marilyn came over for dinner with Valerie, who they knew from the memorable visit to San Miguel years ago, with Mary's mothers and aunts.

We finally opened up the porch for meals, as last weekend we almost had snow.  Too cold, and it did snow on Mt. Greylock.  My college roommate, Steve Tobolsky and his wife, had come over from Boston for the night, and we thought about having a fire.  We did turn on the heat.  This weekend we wanted air conditioning.  The photo was a panorama trick taken at MassMoca, in front of a Sol Lewitt mural.  Fun.

Mary started a job this week.  A paying job.  She's tutoring a young boy in the 4th grade an hour a day.  She might have another fill-in job until the end of school, and there are several she's seen to apply for.  

I also started a job, of sorts.  If someone had told me last year or 40 years ago that I would be explaining Herman Melville to a paying tour group, I'd have thought it a dream of sorts, more like a nightmare.  But, there I was, giving tours to people last Monday who had come to Arrowhead to get a glimpse of the writer, his work and his life in the Berkshires.  It's actually very interesting, and I have a lot of homework to do to get the story right.

We spoke with David and Andrew who filled us in on happenings out their way.  David and Paula had a birthday dinner for Matthew with Tina and Oliver last week.  That means that Peter and Janet also had a wedding anniversary.  Congratulations and fond memories (and one great photo of a certain sports jacket) from that weekend.

Andrew says that Claire's graduation was terrific, and that she is planning a camping trip in Michigan before school starts.  Daniel has decided to play football this fall, and he has been working out and lifting weights to get ready.  Look out!  Lur has been busy helping her parents.

The next time you see Joe, hopefully he'll be wearing the bow ties that Andrew sent him.  If not, maybe it's because he's got his kilt, which after years of promise since he graduated from St. Andrews and then Tufts, finally arrived last week.

This is Margaret's big week as the orientation programs she's been developing start.  Good luck!

 

Theatre is for everyone

I started to describe theatre for people who are blind, over 30 years ago. The concept of audio description was brand new.  There were a lot of skeptics, and people made extremely insensitive remarks.  But we persevered, and today, Audio Description is not only in theatres, but movie theaters, museums, and national parks.

I have always believed that theatre should be inclusive, not exclusive.  After seeing that a theatre in northern New Jersey paired with a local children's theatre to perform an autism-friendly show, I decided that we needed to do an autism-friendly show at McCarter.

Last night, after months of hard work, involving a wonderful group of McCarter staffers, of making sure that we had everything necessary to ensure a great performance, the Fiasco Theater Company performed "Into the Woods" for an audience of children and young adults with autism, and their families.

A social book was constructed and sent to the various autism services to hand out to patrons prior to last evening's show.  The social book has pictures and descriptions of everything that the patron with autism will encounter at the theatre, so that it would seem familiar and not alien.  We had two rehearsal rooms set aside - a Quiet room, and an Activity room.  We had 10 volunteers from Eden Autism Services who wore blue tee-shirts to identify themselves and carried "goody bags," filled with fruit snacks, popcorn, and fidgets.  Two McCarter staffers stood upfront, one on either side of the stage, holding green glow sticks.  The audience knew from the social book that when the glow sticks were raised, a loud noise was coming.

There was a quite space in the lobby with two bean bags chairs and some more fidgets, and stress balls.  The women's restroom became a family restroom.  We had signs everywhere indicating where everything was.

There was continuous seating - we had people entering the theatre 45 minutes after the show had started, and for once, theatre patrons were allowed to bring food into the theatre.

We had countless meetings with autism groups and had been told that some people might only stay for 10 minutes, but that those 10 minutes were a victory. Two families left during Act I, one about 40 minutes in and another about 1 hour in... Act I is 1 1/2 hours long.  About 25 people left at intermission, but the bulk of the audience stayed through until the end.  Not bad when you realize we started with 145.

This is a pared down version of "Into the Woods." 10 actors play multiple roles.  One of the actors attended a meeting in February with us at the Theatre Development Fund, which has successfully had 6 autism-friendly productions of Broadway musicals.  This actor had worked with children with autism and he was every excited about last night's show.

I have had so many wonderful experiences in theatre.  But I have never experienced the sheer wonder, the joy, euphoria, the high, as I did last night.  I was truly humbled.  I was at the front of the stage during intermission, talking to the two women holding the glow sticks, when the actors came onstage in preparation for Act II.  A young girl, about 12 or 13, saw the actors and ran to the stage, yelling "Jack! Jack!  Where have you been?  Hi Jack, it's me, Annie!!"  And "Jack" said hi to her and said a few words.  Then she saw Cinderella, and said, "Ooh, ooh, look at you!"  And Cinderella spoke to her also.  It was a magical moment.

It is not hard to see how difficult a life this can be for families.  Over and over again, we heard that parents of autistic children cannot go to the theater, they can't go to the movies, because their children are noisy, prone to outbursts and behavior that annoys other people.  How unbelievably humbling it is to watch the parents and their children sit in the theatre, mesmerized by the musical, and know that they did not have to worry about other people complaining.  

The actors cried as they took their bows.  So did all of us who had worked to see this wonderful day come to fruition.

We have next season's play picked out and this one will also include people with developmental disabilities.

See?  Theatre really is for everyone.

Now it starts, Claire

Congratulations.  What a great shot we saw on Facebook of the graduate.  I lie; it wasn't great, it was SPECTACULAR!

We actually see quite a lot on Facebook.  Jeffrey and Melodie are in Texas, Annie ate a burger in Yunnan, and somebody shot themselves while bowling, but since they weren't members of the family, I'll leave that to your Google searches.

We had a short visit south this week, but special.  Hard to believe we were only gone two nights.  First we headed to New Jersey where we joined Peter and Janet at a concert by Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin.  All these years, and we've never seen Mary Chapin play live.  It was wonderful, especially the concept of the two singers on stage exchanging songs and conversation topics as if they were in their living room.  We had a nice dinner a Thai restaurant and a chance to catch up on all matters, that night and at breakfast the next day.  We heard that Johanna is spending a week at Martha's Vineyard and Sean was heading into his last exam.  He has landed a summer job in northern NJ.  Peter and Janet are planning a trip out to Seattle this summer.

We got up the next morning and went to DC, where we had a great barbecue with Joe, Margaret, Andrew and Joe's housemate Greg.  Mary's friend, Gerry, at whose house we were staying joined us for a locavore sausage meal, where guess who ate too much?  Just one person.  Margaret made brownies with home-made caramel.  Guess who had two?  What's ll this talk about a cleansing diet?  Joe had just returned from an extended trip to India, filled us in on what he did there.  Margaret and Andrew recounted their hair-raising story of an intruder.  Everyone's busy at work.  

We had planned to spend the weekend there, but headed home on Friday as one of Mary's cousins passed away and the funeral was Saturday.  Patrick Hayes, who at 62, died of a heart attack.  In his service the priest noted that "out of weakness comes strength, and strength helps to deal with weakness."  Pat had been struck with a debilitating illness for the last several years, but he has a large and close family whose strength was everywhere evident.

Danny had come up for the funeral, and we saw John and Marilyn there as well.  They went from the church right to Lowell, as Colleen graduated, with a Masters in nursing, on Saturday,  Congratulations Colleen.  What a long haul, of work and study and showing dogs!  

Mary is at a yoga class right now; I walked five miles today with a pack on my back to get ready for the great Scotland adventure, which starts in a little more than a month.  I have to be in better shape.  This week, I go to a training for volunteer guides at the Herman Melville home in Pittsfield.  Hmm.  When I read Moby Dick, in September 1976, waiting for school to start in Lastourville Gabon, I never thought I'd a) be serving as a guide at his home, where that was and b) have finished that book.  Uggh.

Such are the twists and turns.  You got some?  

Love from up here.   

Green (almost)

No, not the color of money, but the yellow-fresh green on the trees, in the woods, in the lawn that's growing too fast.  I've already mowed.  And it's ready for another cutting now.  Too early to say uggh.

It's a travel month.  We had a surprise phone call today from New Delhi.  Joe called.  His meetings are over, and he's staying a little but longer for a little tourism.  Yesterday he went to the Taj Mahal, which he said he went to with high expectations, but even those were exceeded.  He also spent $40 for two drinks.  Lots of contrasts, but he says he's really enjoying it.  He'll be back on Monday morning.  He seems to have forgotten his nightmarish travel over.  Hope it's better coming back.

Annie is back in Yunnan, after a week-plus in Malaysia renewing her visa.  She sent us some photos; this one here is of a very ornate temple from a town outside Kuala Lumpur called Melaka.  Margaret is heading to Boston this weekend for her first ever visit to Fenway.  A pilgrimage!

And, we have a nice account from Peter and Janet about their spring trip to Texas.  Sounds great.  We think David and Paul are in New York city right now, taking in a play among other delights.   We had hoped maybe we had a reason to go there, but nothing came of it, so we stayed home.  Happily.  All this travel by you all is wearing us out.  

John and Marilyn are back from Florida, pretty excited by their new digs in Daytona.  Something to look forward to during the blah months in late fall and early spring up here.  Looks like a lot of fun.

Last weekend, Marj and Lew came up for Saturday night.  We had a nice dinner out with Mary's high school friends, one of whom was celebrating her 60th.  Looks like I am the last one to fall.  While the "girls" were up at MassMoca, Lew and I went to a talk by a historic restoration contractor and architect, who are piecing together what they think is the oldest barn in the country, dating back to 1697.  Pretty amazing.  This guy has a workshop in which he is putting back together two barns, the other one checks in in the 1790s. 

Mary is taking a couple of courses at the local community college, one of which is called "Flora and Fauna in the Berkshires."  She has been out taking hikes and is ready to be a tour guide for anyone coming up.  Today we did a little bit of the Appalachian Trail, and looked at the new growth in the woods.

She also had her swim team over for a potluck supper on Sunday evening, a cinco de mayo festival of sorts.  Well, we had margaritas, and while they may not have met Peter's Texas standards, it's hard not to enjoy one of those.  

Looking ahead, we see Sean's birthday and Claire's high school graduation!  And a very happy day to all the mothers! Yippee.

Love from up here.  

Hail, the Lone Star State!

I'm a little late, but here are a few highlights from our trip to Texas. We flew into San Antonio, spent a couple days there, drove around the Texas Hill Country for a few days and then went down to Houston. We spent a day driving along Galveston Bay and Island. We then drove back to San Antonio for our flight home.
1. Debbie and Rod Barnes. They have a nice guest room and pool outside, they serve up a really nice barbecue dinner, and daughter Jennifer, son-in-law Ron Jones and grandson Parker all live nearby.
2. Jennifer Barnes Jones and Ron Jones. They joined us at Debbie's for dinner. Jen was a little stressed out about her new job, but they are a really sweet couple (especially considering that Ron is an FBI agent!) and Parker is a neat kid.
3. Sarah Barnes Stellges and Brandon Stellges. They took us out to a REAL Mexican restaurant, where I had the absolute best Margaritas I've ever had. (First ones, too.) Sarah is well along in her pregnancy and we had a really delightful evening with them. We had lunch the next day and went into a Lucchese Boot shop – the least expensive pair was $775. That's about as much I have paid for all the shoes I have bought in my entire life. (Almost.) But Sarah gave us a recommendation for another store which was on our way out of San Antone and I got meself a mighty fine pair of Tony Lamas – and a Lucchese belt, which Janet picked out.
4. The LBJ Ranch in Hill Country, along a river spelled "Pedernales" but which everyone pronounces "purrden-alice." It's a moving visit.
5. Riverwalk in San Antonio. Mobbed (including many cadets from a nearby Air Force base), but worth it. We had dinner one evening in SA and went back for our last dinner.
6. Alamo? Meh. But south of SA is Mission San Juan, a well-done Park Service site which educates you well about these missions, which were designed to domesticate the Native Americans so as to settle the area, since not enough Spanish could be persuaded to come to the New World.
7. Hill Country. Pretty. Very pretty. Lots of bluebonnets. Almost every river and creek bed was bone dry. They really have a drought problem.
8. Hill Country wineries. I had no idea there are so many, and they use Texas-grown grapes. As is the case with so many small wineries, the locals get all the good stuff. We had some truly marvelous wine.
9.  We decided the fool-proof way to foment an armed rebellion in Texas would be to prohibit (a) pickup trucks and (b) fences.
10. Galveston, on the Gulf. It's getting more built up and touristy, but the views of the Gulf are pretty amazing. We had lunch in a great little honky-tonk crab shack right on the water. Gives new meaning to the term "eat local."
11. Houston traffic. Bad, bad, bad.
12. Hugh and Judy Thompson. Hugh was a roommate (for one year) and good friend at Princeton, but we've had no contact since graduation. They served up a nice dinner at their house, just 15 minutes from Debbie and Rod.
13. LBJ Houston Space Center? A real bust, all Disney-fied. Phooey.
14. Fredericksburg, in the center of Hill Country. A town settled by Germans. First night: the worst sauerbraten I've ever had. Second night: much better sauerbraten.
15. Rod Barnes. You gotta love this guy. In my foolishness, I had thought we would take three of those wines back on the plane. Oops, 3 oz. limits on liquids. We didn't want to check any luggage, so Rod offered to pack up the wine (and two glasses) and ship them to us. They arrived a week later so hugely armored that a direct hit from Kim Jong-Un wouldn't have done anything.

I'd definitely go back. Thank you Debbie, Rod, Sarah, Brandon, Jennifer, Ron, Hugh and Judy.

News flash from Illinois

Rumor has it that Bill and Jen have posted on Facebook news that they are expecting another child.

That is WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC, even!

Love

Finally

What is it about spring that when it finally comes, it is so new and joyous, as if it doesn't happen each year, round about the same time?  Today, the temperature reached 70, and we did a little yard work, cut some grass, cleaned the porches and planted some marigolds (in trays, inside still, but getting ready.)  We've even seen the groundhogs.  They're getting ready for our new garden.

Dan was here for the night, as he joined us to attend cousin Peter's 60th birthday party.  It was a surprise party, and he was surprised.  Many cousins and two Collins aunts were there, as well as many of the next generation, and the one after that.  Nice family, that knows fun.

Soon, I'll know fun again, as I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel for this spring's classes.  Today was the first day in weeks that I did  not spend the first hours on the computer writing.  A month ago, when we went to Washington, I couldn't see a way to the end.  Now I am closing in on completing three projects: a book proposal on history and memory in the Foreign Service, a national registry nomination for the mill next to our house and an exhibit on Pittsfield in the Civil War, for Arrowhead Museum.  Let's hope something comes out of each of those besides a class assignment.

Last weekend, Mary and I went to Ottawa for five days!  The national public history conference this year was in Ottawa, too big a temptation to forego.  And, we stayed in our old house, thanks to the Nealons, friends who joined the Foreign Service at the same time as us, and he is now the DCM.  And, another couple also from our class, the Dickmeyers, came up from Toronto where he is Consul General.  Time flew by.  The photo is in the backyard of our old house.

Speaking of flying (don't you just love the transitions?), Joe is flying to India this week, as he accompanies a delegation going to the Asian Development Bank meeting.  He has been uber-busy with preparations for that meeting.  Margaret too has been busy at work, as it is getting close to summer when all the Fulbright orientations she;s been working on take place.  And, Annie flew too, to Malaysia, to get her China visa renewed.   

Big news from Florida, as John and Marilyn bought a house, their winter escape in Daytona.  Looks nice; they got a great deal and have extended their trip south for an extra week, to get it ready.  

We talked to David, who was on his way to Albany, and then this week went to New York City.  He had some business, but he and Paula were hoping to go see a play.

Mary has been busy with one last class to renew her certification for teaching.  She's hoping something comes up this summer.  She had a swim meet yesterday, in southern Vermont.  In one race, it turned out she was going to be swimming by herself.  When she threatened to back out, the two coaches, both champions swam with her.  Go team.  

May starts this week.  Hope returns.  Love from over here.    

Turning the corner and

Rounding home.  It happens every year.  Baseball season.  You thought I was going to say spring.  Or April showers.  Or crocuses.  (We actually have our first struggling to stay out when the temps go down below freezing every night still.)  No, baseball season.  It makes me wonder what I've been doing with my life for the last 5 months.  And some of us have even gone to the park to see a game.  Mary and I went to see "42" the movie - very inspiring.  The normally staid audience here in Pittsfield broke out in applause a few times.  

I know what I've been doing, trying to keep my head above water at school.  Are you ready for this next year Annie?  How are you holding up, Tina and Sean?

It's been a while since the last entry, so there's much to catch up on.

First of all Easter.  Hope everyone had a great day.  Margaret and Andrew came up for the weekend, and were hoping to bring Joe who couldn't come at the last minute because of work.  Too bad.  Dan Boyle joined us for the night, and we had our now traditional Easter dinner at the Red Lion Inn.  It's a tradition if you do something three times, right?

Dan brought news that Patrick had returned from Colorado and was planning to get a job back east, maybe go back to school at some point.  Kathleen has a new job in Boston.  And Maura got into nursing school.

Speaking of Boston, it's hard to write the usual family news without a quiet prayer for those hurt in the senseless attacks at the marathon finish line. 

We have heard a couple of times from Annie, who has moved to western China, the mountainous province of Yunnan.  Her pictures look beautiful.  She is planning a trip to Malaysia to renew her visa.  So many places.  Exciting.

Speaking of places, Joe is headed to India in May for a meeting of the Asia Development Bank he is helping prepare for.  

We spoke with David and Paula since their return from a three-week swing all the way to Florida.  They attached the sun to the back of their car and brought it back with them.  Travel tip:  Florida Keys may not be worth it.  

John and Marilyn are down in Florida for the month of April.  We keep texting them about the snow showers and freezing nights to make them feel good about their decision to go south.

Spring also means burn season, so last week we burned our big pile of brush which had accumulated over the summer and fall.  Good thing we chose Thursday, because it snowed on Friday.  Last year, Joe was here to help out.  Miss it?

Out in Dundee, it sounds like everyone is plugging away, at school, at work and at sports.  Claire, are you having a bout of senior-itis yet? 

Tomorrow, Mary and I head north, since we haven't had enough of winter.  Mary will put aside her yoga, swimming, photo and guitar classes to join me back in Ottawa where I will be taking in a public history conference.  We'll be staying in our old house.  Last time I think.

And, next week is Peter's birthday.  Have a hap, hap, happiest day.

That's all from here.  Love

Out like a lion

End of March, and while we entered like a lion, we're pretty much going out like one too.  There is, however, a whiff of spring in the air.

It was spring break and 3 of the 4 brothers took a break.  David and Paula drove to Florida, by way of Washington, Charleston and a bunch of other stops as well.  They stopped in to see Jeffrey and Melodie on the way down, and then stayed with Aunt Georgia where they saw Sarah.  Rell had gone to California to visit Jacob at college.  Proof that they were in Florida is the short sleeves in the photo.

Peter and Janet took off for Texas and they stopped in to see the other side of the family - the Dicksons in San Antonio and Houston.  Peter recovered enough from his knee surgery to get on a plane, which is good news.

Mary and I went as far south as DC where we ate and drank our way off our diets, but enjoyably with Joe, Margaret and Andrew.  We brought the snow with us, as Monday morning the area got the most snow they've had all winter.  Everyone is well, working too hard, but seeming to enjoy it all. We stayed with Foreign Service friends in Bethesda, and Mary saw old friends from Peru and the school where she used to teach.  We took down a car full of boxes and stuff, which already looks good in the two apartments.  And, Mary measured Joe, finally, for his kilt - a gift from St. Andrews graduation.  That was last year, right?

No trip south for the Dundee crowd.  We hear that Claire has chosen a college, we Hope.  At least, they have put down their deposit.  Hope College in Michigan.  Wonderful.

Uncle Dan headed south and far west, for a long trip to visit Timmy in Baja California.

There's a picture here of Joe on St. Patrick's Day.  Recognize the sports coat?  We had gone out to eat with John and Marilyn for St. Patrick's Day where a local Irish group was playing - the Housatonic Philharmonic.  Very nice.  

The week before, our friends from Maine paid a reverse visit from our trip up north in January.  They did not have car trouble, but it did snow.  We planned our trip to Scotland this summer, and a walk along the Great Glen Way.

We heard from Annie a few times, over everyone's favorite pastime this time of year.  Taxes. She must be close to her move out west. 

We are expecting Margaret and Andrew this weekend, coming up with Dee for Easter.  Then, baseball season starts.  Unfortunately, I am so busy I am not sure I will even be able to read the sports pages.  

April is around the corner, and that means spring.  One month closer to the end of the school year.  Hooray!

Love from up here.  And Happy Easter.    

Lots of news

We took advantage of the extra hour of sunlight and 50 degree weather to go out for an extended walk this evening, without coat, without hat and without gloves!  (The warmest place where there are Dicksons?  Rochester had us beat by 14 degrees, one degree warmer than Washington.)  It's the best way to accept the loss of an hour of sleep.  Mary got a lot of pictures for her photography class, including some of a beaver, getting to work on his spring cleaning.

March means, first of all, happy birthdays to Daniel and to Lur, and in a few weeks David.  Big days, happy ones.

Not so happy though in Rochester last week, as David and Paula had an accident on the freeway, when their new car was swiped by a pick-up truck.  Fortunately, they are all right, and the car is going to the repair shop this week.    

I have a new sport.  It's counting trucks on the lake.  In the last letter I mentioned I saw 6; last weekend I counted 27.  No lie.  Today, even with the warm weather, there were still about a dozen on the lake.

 

We have a social life, after all.  Friday, we went to a corned beef and cabbage dinner at a local club where many of Mary's family had congregated.  Later, Charlie and Annie from North Carolina came for the evening and for a day of cross-country skiing on Saturday.  Fortunately, we had some snow, just the day before, which our clan in DC managed to avoid.  They still got a day off, however.  Hopefully it's the last of the year.  Last weekend, one of Mary's friends from Peru came over from Boston for a night of chatting and a hike.  What is it that women can never exhaust the list of topics, while men finish theirs in about 10 minutes?  One of those topics is our diet which is continuing, in spurts.  Still, we have cut back on many of our bad influences.

We also saw last night a movie, called Quartet, which was about an assisted living home for retired musicians.  A wonderful story, with familiar actors.  And, we spent one night this week over in Northampton to go to a couple of lectures, including one by the first U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and another by the author of a biography on Thelonious Monk. How different are those?  

I have been busy at school, working on a couple of different projects, including a historic survey of the mill which is next to the house.  It's a beautiful old building which I learned was the longest, continuously operating textile mill in this part of the state.  Now, it lies mostly vacant.  That's a photo of Mary in front of the buildings. 

 

Joe and Margaret recovered from their snow day, which they needed to shovel all the rain off their sidewalks.  They are busy at work; Margaret went to see Michelle Obama at the annual International Women's Day ceremony.  We think they're both coming up for Easter.

Annie has big news; she may join the New York City set next year.  She got into Columbia for her masters degree program in psychology.  Yea!! 

One item left over from last week was news that there is a champion in the family.  Mary's niece Colleen and her partner Pauline won at the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden in February for their Borzoi wolfhound.  Bubba must be proud.

Tomorrow is Peter's knee operation, which will put him out of commission for a while, but he'll soon be back in the backfield, running the end sweep around Clay Matthews in no time. 

So, happy March.  Spring is close.  Hope you are all well.

Love from over here.    

 

And the Oscar goes to...

It's countdown to the Oscars, and I'm predicting (hoping) Lincoln, Daniel Day Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence, Sally Fields and Tommy Lee Jones.  I know there are others but I it's hard to have an opinion about lighting or song.

The Pittsfield Oscar goes to the 6 trucks I saw yesterday morning on the ice, at the lake.  Or, maybe that would be the Darwin awards.  The Oscar actually goes to the young girl who was helping her father out ice fishing, for acting like she might be enjoying it.  

Mary is off at another swim meet today, and she swears it will be her last.  Wanna bet?  

Last weekend, we drove a thankfully almost snow-free drive westward to Fairport and spent the evening with David and Paula.  Matthew, Tina and Oliver came over for one of Paula's famous dinners and catching up on wedding reminiscing.  Tina is well into her new life as a full-time nursing student and seems to enjoy it.  Oliver is busy with all kinds of activities like martial arts.  Look out.  The next day, it snowed.  Go figure!  We went out to brunch with David and Paula and had an overall wonderful time talking diets, investing, furniture, retirement and history.   

From Fairport, we went to Cornell where I gave a talk on history and memory and foreign relations.  Our host, a neuro biologist, worked with me at the State Department, and the photo shows us with him, in front of his birds who he monitors in experiments on learning and memory.  Very interesting.  

Left over from last week's weekly letter was Margaret's claim that she was the last person to shake Hillary's hand as she left the State Department.  Pretty cool.  She would have gone to see in the new guy the next day, but had a lot of work to do, including writing a memo to that same new guy.  

Good news from colleges:  Claire got into one more college (Cornell of Iowa) and Annie got into NYU.  Congratulations.  Annie also had her last day of work on Friday, so she is set to enjoy the next few months in China.  She's signed up for a Chinese language course.

Spring is around the corner.  I got a fishing rod from Joe this week, and plans are in the offing for a fishing weekend in May.  Anyone care to join?  And, the first spring season baseball games started.  

So is summer.  Mary looked into Mountain Springs, for a possible weekend this summer, but found it is almost all booked.  Must be the spillover from people losing beach houses on the Jersey shore.  We're happy to host a weekend up here, and can look into venues besides Jiminy Peak.  David and Paula also suggested somewhere in the Finger Lakes.  All good. Thoughts?

Hey, one more thing.  I just got a subscription to www.ancestry.com and am happy to share the password if anyone wants to look around that site.  Let me know.

That's all from cold and wet New England.  Love.