The Tree is Down, Farewell to 2014

We took the tree down Sunday evening, while watching the pain of the Bengals lose to the Steelers.  Double sadness.  Triple that feeling when the house was quiet, as Margaret and Andrew were the last to leave, with a Saturday departure.  Okay, the Bengals losing was not that big a deal.  

Still, we had our memories of a wonderful time.  At some point, all the planning comes to a halt and the festivities just take over.

Ours started with what seems to be a nice tradition of heading to New York City for at least part of the extended break.  We stayed at Annie's apartment (thanks) and she took us to a great barbecue spot in the neighborhood and then on to Lincoln Center for a movie, The Theory of Everything, which was a remarkable story, or at least a story about a remarkable man, and woman.  We met up with Peter the next morning for our first foray into the Strand, the used bookstore that we heard so much about, and then over to Eataly, a food market with restaurants.  Is it any wonder why we love New York?  So much to do and so much new, always.

We then stood in the cold for tickets to a play, Constellations, that was an interesting concept but was short.  We felt a little jipped, but not by the acting.  Anyway, we headed to St. John the Divine for church in the morning (and to see the Xu Bing Phoenix sculpture again) and then over to our favorite Hungarian pastry shop across the street.  We met up with Annie, and then headed back to Pittsfield by train.  That was a first, and worked out just fine.

Margaret and Andrew (and Dee) arrived that night, and we officially started the Christmas week.  Much of it was a rotational experience, between eating and exercise in order to be able to eat more.  Cookies and great baskets from Nueske's and Harry and David's sure helped out.  

We talked to Joe a few times, through the magic of Facetime, an app that lets you see the person you're talking to.  We're getting closer to the Dick Tracy watch.  Anyway, he was in London, then Lisbon and then outside Lisbon with Leonore and her family for Christmas and then his birthday.  Remember his birthdays in Pomfret with everyone there?   On Facetime, he was able to show us the sights of Lisbon, without getting a postcard or getting on a plane.

John and Marilyn came over for dinner Christmas Eve and they were preparing for their children and families to descend on them the following day.  Out in Dundee, they had quite a crowd on Christmas eve as well, with Bill and Jen and Lur's family over.  Miles who is three and a half was just the right age for the Christmas spirit, and I think we can guess that means excitement.  Auden was probably also excited, but probably more so next year.

We saw a lot of photos and video of Peter and Janet at her family's house for Christmas, with merriment coming from music making.  Fun.  And we also saw a few photos of young Donald on Facebook, and he is growing fast.

Our Christmas included an early roast beef meal, and then a trip to the train station to drop off Annie who was catching a flight the next morning to South Africa, to attend a friend's wedding.  She sent us the photo above of her in the pool with the Cape mountains behind her.  After a grueling flight, she earned it.  Spectacular.

Our next weekly letter will be next year, halfway through the decade.  And, we'll be writing from Gabon; we leave on New Year's Day and after a couple of days in Paris, we arrive in Libreville.  We are loaded down with all kinds of stuff, but the most important will be unlocked phones that we hope to make use of there, for e-mail and connection back home.  Sure has changed since the 1970s with the blue airmail letter/envelopes.  We'll also be posting updates on our website: http://encoredelapaix.org/blog-from-doumandzou/

So, Happy New Year, and love from up north.   

We Have a Tree

But it's not decorated yet.  Wreaths are up, candles in the windows, and more than a few trips by the UPS guys to the front door.  And, we've finished three candles on the advent wreath.  And there's a fair amount of white stuff on the ground.

Not in Boston, though,  We headed over yesterday for the New England master's swim meet, where Mary swam in three individual events and two relays.  In one day.  She did well, beating her personal times and giving some younger swimmers a bit of a chase.  But in Boston, we actually saw the yellow round thing in the sky.  Seems like it's been a while since the sun popped out here.  And sure enough, as soon as we hit the Berkshires on the turnpike, we lost the sun and clouds took over, with a major drop in temperatures.  It felt like we had gone to Florida for the weekend.  No coats, gloves or hats.  We even saw in the paper today people in short sleeves in Washington.  Anyway, we touched base with old roommates, dinner out with Mary's high school friend Judy, and we stayed with my college roommate, Steve, who is head of school in Chestnut Hill.  A tough job.

David and Paula got creamed with a major snowfall this week.  More than a foot..  Fortunately for us, by the time it got here, most of it was rain, before it turned cold, just dropping a few inches of snow.   We kept hearing in the fall about how much snow we would have this winter, and, though I'm not sure how they knew, the predictions have come through.  Oh, and it's still technically fall.

Sounds like everyone had great Thanksgivings.  Ours was quiet but special and relaxing.  Joe and Annie came up by train, and it was a bit of an adventure driving over to Hudson New York to pick up Joe in a snowstorm.  But the trains were running, and my last minute snow tires mounted in the morning did the trick.  I saw four cars off the side of the road on my way over.  

The storms here saw a lot of branches come down, including one off our flowering hydrangea tree in front.  We got off easy, as Johnny lost some huge branches off his pine trees.  Joe and I went over to help him haul the stuff out of his back yard so that someone could take it away.  This was part of a string of bad luck for John and Marilyn who were in accidents in each of their cars, as the result of other drivers.  Long repairs and insurance discussions.  

Thanksgiving up here also included movies, with kind of a food theme, or at least hunger theme.  We wanted to see the new Mockingjay movie, but we had to watch the second installment before, so it was a Hunger Games weekend for us as well.   

It's end of college semester time for many of us - Claire, Annie, Margaret, Sean, Maura, and Tina.  Am I missing anyone?  Do you hear the sighs of relief?  Last year this time, it was me, and it is not fun.  A lot of hard work.  For Tina, a special shout out, since she not only finished the semester but graduated.  Congratulations.  A long haul, but you made it.  

Margaret celebrated by heading to Austin TX with Andrew.  She had a work commitment there, but they spent a few extra days taking in the city's great music scene.  And, on the travel scene, we see Bill and Jen headed for Los Cabos after Thanksgiving with Miles and Auden.  Warmth!

And there's more travel coming up.  Joe's heading over to London this Friday; he'll be in Portugal for Christmas.  And Annie is off to South Africa the day after Christmas with Greg; and we are putting final preparations for our trip to Gabon, leaving January 1.

Before all that, we're going to New York this weekend for a couple of nights.  The city is wonderful this time of year, a little crowded, but with all the lights out, and the stores full, it's fun.  Look for a photo of Christmas decorations from New York in the next letter.  

Hope everyone is enjoying the season.  Love from the north.  

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Dundee News

Well it sure has felt like winter here. Very cold at times and some snow. Even the pets have hesitated going out the door.

We had a pleasant and quiet Thanksgiving, with Lur's parents our only guests. Lur's brother and wife were recovering from surgeries and thought the better to stay close to home. Claire made the trek from Hope and was a big help in organizing the dinner. Lur decided to join Costco, so we overwhelmed the freezers. It is quite a thought process to go through to justify buying massive quantities of food. We are set for a while.

We were treated again to Claire playing the oboe at church during her brief visit. I commented to the pastor that it was nice to here the oboe soften that usual staid Lutheran music. We remembered her Halloween concert at Hope where all the student performers were allowed to dress up in costume. The three oboe players (including Claire) had big mouse ears and sunglasses- three blind mice.

Claire has a busy few weeks ahead, as exams approach. She also has to perform in front of a professor "jury" with the oboe, which we have heard is a stressful process.

Over Thanksgiving, Daniel had a busy basketball tournament, with the host school being about an hour away. Much driving. They played their first conference game on Wednesday, on the losing side. It looks like it will be a long year. 

I have been filling the bird feeder about every other day. We see the same bird every day just sitting there. We call him our "homeless" bird. The squirrels just sit underneath and grab the mess that comes down. A few fights have ensued, with a lot of drama. Claire made the comment that our squirrels are much fatter that the ones in Michigan. Gee.

The other night while grilling dinner, I saw my first owl ever. They are pretty big birds, with quite a wing span. He must have noticed the busy bird feeder.

We are getting ready for the Christmas season, but this year I made an executive decision. We are going to drive an hour to a tree farm and cut one down. Based on past events, I will bring a bigger saw. It is always such a treat to have these holidays with Miles and Auden. Can't wait.

And if he is listening, a big congrats to Timmy on his wedding!

Take care. Love

Dreaming of a

White Thanksgiving.  Not really.  I'm actually dreaming of a bit of a let up so I could drive to Hudson NY to pick up Joe, who's coming in tonight on the train.  When we made the decision a few weeks ago to have Thanksgiving here, it seemed like a good idea.  Those of us who have more flexible schedules had been going to Washington for Thanksgiving the last few Novembers, saving the working stiffs from battling the holiday mass travel.  Anyway, we may go back to our original plans next year.  Still, it will be nice to have Annie and Joe here; Margaret and Andrew are in Pennsylvania for the holiday.  Annie came up yesterday by train.

Where are you?  Hopefully inside and warm.  I hear David and Paula will have a houseful, as I suspect Andrew and Lur will as well.  If I remember right, the Peter Dicksons normally head to one of Janet's cousins for a big extended family dinner.  We hear Kathleen will be hosting Thanksgiving for her parents in Boston, and John and Marilyn will have a crowd here.

Timmy will be warm outside, in LA, where he will be having his first Thanksgiving as a married man.  Yes, that is THE big news of the letter, that Tim was married on November 15 to Denisa Edete, a woman he has known for a long time.  They tied the knot in Las Vegas, and we were able to watch it live streamed.  Congratulations.  We understand there may be a wedding reception next year in LA.  

At least he wasn't in Buffalo.  No matter how bad the weather gets, we will always be able to say, at least we're not in Buffalo.  We originally thought Rochester/Fairport was in the same track, but David and Paula said they only got a few inches of the same storm.  Just that part of Buffalo closest to the lake got hit badly.  David was driving back from Albany and managed to avoid the closing of Rt 90 further west.  

Don't ever say I wait until the last minute to get my jobs done.  At 8am today, before the first snow flake fell, I was 5th in line to get my snow tires put on.  So, two hours later, when I pulled out of the auto shop, the old Saturn was ready, and we needed the tread immediately.  Should help on my drive later this evening.  And, if you notice in the picture below, I was waiting for Joe to help me put the picnic table out of the snow.  Oh well.

On the travel scene, Joe gets the award for furthest distance since the last letter.  He's been to Hong Kong and back, all in the space of a week.  He wrote from the airport saying he had a middle seat on a 16-hour flight. Kathleen was not far behind as she went to Morocco. 

Andrew and Lur went out to see Claire for parents' weekend at Hope, and they said they went to a concert where Claire was playing the oboe.  She had gotten into the college orchestra, quite an achievement.  Also from Dundee, is news that Daniel has started basketball practice/tryouts.  He has also become the youngest Dickson to get a car, I believe.  It's a sporty Mazda, for a sporty guy.

With Annie last night, we had the first of our current event conversations that I am sure are played out across the country.  The topic was Ferguson.  I suspect there are many families will be grappling with this and other topics, like immigration, over turkey.  We used to get fairly worked up over these talks.  Now, it's kind of fun to hear points of view we don't normally get, in our quiet, staid lives. 

What else?  Little things, like ongoing plans for our trip back to Gabon.  We got our visas, and we've placed our first order for wood to repair the roof.   we had a pizza dinner the other night John and Marilyn who was on the mend for a second knee operation.  Now she's ready for golf, if only there was no snow.  And we had two visits from Peace Corps friends, Charlie Morrison and Tom Friedeberg, who Joe will remember as he put together a short internship for Joe in Madagascar.

And we close this special Thanksgiving edition with a photo of the most recent newlyweds; move over Margaret and Andrew.

Have a wonderful, fantastic day tomorrow.  Love from up here.

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Look what I forgot!

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The video of Peter's appearance October 7 appearance at the NJ Supreme Court is now up and running: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/webcast/archive.htm

He appears around minute 45.

Also here's an interesting website that describes a little bit about you based on where you are living: http://www.esri.com/data/esri_data/ziptapestry  I found out that, in Pittsfield, we're "set to impress", young and either still in college or working, or "comfortable empty nesters" transitioning to retirement.  Hmmm.  Wonder which one we are.  What does your zip code say about you?

Back to DC

​After not going to Washington since May, we have now been twice since the end of October.  We drove back to Washington this past weekend, just two weeks after the big party.  We went to drop off our visa applications for Gabon, but also to check in with Joe, Margaret and Andrew.  It was a short trip but we packed it in, with side visits to see friends from Peru, South Africa and Arlington, all of whom were at the wedding reception.  So it was nice to revisit the party with them.

We stayed with Margaret and Andrew and (Dee) which was nice and comfortable.  We also went to Joe's new apartment and helped him hang pictures.  He had a friend from St. Andrews visiting, a Tanzanian named Omar, who was in the U.S. on a year-long fellowship (through the State Department.)  He joined us for dinner on Saturday night, and found he knew more about the NBA than anyone else around the table.  Joe, by the way, is getting ready to go to Hong Kong later this month, so he has been in touch with my college roommate who used to live there.

Since Margaret's new apartment is near the Marriott, I took a couple of walks around the neighborhood, looking for everyone - the Marriott, Glen's Garden Market, Ruth's Chris Steak House.  We didn't make it back to Recessions, which is probably where everyone was.  Karaoke and the cheapest beer in town.

Besides the wedding reception, we spent a fair amount of time talking about the elections.  Lots of disappointment with Obama, from his own supporters.  I am still not there, and posted on Facebook today a nice article about all that has been accomplished these past years.  Enough politics.

Enjoying my second retirement since my class ended and the Herman Melville season is over, I joined Johnny for a kayak trip down the Housatonic.  Beautiful, meandering stretch of the river and the hills in the near distance.  Johnny who has been canoeing on the river for over 20 years has a story for every bend, when floods washed out trees, how the river has changed course and a fair number of unforeseen canoe flips in frigid water.  It was my first time in a kayak on a river, and it went well.  Even though the water was gently flowing, it was still a workout going back upstream.

John and Marilyn had just come back from Florida, as Marilyn is going to have a knee operation.  We joined them for a Kelly's Diner brunch - another sign of retirement!!

What else?  We are almost caught up on our Homeland viewing, so we need a new show.  We did go to the movies recently to see Gone Girl, which was good, but had a very unsatisfying ending.  I think we were the only people in America who did not read the book.  Our Halloween adventure was going to a play on Edgar Allen Poe's last days in Baltimore.  Two other cultural activities included a concert in Great Barrington by a guy who lives in Barcelona, named Sam Lardner.  We learned he had played in Princeton two nights earlier.  

We also attended a "summit" on historic preservation in Pittsfield, because of concern over a plan by Dunkin Donuts to tear down an old church for one of their stores.  Now I admit I like Dunkin Donuts, but that comes as close to Joni Mitchell's song about paving paradise as anything I've seen.  I was the moderator of the meeting, that included our mayor.  Fortunately, the donut chain has scrapped their plans due to community outrage, but no one is sure what comes next.

We spoke with Annie who has accepted a job with General Electric, starting next July,  Congrats!!

And, it is getting cold up here.  We've had our first fire.  And, even though we miss summer, this fall has been pretty wonderful.

What's new with you?  Got a photo to share?

Love from up here.

Home

It was a nice long ride home, with Annie and Greg part of the way, and we re-lived Saturday night's reception.  And then we relived it all again with an evening phone call with Margaret.  I think the unanimous verdict from those asked was that the weekend went by too quickly.  I know Mary and I wanted to hit the pause button so many times.   It was really wonderful to check in to Facebook when we got home and see all the photos.  We were so caught up in the moment that we did not take one picture.     

These life events are so important, and we were so happy that everyone made an effort to be there and share it with Margaret and Andrew.  The smiles on their faces in this photo tell the whole story.  Joy.  Most of all because you all were there!  To dance, and cheer and whistle and chat and eat and enjoy a little bit of Mexico in Washington.  

We arrived home kind of late Sunday night, to our smoke alarms beeping.  Back to the real world.  And, the poor kitty who had to listen to that beeping every 30 seconds or so.  Of course new codes require that all of the alarms be connected so you can't just replace one battery, but all of them.  So, instead of settling down to watch football and world series and unwind in general, I had to get in the car and go out to buy batteries.  Is this too much information?

In the middle of this we gleaned some important info:

-- Daniel has surpassed me to become the tallest Dickson, and he can dunk a basketball.

-- Peter is taking a course on Chaucer in between his big court cases.

-- Dan Boyle is getting his lifeguard certificate this fall.

-- Bill and Jen are interested in moving to Colorado.

-- Johanna and Janet love the zoo, the pandas and the otters.

-- Jeffrey still gets carded because he looks so young.

-- Andrew and Lur want the next wedding to be in Scranton PA (but I suspect they have traffic there as well.)

-- David and Paula look like they've been on a health kick, as do Jeffrey and Peter.

-- It was the first time ever in DC for Sean's friend Jess.

-- A couple of coincidences - Mary Forte Boyle reunited with some homeboys from NJ and Joe found out he worked in London with Annie Chamberlain's cousin.

-- Kathleen had the 9th anniversary of her 21st birthday.

-- Young Donald either roars or snores.  But most of all he is a very happy baby.

-- Joe can really dance, with the side slide, and so can a few other Dicksons and Boyles.

-- Annie can sing rap, and give a pretty darned good speech.

-- Sean's in his final weeks of law school.

-- Jeff and Melodie must own stock in Uber since they use the service so much (and thanks for the help.)

-- No one wanted to play football except for me.  Not even Mary.

-- Margaret and Andrew are prepared for another party since they have so much liquid refreshments left over.  Next time, might be a little more spontaneous.

So when do we get together again?  Overheard at the wedding was a bit of a challenge:  the brothers (fathers) couldn't get their act together this past summer to organize a family reunion, so the next generation (cousins) might take things into their own hands.  Okay, game on.

Anyway, thanks again and congratulations again to Margaret and Andrew.  

Love from up here.  

See you this week

We're packing and getting ready to jump in the car tomorrow and head to DC, for Margaret and Andrew's big event.  We are so looking forward to it; should be a lot of fun to be together again.  I am going to bring a football in case anyone wants to have a revenge touch football game on the mall.  You think the old guys could still take the next generation?  Perhaps, if we shorten the field, and outlaw running.

Anyway, it's all about collecting memories, and we'll have a lot more for the next letter, based on the events that Margaret laid out in her recent e-mail to everyone.  We spoke with her a few times to iron out some details; she's had weekend classes and dance classes on top of her planning.  

Sorry we'll miss Mathew and Tina, who have their hands full with young Donald and trying to get the closing for their new house.  And Claire who has school work.  Speaking of Claire, we pass along the big news that she was accepted into the Hope College orchestra.  That is wonderful.  

We've had a busy few weeks, but at least I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  My tours at Arrowhead end next Tuesday for the season, and my class at the lifelong learning institute ends on Monday.  So it looks like I am heading toward my second retirement.  I have a number of postponed jobs around the house and some planning for our trip to Gabon.  Speaking of which, we bought our tickets for the month of January.  We also bought travel insurance and will work on getting our visas when things quiet down a little.  Our fund-raising is going very well and just a little bit away from reaching the goal we set to allow us to buy the materials to repair the school.  Mary added swimming lessons on to her schedule, as she is helping a young doctor from Nepal learn how to swim.  Mary's had some shoulder issues, so she has slowed down here swim regime (and taken on some interesting new stretching exercises.)

Sounds like Joe has been busy as well.  He had a lot of preparation for his boss' trip to China to attend the APEC finance minister meetings.  Sounds familiar, preparing all the papers required for these meetings.  He had a special visitor last week from Portugal/London and is settling into his new apartment.

If you're looking for things to talk about this weekend, ask Annie about her new job offer.  She has a tough, but wonderful decision to make.  We'll be picking her up tomorrow and then driving to Philadelphia so that Greg can hop on board the wedding reception express south.  Also, congratulate Kathleen on her big birthday Saturday, and Billy who passed that milestone a couple of years ago.  And ask Peter about his court case at the state Supreme Court - his one comment was he loved the intellectual exchanges.  And ask David how is it that he always calls me when I'm driving?  What kind of drone does he have watching me?

Cultural happenings include a trip to the Clark Museum in Williamstown to see the Magna Carta on display there, a movie at home called "Mud" that we recommend, and a local play, on Edgar Allen Poe's last days, and an art exhibit in Worcester by an artist/monk friend of Mary's from years ago.  Spectacular collages and discussion.

We are awaiting John and Marilyn's return to Pittsfield the first week of November.  Kind of hard to believe time went so fast.  We look forward to hearing more about their trip to Peru.

Other than that, a lot of baseball watching, enjoying the Kansas City Royals (except for last night's lopsided defeat.)   

Oh and wanted to pass along this wonderful fall foliage map that shows the peak seasons around the country.  How did we ever survive before the Internet?

We know at least cell phones will come in handy this weekend.  Look forward to seeing you all.

Love from up north.  We share a picture of Daniel from 2010.  Wait til you see him this weekend.

  
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Letter from Dundee, from Hope

We went up to Holland to see Claire and take in a few sporting events and dinners. Daniel decided to stay home and dog sit, and all was well when we got back.

We had a great dinner Friday night at a restaurant that featured local farms, with impressive veggies and meat. Saturday afternoon, we watched the number one ranked girls volleyball team in Division 3 play, and we really saw a show. One girl tied a national record for kills in a single match. We really felt sorry for the other team, but we rooted for Hope. 

Later, at night, Claire and I took in the soccer game, another win for Hope. Lur stayed in to stay warm, as it got into the 30's.

And the big news, Claire was selected to the Hope woodwinds orchestra, a high honor. We will go back up in a few weeks to see her first concert. The nice thing is we will get to see the great western Michigan colors again.

When we were up in Holland, Daniel got a temporary job with his friend doing electrical assembly. Welcome to the real world.

Saturday morning, we went the Holland farmers' market, a massive display of fruits and vegetables. It is the largest farmers' market in Michigan, and my guess the midwest. It was huge. And it included food trucks, which we decided to do the philipino cuisine. Quite good.

All in all, the weather was great, the colors were great, and Claire was great. Dan probably liked us gone, too. 

Peak season

Peak season for ...... birthdays!  Happy birthday Paula, Johanna, Tina and Janet.  And now Auden who turned 1 on October 2. I read an article recently about the advantages of fall babies.  Based on our small sample, you all made the best of whatever those advantages might have been.

It's also peak season for fall foliage up here.  Some glorious days, especially for hikes, but not yesterday.  It was pouring rain, but that didn't stop me from a climb in Pittsfield State Forest yesterday.  Soaking wet and when I passed a young man he asked if I was crazy.  At least I had on a poncho.

It's also peak season for wood chopping, getting ready for fires this winter  Fortunately, we've had some major limbs fall down, giving us enough firewood for the cold, snowy days.  Not a bad workout either.  Who needs a gym?

And, it's peak season for baseball.  Not much going the way I would like so far; we heard of a marathon viewing party at Jeffrey and Melodie's for the Nats game that went 18 innings.  And the pitcher who lost the crucial game a couple of years ago, lost it again in the 9th inning last night.  Sorry guys. 

OK.  Enough of peak seasons.  Mary had a reunion of sorts here last weekend, bringing together a group of friends from her community college days, including her maid of honor Marj.  They had come to celebrate the life of a friend who had passed away in June.  Lots of singing and reminiscing, and of course good food and drink.  Marj was here through the week with her mother and sister.

We heard from David who had a big meeting in New York City where he had to make a presentation on insurance fraud.  He talked about staying downtown, and some wonderful meals in Little Italy.  Paula couldn't join him; seems that Donald has started smiling.  David said that Matthew and Tina were closing on their new house.  Lots of changes in that household, good ones.

Peter had big news of winning a major case he had been working on for some time involving a stalled real estate development project in Hoboken.  He's arguing a case this week at the NJ Supreme Court on eminent domain again, and you can watch it live on Tuesday at 10am; here's the site - http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/webcast/index.htm.  He promises the discussion will be "lively."

We spoke with Joe and Margaret and they are still settling in from their recent moves.  Joe also told us he saw the recent episode of the intruder at the White House, and I was glad when he said it wasn't a friend of his.

We also heard from John and Marilyn who had just returned from Peru for a vacation to Lima, Cuzco and Macchu Picchu.  They were on a group tour that kept them very busy.  

Other than that, I've finished three of my six classes in my teaching at the lifelong learning institute.  Seems to be going well as they've asked me to think of doing another class next year.  Not sure, what a lot of work.  Mary has started tutoring at a second school, so her days are filling up.  The garden continues to wind down, as we've seen the last of the tomatoes.  Still a few squash and lots of potatoes and carrots to come.  A new I-phone for John; we attended the Arthur Miller play "Enemy of the People," with too many books on our reading lists.  

That about rounds it out.  Looking forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks in Washington for Margaret and Andrew's party.

Love from up here. 

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First day of fall

I've been dreading today, since it means winter is coming and summer is over.  But today we went on a hike to an old granite quarry in Becket and saw the early glimpses of color, and it was wonderful.  Another place to check out on your next visit to the Berkshires.  Fall is nice too, especially when the weather hits the mid 70s.  Unfortunately, we had to turn on the heat this past week, when it dipped down into the 30s at night.  On the other hand, still no frost, so our garden continues to produce - zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots.  We bought our first lettuce since July this past week, and our bumper crop of beans this summer is now officially over.

We realized today that this has been our first weekend without visitors or travel since we went to see Andrew and Lur at Green Lake in June.  (That was fun, by the way.)  Exhale.  We miss you all, though.

Last weekend we went to New York to fulfill a birthday gift to Mary to go see the play Wicked.  It was superior.  The last couple of musicals we had seen (Newsies and Avenue Q) were good, but not great.  Wicked is.  Highly recommended.  

We drove down with a car load of stuff for Annie that she had stored here over the summer.  We saw her new place (very nice) and then went out with her and Greg and Greg's mother at a Mexican restaurant that evening.  The next morning we went to St. John the Divine for church, but also to see the Xu-Bing sculptures of Phoenix suspended from the cathedral ceiling.  Those sculptures had been at MassMoca and they are magnificent.  We're kind of Xu-Bing groupies now.  But, we're also groupies of the Hungarian pastry shop across the street from the cathedral.  Should I mention that the church service was as long as the one that Joe, Margaret and Annie remember, and we didn't quite make it to the end.  We heard voices; they were the pastries calling us.

We understand that David was also in New York this week, for his long awaited hearing on insurance fraud - do I have that right?  Hope it went well.  The big news up in Fairport is the new cat/kitty.

Joe and Margaret helped each other move into their new places last weekend.  No fun, but it sounds like everything went well and now they just have to unpack everything.  By the way, rumor has it that Margaret and Andrew have a guest bedroom - without a bed, but soon to be remedied.  We talked with them both a couple of times, gearing up for the end of October bash.  

Speaking of gearing up, Mary and I have been busy getting ready for our trip to Gabon in January.  Lots of activity and lots of hurdles still to cross.  Not as much activity as my class I started teaching last week at Berkshire Community College for the local chapter of the life-long learning institute.  It's on history and foreign relations.  

Mary has started her tutoring of the Ghanaian high school boys, and has lots of stories, about their adaptation adventures here in Pittsfield.  She still has the best stories from her teaching.  And one more achievement for her - she found out this week she is the 11th best in the nation in breast stroke for her age group. OMG - and who knew that when I married her?  

One last funny story.  Last night, we went to the movies (Most Wanted Man, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, recommended) and afterwards we went to Baba Louie's for pizza dinner.  We were on our way to our table when the waiter told us to go back since the table wasn't quite ready.  In the door walks another couple, roughly our age.  Mary asked them if they had just come from the movies, because she wanted to chat about the movie we just saw.  They had, but they saw a different one, and as we talked the guy looked awfully familiar.  I said to him, you're not from Pittsfield, are you?  He admitted as much, and then I asked him if he was Peter DeShazo, a foreign service colleague of mine.  I didn't know what I would say if he said he wasn't the guy, but it was Peter!  He and his partner were out in Lenox for the weekend from Boston, and we ended up sharing a table and getting reacquainted.  Not sure whether to put this in the small world category or the what would have happened if our table had been ready category.

One more funny story - Joe wrote this week, and said he saw a guy at the Department of Treasury with a Black Panthers t-shirt.  Think about that for a minute. 

Let's end with another photo from Cincinnati.   Love from up here.

I remember...

I think those were the words most often voiced this past weekend in Cincinnati.  Although, truth be told, Andrew didn't remember much, as we left Cincinnati after he had just turned 6 and the last time he was there was in 1978.  

He did remember Tiger Kite.   How?  When we went to Indian Hill Church for, as always an emotional stop, we wandered inside the church, and Andrew came across a young man wearing a tie.  I should note here that none of us came close to that kind of dress, and Andrew with his bright blue shorts and yellow windbreaker, certainly looked out of place.  Anyway Andrew struck up a conversation with the young man who turned out to be our next door neighbor, on Cunningham Road, and best friend of Tiger Kite, the boy who grew up on the other side of our house.  It turned out the young man he met was not so young, seven years younger than me.  It got me remembering the baby born next door while we lived there.  Had to have been the same guy/baby.  

Anyway, there was one more coincidence worth sharing.  When we walked out of hotel to the game, we had barely made it one block when I noticed the sign on the other side of the street - House of Adam.  We have had many laughs over the years about the clothing Pop bought me in the African-American disco store in 1978 when we were looking for something respectable to wear.  That we should be so close to it and that it is still open, catering to the same African-American clientele, but 40 years older, must say something about larger forces at work in our universe.  

Did I mention the baseball?   The Mets thumped the Reds in the first game and the Reds squeaked by the Mets in the second game.  Needless to say, two of the three of us care way too much for these outcomes than we should at our age.  But how do you get it to stop meaning so much?  I will say this, I have never been to a game where the crowd was standing up for the last half inning.  Exciting (at least for me.)  And overall a most fun weekend.  

So where was David for all this?  Preparing for some big meetings, but more importantly, getting a new kitty.  Hardly a kitty, who weighed 16 pounds when they picked him up.  Another Maine coon cat (did I get that right?)  David pointed out that the cat weighed more than his grandson, Donald.  And will for a while longer it seems.  

David was keeping everyone in the loop about Aunt Georgia who had fallen a broke her hip.  She is still strong, and so had two hip replacements it seems and is recovering well.

So, where were Mary, Janet and Lur?  Staying at home, alone and missing their hubbies?  NOT.  Mary took advantage of the freedom and went to visit Marj in Rhode Island; Johanna got out of the city and had some quality time with Janet, and Lur was busy trying to keep Daniel from buying a new car.  

The stars have aligned in such a way that Joe, Margaret (Andrew too) and Annie have all moved into new apartments.  Buy stock in College Hulks Move Stuff. When we saw Margaret and Andrew in August, they were troubled by the infestations in the place they had just moved to.  So they were able to convince their landlords to release them from the lease, since they wouldn't take care of the critters.  We'll go down and see Annie's place this weekend, delivering some stuff she had in Hancock Rd storage.  And Joe has been in temporary housing since his return but has just found a place.

John and Marilyn came over before the weekend for dinner, as they were set to leave for their southern quarters.  They'll be back in November, which means they did not sell their house up here.  Strange.  

The week before Cincinnati, Mary and I went up to northern Vermont for a few days at Charlie's camp on a lake there.  Very rustic; we got an early peak at what the fall colors are going to be like.  We played dominoes with Charlie and his family, and Mary continues to dominate.  However, we have to watch her closely since Andrew found a domino on the floor under her seat out at Green Lake, where she also won.

It's September which means back to school, for Mary and for Annie and Margaret and Sean, Daniel and Claire.  But not for John.  That's naaaaiiiice ( as Borat would say).  I will be teaching an adult learning class for six weeks.  Mary's new teaching gig is at Pittsfield High School.

Oh, one more thing.  A young woman came into my office at UMass this week and wanted a Fulbright scholarship to Argentina to study chronic nappers and the effect on their cognitive abilities.  I raised my hand and said she did not have to go all the way to Argentina.  But she was adamant that she did because people here are discouraged and disparaged from napping.  Even ashamed.  Imagine that.  Boy, does she have that wrong.

And with that, have a wonderful weekend and a start to the fall.  Love from up here.

​

Well done, John

Hey everyone, you should go to the website John put together on the Mills of Pittsfield. It's very well done and informative, and I enjoyed reading about how Pittsfield was once a very important industrial center, and about how many of the buildings have been adapted for new uses. I did not know, for example, that one driver of the city's development was access to fast moving rivers for water power. Check it out.

http://milltour.org/

Coming to theaters near you

Fall!  Too many trees are turning already.  But, this week holds out for some summer weather, just in time perhaps for the first tomatoes to ripen.  It's been a cold summer, and predictions are for an even colder winter.  Winter is usually colder than summer.

Anyway, we enjoyed a summer, family week.  First camping on the beach at Assateague, then the arrival of all three children and husband (!) and significant friends/partners or whatever boyfriend and girlfriend go by these days.  Then on Saturday the entire Boyle clan who descended on 5 Hancock Road for a good old fashioned family reunion.  Let's take each of these in reverse chronological order.

The photo says it all, but it's been years, decades even, since we saw some of the Boyles, the families of each of the five children of Dan and Loretta.  Tim came the farthest, in both physical distance but also health-wise as a couple of weeks ago he was hospitalized for an intestinal blockage.   Patrick came from Colorado, and Leonore from Portugal/London.  Erin and Christopher from just up the road at Pontoosuc Lake.  Margaret and Andrew also came from Mexico, as they had a vacation at a place just north of Cancun, an island paradise by the sounds of it and a potential future destination (get the details from Margaret.) Even Marj and Lew came up from Rhode Island.

Back to the reunion: Lots of food, lots of drink, a short drizzle, games, lots of catching up with new jobs and new addresses, new schools and even new hair-dos.  Highlights included the arrival of the greatest generation members - Loretta's sisters, Ann and Mary - stuffed Rhode Island clams from Steve and Maura, Tim's ceviche, Kara's fruit salads (a healthy antidote for her mother's cheese cake tarts), Natalie's multi-colored cake, and a nice bonfire, started by Andrew and propelled by Pauline.  Young Danny even unearthed Mary's rotary phone from 7 Hancock Rd. Lots of stories, and a sign of success were comments about another one next year.  

The party had actually started a few days earlier with the arrival of Joe and Leonore, and then Annie and Greg, and finally Margaret and Andrew.  We corralled them all to head off to Arrowhead to hear my tour on Herman Melville's home (joined by John and Marilyn.)  There was hiking, shopping, canoeing, swimming and, yes, eating and imbibing.  Wonderful evenings.

We had all just been together the previous weekend at Assateague, with Jeff and Melodie.  There, we encountered Dickson luck with rain, as it poured on the first night, and Joe and Leonore arrived late, just after the storms had left, but had to put up their tent in the dark and wet sand.  Jeff and Melodie arrived Friday.  Camping on the beach requires suspending one's clean genes, if you ever had any, and getting used to sleeping in sandy tents.  Camping near the cute Assateague ponies turned out to be its own adventure, captured by Annie's hashtag - #Assateagueponiesarejerks.  Still, a good time was had by all, with extended beachtime, swimming, boogie-boarding and campfires and food!  We even had a crabfeast.  Ask Melodie about her superhero powers as a human metal detector.  Ask Greg about sandwalls in high tide.  Ask D about walking on the hot sand.

The busy weeks included garden harvesting (beans and lettuce and our first surprise potatoes) and a barbecue with Mary's swim team, where she got a top ten in the nation medal for a relay she swam in, a few months back. Friday, we celebrated with champagne Annie's job offer with Bank of America next year. Hooray and phew! 

It's quiet around here now, as Annie and Greg were the last to leave this afternoon.  The kitty has re-emerged after a few days of hibernation in the basement from all the commotion.  So, even if the kitty is glad to have his house back, we miss you already.  

Love from up here.  

Road Trip!

We are back from our road trip to Chicago and other points west. We had a blast. Here are some things we did and saw.

Most of three days with Andrew, Lur, Claire and Daniel, and Bill, Jen, Miles and Auden. On Friday, we had some of Andrew's patented ribs, although he was obviously too ashamed to cook them on The Grill. On Saturday afternoon and evening Andrew, Lur, Janet and I were guests of Cap'n Bill and First Mate Jen on their pontoon boat; we traveled around several lakes -- did you know about all those lakes? -- tied up at a dock and had dinner at a lakeside restaurant and then watched fireworks from the boat. When the show was over, we then headed home, but I was in the very first boat traffic jam I have ever seen. Claire was kind enough to watch Miles and Auden while the (alleged) grownups partied.

I had a devil of time whenever I talked to Claire or Daniel. Ask one question and they just never stopped talking. I did learn a lot about Hope College and oboes, and about Daniel's college ambitions and athletic prowess. He was at the gym just about the whole time when he wasn't rebuilding the fire pit in their back yard. I also learned that Claire will study in Vienna next year. Lur is taking guitar lessons! They are having their back porch screened in and the whole house repainted. Thank you, all of you, for a fulfilling time together. Andrew's retirement means that my oft-felt daydream of his being promoted and moved to the company's NJ headquarters won't come to pass, but it was plainly the right decision for all sorts of reasons. I do wish we lived more closely together.

Janet has already FB-ed about her conference on the arts and disability in Chicago, and the many dedicated people who do her kind of work. I enjoyed some of them at the evening receptions. While she did her conferencing, I spent two and a half days wandering around the city and enjoying it thoroughly. While it's a troubled city, the lake area and downtown are very walkable and enjoyable, and the mid 20th century architecture -- office skyscrapers decorated like Gothic cathedrals and such -- is stunning. We had a very nice hotel room with great views and extended our stay so that we could spend a day together at Chicago's world class Art Institute. Much to Janet's delight, it has a huge collection of French impressionists including a whole bunch of Monets.

We had great weather, no punishing August heat and almost no rain. Much of the driving was done with the top down. Northern Ohio is FLAT. Indiana is FLAT. Central Illinois is FLAT. Most of southern Ohio is FLAT.

Fracking is for real. Across the northern tier of Pennsylvania the interstate was dominated by trucks, many of them carrying all sorts of fracking equipment. Did you know there is a town in north central Pennsylvania called Jersey Shore? In our motel in Marietta, Ohio -- not far from the W. Va. border -- the parking lot was full of oil service industry trucks and the lobby in the morning was full of oil service industry types. Marietta seems to be a once thriving industrial town that is getting a reprieve from fracking.

Interstate America is organized such that you can get off at just about any exit and find an inexpensive place to stay, no need for reservations. Nice touch. Interstate America is a culinary wasteland. McDonald's, Denny's, Hardee's, KFC, Arby's, Burger King, on and on, over and over, everywhere, ad nauseum. It is very hard to find nutritious food. And this country does have a very serious obesity problem, you see it everywhere.

I thought lady Bird Johnson had gotten rid of all the billboards on the Interstates. Ugly. And quite a few of them were not in use. My favorite was one that pronounced "Recession-proof your business. Rent this billboard." Well, the billboard business itself isn't recession-proof, is it?

We enjoy getting off and exploring. On our way out, we got off the interstate and spent some time, a dinner and one night on the shores of Lake Erie. Nice dinner at Old Prague in Vermillion -- great name, huh? -- and a night in Sandusky, which reminded us a lot of Pittsfield. In a funky old coffeehouse we saw a photo of a crayon factory circa 1930 that employed over 400 people.

And in Sandusky was a nice piece of serendipity: the Merry-Go Round Museum, staffed mostly by volunteers who have rescued and lovingly restored many old horses, giraffes, frogs, carriages and other riding things, and an entire carousel, which you can ride on, accompanied by a magnificent (and loud) Wurlitzer organ. New Jersey still has eight active carousels. A very moving example of that "simpler" time when these were serious entertainments. Janet absolutely loves merry-go-rounds, so you can imagine what a treat this was. We bought a number of chances for a drawing for a newly carved horse. We shall see.

After Chicago we went south to Springfield and enjoyed the Lincoln Museum and the four block area that the National Park Service has restored to its nineteenth century setting around the only house that Abe ever owned. We saw many reasons why he is still revered as a great President.

Driving around Indian Hill is a mixed blessing. It resonates with memories of a happy and meaningful childhood. Much of the village is not changed that much. I was surprised at how uncrowded the memorial grounds of the Indian Hill Church seemed; I would have thought it would be filled after all these years. Some very familiar names: Black, Fullgraf, Hagist, Tucker. I can't believe that we walked down and up that long driveway at Cunningham Road every day for the school bus, and I can't believe that we rode our bikes down that loooong hill and back to Camp Dennison to spend 5 cents on a candy bar. That store is still there. Yet it was a bittersweet time, too. I was reminded that I miss Mom and Pop, a lot; they had built themselves a good life and good lives for us and stayed our friends for life. I was reminded of the enduring sadness of Ann's illness and passing. I was reminded of my first encounter with death, Grammy's. I am not nostalgic, I just wish they were still with us.

And boy, the ugly, tasteless mega-look-how-much-money-not-taste-I-have-mansions are a constant reminder of the cheapening of American life. The high school is bigger than an airport terminal. The big supremely ugly house that replaced the Wrights/Kites house burned down in a spectacular fire in January that made it to Good Morning America, and the cause is still undetermined six months later. I vote arson, not because the owner came to his senses about taste, but he is in the construction business.

The Julius Fleischman estate whose gate house Mom and Pop rented is now an "arts center" -- with a large indoor horse riding ring. The Given Rd. house and the Hagist house across the road are both long gone in favor of big houses.

On our way back, we stopped at Serpent Mound, about an hour east of Indian Hill, which I had seen on a class trip and whose mystery has never left me. They still don't know when it was built or by whom.

All through the trip, we closely followed Donald's progress! Sometimes – well, often – this social media stuff gets old, but at time likes this, it's wonderful.

We had some grand meals and lodgings. Along with Old Prague in Vermillion, there were Chicago steakhouses Shula's and Morton's, the Cincinnati rib house Montgomery Inn surrounded by autographed jerseys of Reds and other players, and a Marietta brewpub. Staying in the Mariemont Inn was a real highlight. The food and staff of The Spa At Roslyn Road were outstanding. Once again, we cherish the bonds of family. Once again, we know how beautiful and seemingly endless this great country of ours is.

What's in your DNA?

A few weeks ago, I made a passing reference to the Dickson family origins, based on a National Geographic study of our DNA.  Yes, that's right, I swabbed my mouth and sent in my saliva to National Geographic.

 

After a few months of study they came back with a 13 page review tracing both Mom and Pop's lines out of Africa and up to the Middle East and eventually into Europe.  Mary did a version of this and found out that she was 97% from the British Isles.  Surprised?

 

The Dickson family is a little more complicated with a few surprises.  Some conclusions:

 

-- populations that most closely resemble our make-up are in the British Isles and Germany

 

-- you ask our make-up: 45% northern European, 36% Mediterranean and 18% southwest Asian

 

-- almost all humans have DNA traces between 1% and 4% that link them to Neanderthal and Denisovan.  Dicksons have 2.3% Neanderthal and 4% Denisovan.  The average for humans is 2.1%.  Maybe we

Re a little less evolved than we thought we were.  Get out of the trees, Dickson.

 

-- the analysts did a heat map of our maternal and paternal lines, tracing what they thought would have been routes out of Africa that our ancestors took, perhaps 70,000 years ago.  They did this by identifying markers (or mutations) and identifying where they took place, and where others have those same markers.  Looks like Pop's ancestors went a little further into Central Asia than Mom's who headed right for Europe from the Middle East.

 

-- If you're wondering why Pop looked so tan in his wedding pictures, it may be that one of his markers is shared with 38% of the men in Spain and 8% in Italy, 5% in Oman and 1-2% in Lebanon and Iraq.

 

-- Mom's DNA has markers as well that are shared by 21% women in Iraq, and percentages in the high teens for Croatia and Switzerland, hovering around 10% for Greece and Belgium.  Go figure.   That marker goes back 19,000 years from women leaving West Asia.

 

-- Many of Mom's markers show up as well in eastern and Central Europe, indication that her acnestors passed through here on their way further west and north, with many staying put and not continuing the journey.

 

So, who's skeptical?  How do they know?  That would certainly take more than the 13 pages of results that I have to explain.    

Thanks a lot Mark Zuckerberg

Looks like Facebook is taking over Pops Weekly Letter.

But the posts on Facebook in the past few weeks, replete with photos have been spectacular.  We're so happy to see progress for Donald, to see photos of mother, father, grandmother and grandfather each holding Donald.  It has to have been an intense period for Tina and Matthew, with little sleep and a lot of worry.  But you look so well and with such big smiles.  As his great grandfather might say - FANTASTIC!

Other pictures come from Illinois and Peter and Janet's trip out there.  Not only did we see a trip on Jen and Bill's boat, but also pictures of Miles and Auden, very actively enjoying life.  Janet has her audio description conference in Chicago and they combined for a road trip and visit to Andrew and Lur's.  Summer is great.

And on Facebook, we also see that Timmy is home, after a short spell in the hospital for an intestinal blockage, a recurrence from an episode a year ago when he had surgery.  Sounds a lot like Johanna's issue, and she also posted on Facebook her anniversary bout with the issue.  We're looking forward to seeing Timmy and all the Boyles up in Pittsfield in a few weeks.

We are writing from Montreal, where Mary is minutes away from her first race in the pool.  She is in a few relays today and then her individual swims are over the next two days. We arrived yesterday and made our way around the city for registration and then the pool, where there were thousands of swimmers from all over the world.  Not sure how we did it, but we did find her teammates, one of whom won his race to be the world champion for his age group.  

We left home just hours after our ffriends from Joe's baby group in Lagos left - the Locherys and Henk and Marja from Holland (never knew them as anything but Henk and Marja.  We had last seen them 15 years ago in Rhode Island when they and their three boys visited us; I believe the Peter Dickson and Dan Boyle families also met them then.  Three cute little Dutch boys?  Ring a bell?

We played host in the Berkshires to them and found some new things to do as well with them:  Mt. Greylock, Hancock Shaker Village, Arrowhead, Clark Institute and Appalachian Trail hiking.  We re-traced the route that Annie and Greg had done a few weeks earlier to a beautiful pond and ran into a number of young, fired up through hikers.  I even got my trail name (after three hours)  Cincinnati.  Can you guess why?  A certain baseball hat.  The crowning event was to have been Tanglewood on Parade, but a fierce storm ended our evening picnic on the lawn and we found shelter in a small, hospitable office and made the best of it.  In a short respite from the rain we went home and listened to the program (1812 overture ending) on the radio.  Still fun.

Speaking of fun, Margaret was having none of it, in her move to a new apartment near Adams Morgan.  On top of all the headaches with the move, she found out the apartment had an infestation of bugs and had to deal with that when the landlords were unreachable.  

Not sure if Joe is having any more fun, in his first month back, looking for a new place and getting settled.  We hope to have more fun this coming weekend at Assateague, camping on the beach.  A first. 

On a sad note, I think I have detected some leaves turning orange and yellow.  First week of August.  No fair.  

So, keep posting on Facebook, and I'll keep stealing from it.

Love from up here. 

​

 

Hello Donald!

Happy news, wonderful news.  Welcome Donald Franklin Dickson.

Congratulations Tina and Matthew and Oliver.  

A joyous occasion.  Where's he going to go to school?  What sport is he going to love and which team will he root for?  When will we see him?  Which instrument will he play?  Math or history?  Boy scouts or lead guitar?  Or both?  We can't wait to find out.  Love and joy.  

Hit the pause button

This week, walking back from the lake with Mary, in the evening, in the fullest of summer, I wondered why there wasn't a pause button.  These great days are going by too fast, and we need to spend a little more time right here.  She is, as I write, driving back from dropping Annie and Greg off at the train station (an hour-plus away.)   They had come up for a weekend in the country, away from the city.  They are both having pretty intensive internships this summer and getting a lot out of them.  

They packed it in, with only a weekend to get it all done.  Yesterday they hiked almost ten miles, joining a friend along the Appalachian Trail.  We picked them up and went to Jacob's Pillow that does a free, outdoors dance performance each Saturday and had a small picnic.  After that, we returned home for 7 seconds, and then they (I went to bed) went up Mt. Greylock for a stargazing event.  Today, was quieter: waffle breakfast, canoe ride, shopping and then back to the train.   Wonderful to see them.  They also got a chance to see John and Marilyn who stopped by today after their golf game.  They had spent a few days on the Cape this week with two of their grand-daughters, Natalie and Sage.

Oh, and we had a week-late birthday celebration, on Friday evening.  For her birthday, Annie had a day at a bar, with people stopping by throughout the day.  Margaret and Andrew were two of those people, as they had come up from DC for the occasion.  And Johanna also stopped by to celebrate.  It's a far cry from the pool parties she used to have.

The big news is Joe is back on this side of the Atlantic.  It sounds like he has had a whirlwind couple of weeks, leaving and then settling back in.  He is full-time now on the China desk at Treasury.  Not much to do there, probably.  Actually, for all that involves, it looks positively tame compared to Ukraine, Syria, Middle East and Iraq.   We long for the days when China currency valuation was the big news.  Anyway, it's nice he's back, but he was fighting a bad cold, probably from all the extra effort to wrap things up at the end of an assignment.

I spent some time on the phone with brothers this week, mostly to make plans for our weekend in Cincinnati in early September.  Andrew got tickets behind the Reds dugout for one game, and behind the Mets dugout for the other   Andrew sounds like he has a long list of things to do for retirement, including unpack boxes that he brought back from Meadow Lakes with him a couple of years ago.  Peter sounds busy at work (sorry).  David is unable to join us as he is getting ready for a presentation at a seminar on worker compensation fraud the following week with the New York attorney general's office.  He and Paula are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of young Donald, just a couple of weeks away.  I imagine so are Tina and Matthew!  And Oliver!

Our garden is coming in, and we have stopped buying lettuce and blueberries.  Got a few more weeks before tomatoes and beans and squash come in.  We even have a bumper crop of raspberries, at least ten times more than last year.  That means we have had about 30 raspberries total. Mary has been expanding her flower beds, which are looking great, even if the deer have chopped off a few of her perennials. 

She has also started her summer tutoring job, working with three Ghanaian boys who have had interrupted schooling.  There is quite a growing group of Ghanians and West Africans in Pittsfield.  Surprising, especially given the cold.

I am frantically working on a couple of history projects.  This week, I completed a video for a presentation, on the preservation of the old library in town.  You can see the 7 minute video by searching for "Preserving the Old Athenaeum in Pittsfield" on youtube.  I am also working on a website tour of the mills in Pittsfield, which is still under construction: milltour.org. Hope to have it done before the end of July.  And, I finally got my thesis approved from UMass this week - I had been correcting some formatting issues that the graduate school thesis committee caught.  

On a final note, I got for my birthday a National Geographic DNA analysis, and the results came in recently.  I will try to put together a synopsis for this letter - but here's a little teaser:  remember those pictures of Pop at his wedding when he looks a little Italian?  Turns out he has a fair amount of Mediterranean in his background, much more than Grandma, who is almost all northern European.  Mary, on the other hand, is 97% British Isles.  Go figure.

Well, happy July.  Enjoy these great days.  Love from up here.   

Happy 4th!

Dateline:  Green Lake, Wisconsin.  It really exists  Green Lake, I mean.  It's not just a figment of Andrew's imagination where Bobby Kermey lives.  It's a real lake, large, clear and full of fish, jumping out of the water, and birds swooping down and getting the fish, and boats and weather changes and docks and swimming.  A place for a real vacation, just to sit and unwind.

That's pretty much what we've done since we arrived, a few days ago.  Andrew and Lur, Claire and Daniel and his friend Satchel had been up here for a few days already.  Andrew had just heard that his request for separation had been accepted, and so he's finished with work.   At Merck anyway.  He's going to take a few months to assess the situation and then maybe look for something part-time.

Claire has had what looks like a very good first year of college, very busy with courses and music extracurriculars. We've seen Hope shirts and water bottle bottles and bumper stickers.  Daniel is unrecognizable, tall and fit.

We've watched a few of the World Cup games, and played dominoes and had some great barbecues.  A real vacation, and it all ends tomorrow.  Sigh.  Reminds us a little of those great beach vacations in Rhode Island.

The trip out was fairly easy, since we took it in a couple of legs, stopping first in Fairport to see David and Paula.  We went out to eat at a great restaurant on the Erie Canal, and were joined by Matthew, Tina and Oliver. (Thank you David and Paula)  Oliver, too, is unrecognizable, growing too fast.  Tina looks as if she could have the baby any minute.  They have, by the way, decided to name their son Donald Franklin, after their grandfathers.  We saw Jeff and Melodie for breakfast the following morning.  They had come up from DC for a baby shower for Tina and to register their car in NY.  That proved not so easy, as we hear they had to stay on for a couple of extra days to get repairs before it could be registered.  David helped me get my never-before-used fishing pole set up and ready for action at Green Lake.  (Caught a few small ones off Andrew's dock.)

From Fairport, we headed for Toronto and stopped off at Niagara on the Lake which we had missed when we lived in Canada.  Lovely little town with a Shaw theater festival each summer.  In Toronto we visited with foreign service friends from our training who were in Mexico with us as well.  We then headed for Wisconsin, by way of Lake Michigan, on a ferry, instead of driving through Chicago and Gary Indiana.  Highly recommended, as was the cute little town of Luddington Michigan.  We gave Andrew and Lur a day off, and took a day trip up to see a Peru friend (Jennie Burns) who we had visited in Wisconsin probably 12 years ago.

Before we left, we celebrated Marilyn's birthday with her children and grandchildren at a brunch with too much food and too much good food.  You know what that means.  Time for another cleanse.  

As we write Annie is on her way to the Adirondacks for the weekend, and we suspect there are a few more get-togethers in DC and in New Jersey. We know David and Paula are having a crowd come over as well which we won't be able to make due to the long ride home.  

Summer time seems to be more than just warm weather and greenness.  It seems to be the season of catching up.  We come out of our winter hibernation and check in and check up on family and friends, after hunkering down through the cold winters.  All very wonderful.

Hopefully, you all are enjoying the summer in these special ways.  Love from out here.

  

Did Someone Mention Father's Day?

There are many great things about Father's Day, but the phone calls are the best.  We catch up on a lot of news. And they always have lots of news.  I bet there's a lot of news from their cousins as well.  (Hint, hint - share)   We'll get to the news in a minute, but back to Father's Day.

One of the many articles on fathers in the papers this weekend was one that said the problem with Father's Day is that it was not Mother's Day, where there's flowers and kisses and hugs.  Father's Day, the author said, was more like an annual employee performance review.  How'd he do this year?  Hmmm.  Takes the shine off my favorite holiday.  

Back to the news.  Here's the really important item - John and Marilyn put their house in Pittsfield on the market.  They had wanted to downsize for a few years, so they made the leap.  Perhaps it was the fact that it's been so cold up here, colder than it was in Florida in March.

Joe told us his date for coming back to the U.S. is July 14 (Bastille Day - time to get out of Europe)  He is trying to take advantage of his final few weeks with easy travel, and spent last weekend in Lisbon which he said was wonderful - cheap, historic and hospitable.  He's looking for trips to Wales, Ireland and the Lake District before departing.  

Margaret and Andrew have been married a month, as of tomorrow.  Time flies.  Next thing you know they'll be celebrating their 40th wedding wedding anniversary (Happy anniversary David and Paula, and Peter and Janet - belated!)   Margaret has been taking African dance classes and is having a performance this coming Saturday.  Her summer session class ends this week, and then she's off.

Meanwhile in New York City, Annie is enjoying her internship at Bank of America.  She and Gregg went to the beach yesterday, Coney Island -  a first for Annie.  The photo here is from a few weeks ago when we climbed the "mountain" in Pittsfield State Forest.  

Things are slowing down for both Mary and me, which is good.  Her tutoring work ends this week, but she has been stepping up her swimming to prepare for the big meet in Montreal in August.  You should hear her workouts  Not even sure I could walk that far. We've both been putting in a lot of hours in the garden, but Mary has about eight different flower beds, and I have just the one veggie garden.  Her flowers look great.  My project in North Adams is winding down, so I'm off on my next adventure preparing a tour of Pittsfield's historic mills.  I chaired my first Historic Commission meeting this week, which saw the demolition of two buildings.

Out in Chicago, we hear Daniel is out of school and at a basketball camp.  Claire is home for the summer and helping out with chores around the house.  She has a volunteer project teaching music at a school for autistic children.   Andrew is nearing decision on his request to retire.  Next week.  

Summer's approaching and we see a wonderful time ahead, looking forward to spending time with so many of you.  And then I know it's going to end, but it's too soon to think of that.

At church today, we heard a few prayers for fathers who are no longer with us.  How lucky we all were.  

Love from up here.   

P-rade at P-ton with P-ter

That Time of Year!

I always enjoy Reunions. In part that's because nobody does it like Princeton (it ain't bragging if it's true), but also because I get to see classmates, teammates, former students, and new friends, too. Over 20,000 alums return each year, all wearing orange and black garb in all sorts of themes.

This year was very special. On Friday, I attended a total of four panel discussions all of which feature detailed examinations of issues by alums and faculty. Topics: Climate Change (scary), Living the Arts (hopeful, and one of my former students was on that panel), Privacy and Secrecy (scary) and Too Big to Fail? (Scary, Pop's classmate Paul Volcker was on the panel and is very pessimistic). I spent some time after with Pop's classmate Brendan Byrne and hitched a ride in his State Trooper driven car down to the Class of '49 dinner. Pop's class had its 65th Reunion, and in Princeton lore that's your last as a separate Reunion, after this, you're just part of the "Old Guard." I spent some time chatting with some of Pop's and Mom's dear friends. Only 250 of the original 820 remain. On Friday night, Janet and I did some serious dancing.

Each "major" reunion class (i.e., those whose years out end in 5 or 0) has its own site, and off-year classes two years before and after share that site (for free, too!) So this year's 40th was the class of '74, the year after me, and the real treat here was all the soccer players who were juniors when I was a senior. I haven't seen any of them since I graduated. It's fascinating what you remember and what others remember about the team. I heard all sorts of stories about things I had long since forgotten. Factoid: over a nine year period, I was the only goalkeeper for Princeton soccer who did not become a doctor. I also got to see a few of my former students.

The centerpiece of Reunions (well, other than the Friday and Saturday night parties) is the P-Rade, a huge festive affair in which all the classes march through the campus dressed up in their orange and black costumes. The route is lined with classes waiting to march. When the Class of '49 came through, all the members were in golf carts (too far to walk). The first was Brendan Byrne and the second was Judge John Kern, for whom I clerked after my first year of law school. I chatted with both. When my classmates asked who they were, I said "my first two bosses." That evening Janet and I went to the University Orchestra concert down by the stadium and enjoyed the spectacular fireworks that are now part of Reunions, and then danced the night away to the sounds of a band which did great covers of 50s, 60s and 70s songs. As we always do, we closed the place down. An added bonus was seeing a play the next day in Trenton.

You can see why this weekend is so special for me, because it covers such a large span of my life. Pop's class includes two people I worked for, and who gave me very important boosts in life, and he was and still is much adored and admired by his classmates. They often remind me that he had three jobs as a student and yet graduated in two and half years. He was Class Agent and President and head of the entire Alumni Council. Then there are those from my era, including in some cases new friends I did not know then. And then there are the ten plus years worth of students from my teaching days. Add in the panel discussions and the parties and it's hard to think of a more meaningful weekend. I am not the least bit sentimental about my time in college, but it was certainly influential and continues to be influential in all sorts of ways I couldn't foresee. It's a very large part of my very good fortune in life.

June, so soon?

Nice name for a song, but perhaps after our winter, "June not soon enough."  Except that it doesn't rhyme.

We've been waiting for warmer weather.  And it's here, at least sometimes.  But enough to do some firsts for the season - first bike ride, first gardening, first tour at Arrowhead and first ride on THE KAYAK!  Wonderful - and thank you once again.  Maybe even first fishing this week, if I can get organized.

And a first for Annie this morning who is off to her summer internship at Bank of America.  Good luck.  Annie had spent a week or so up here relaxing and doing some school work after her semester finished and after the wedding.  She helped out with gardening and got her mother on Facebook.  Look at social media, it's about to get a lot more social.

And a first for Bubble, the cat.  A chipmunk.  Stay away critters!  

Mary is wrapping up her school year, but will work with the same boys from Ghana in the month of July.  She has also signed up to swim in the world master's championships in Montreal in August.  This past week, she helped a friend do all the flowers for a wedding.  It was a nice insight into how elaborate and extensive such work can be.  The final result was exquisite and elegant.

Speaking of weddings, it sounds like Margaret and Andrew are back to the work and school routine.  Margaret has started her summer class sessions.  Off on their adventure.

Joe went back to London after a week off in Washington and is busy wrapping up details for his return in a few weeks.  We're looking forward to having you closer, Joe.

John and Marilyn are closer as they closed up their winter quarters and drove back to sweatshirts and long pants for the first time in months,  They came over for a welcome home pizza dinner with Colleen and Pauline.  They were a bit exhausted as they had a litter of 10 Borzoi pups born over the space of two days and nights last week.

We're planning our summer trip, destination Wisconsin with stops in Rochester, Toronto and Georgian Bay.  It will be fun to see Green Lake, that has been such a big part of Andrew and Lur's life.

Saw a good photo of Peter on Facebook at Princeton reunions.  Looks like too much excitement.

My refrain about retirement is that I'm busier than I want to be.  I took on a part-time job helping a firm do a survey of historic buildings in North Adams.  Lots of deed research which can be pretty detailed.  UMass has asked me to stay on and help out with their scholarship advising so I go over there a couple of times a week.  And last week I was named chairman of Pittsfield's Historical Commission.  All I really want to do is mow the lawn.  And go kayak-ing.  I'll figure this out.

That's all from up here.  Love you guys

​

Wedding Bells in Lancaster

​​Weddings are happy occasions, and guess what?  That's what Margaret's and Andrew's wedding was.  Happy, fun and exhilarating.  And not over.  We are looking forward to the reception in Washington on October 25.  

It's hard to believe how much the two of them packed into a few days.  Their ceremony started at a Bruce Springsteen concert on Wednesday in Hershey PA that Annie rushed to get to, after finishing her last exam. All weddings should begin with a Bruce Springsteen concert.  On Thursday, the rest of us arrived in time for a dinner accompanied by a trivia game (team Margaret, team Andrew, and team parents) which was won by (drum roll) team Andrew.  We then moved to some memorable karaoke singing, highlighted by Margaret and Andrew's rendition of Proud Mary (Ike and Tina version), Andrew's singing of Amish in Paradise (Weird Al, meaningful in Lancaster) and then an encore of Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al.  So much fun, some of us even were able to stay awake til midnight, and beyond.  For Joe, who had flown in from Poland via London, it was an all-nighter, but we did manage to spot some an empty bottle of "5-hour energy" near his beer.

The next day, the girls did their nails and hair and all of a sudden it was time to go to the courthouse.  Andrew's aunt, the judge, did a really good job of calming everyone's nerves, and the ceremony was meaningful, sweet.  A few tears, and many more smiles.  Margaret was a beautiful bride, with an elegant dress, hair and flowers, said the proud father, who never looks at the nails.  Andrew was the prince and knight, with a pair of fancy shoes. 

We re-enacted a foreign custom of the family pursuing the newlyweds around town taking photos, before a wonderful dinner.  Yes we took a photo of their shoes, and of all of us taking selfies with our phones.

Lancaster's an interesting town, actually a surprisingly sizable city.  Another surprise was its obvious large manufacturing base, at least at one time with many old brick factories and warehouses.  They have done a good job re-storing and adapting many of them.  Our hotel was an old converted factory, and quite nice.  

When nerves ran high, we reminded ourselves that weddings are about stories to share for many years.  Margaret and Andrew have a few, but they're better re-told in person.  

Other things happened during the week, but they pale in comparison with this life event.  Congratulations you guys.

From Lancaster with Love.