Saying Goodbye

to 2015

to Joe and Leonor, who were heading south in a UHaul with a load of furniture, in the freezing rain.  They won't have such a nice drive, but they didn't have to drive on Joe's birthday.  Remember those days in Pomfret, when Joe got the big birthday celebration with all of you?  Fun.  It was a quiet celebration yesterday that was going well until the Bengals had to go and spoil his birthday.  technically, though, I think they lost a few minutes after midnight so it wasn't really his birthday.

to Annie and Margaret and Andrew, who left on Sunday.  Margaret and Andrew were on their way to the Meadowlands (still called that?) to watch the obnoxious Jets fans whose team pulled out an overtime win against the Pats.  Annie left later in the day, after she had given both Mary and me tutorials on our computers (thanks) and with a full load in her car as well.  It was so wonderful having everyone home.

But perhaps not as nice as it was for Matthew to be home, as he said goodbye to the hospital and re-hab on Christmas Eve.  Tremendous.  So happy to see all the photos on Facebook that we are re-posting one here.  

Speaking of Facebook, would Pop have loved it?  One side would say, it was not his pencil or typewriter ribbon with carbon paper.  But the other side would say, what a great way to keep up with everyone.  

For example, we had a Facebook debate over whether Love Actually is the best Christmas movie, after Melodie posted a photo of High Grant dancing in 10 Downing Street.  

We had another Facebook exchange after Johanna posted a photo from Grandma and Pop's 50th wedding celebration outside the Princeton chapel.

And, we saw Facebook photos of Jen and Bill on their way to Belize, of Myles and Auden in from of the Christmas tree.  And another one of Peter practicing flyfishing, with a little help from Dasha.  

So, we have to ask the question, if we are doing so well staying in touch on Facebook, perhaps we need a Pops Weekly Letter Facebook page.   Just a thought.  Not that I'm saying goodbye to Pops Weekly Letter, especially after Leonor told me she was now an avid reader.

Hope your time together was wonderful.  It was, up here - we saw Star Wars, we finished a difficult puzzle, walked up the mountain in Pittsfield State Forest, ate a lot of cookies, had a great visit with John and Marilyn who were up from Florida for the holidays, watched the fire, walked D, read newspapers, New Yorkers, and books, and had extended dinners and dinner conversations about...... everything.

So, farewell to 2015 - any reservations for next year yet?

Love from up here.

Thanksgiving and Chicago

It's the most wonderful time of the year.  But it sure crept up on us fast.  It seems a number of you have already gotten your trees and are moving into the spirit.  We have put up our wreath on the garage and near the front door, and that's about it.

Part of the problem is that it has been so mild.  Some are calling this the warmest fall on record.  This time last year we had already paid the snow plow guy a few times to clear the driveway.  And, I keep waiting for the temperature to dip below 50 degrees to put on snow tires.

Anyway, the big news continues to come out of Strong Hospital in Rochester.  Matthew has been climbing stairs, and he's walking without the harness.  That's so terrific, meaning he has worked so hard to get where he is and that he's going to make it. Moreover, he's not lost any of his alertness as he's all over the cookiness of Donald Trump and the new movies as well.  Way to go Matthew (and Tina!)

So, let's pick up the thread with Thanksgiving.  Lots of Facebook photos showed where everyone was.  The Rochester folks took Thanksgiving to the hospital; Melodie and Jeffrey were up for the occasion.  Looks like big crowds in New Jersey and Illinois.  Joe hosted his first turkey dinner, and we had wonderful food.  It wasn't Leonor's first Thanksgiving, but it was the first she hosted.  Wonderful - and their house is coming together so nicely.  I love to think about Thanksgiving conversations around the country, and I bet more than a few had Donald Trump in them.  Just what he wants. Speaking of which, hope everyone saw the Thanksgiving skit on Saturday night live, with the Adele song.  

Margaret and Annie had some excitement on Saturday afternoon as they were sitting outside at a restaurant/popsicle joint just a couple of blocks from home.  Minding their own business, they were interrupted by a gaggle of Secret Service guys who descended on the scene, with the announcement that a special visitor would be coming by in ten minutes, to take part in "small business Saturday."  Given the opportunity to leave, Margaret and Annie (and D, I should add) decided to stay.  And, right on cue a few minutes later, a motorcade pulled up and their new best friend, Barack, and his two, very tall daughters, piled out and went in to order some popsicles.  So much for outdoor studying.  

Last weekend, Mary and I went out to Dundee for a few days - a memorable visit.  Highlights included meeting for the first time Auden, who I am sure we will see on the national women's soccer team or in the Olypmics; she insisted on walking everywhere when we walked to and from town for Santa and for dinner.  Miles is quite the big brother, very responsible and helpful.  Great to see Bill, but we missed Jenn who had a cold.  It was nice to just hang out, watching the momentous Packer game, taking naps, chatting in the kitchen and in the living room, and in front of the college football games and on the porch and on walks.  Lur was busy doing her coursework for her social services degree, and Andrew had a tree crew come over to work on Saturday.  

This time our flights worked out but our car did not.  When we arrived at long term parking, our car did not start and we had to wait an hour before AAA showed up for a jump start.  Another memory, one we'd rather not have, though.

This week, Margaret passed a threshold, completing her coursework for her degree.  She had a couple of presentations and papers, but it looks like she is done with graduate school!  How did she celebrate?  Karaoke, of course.  Which songs would have been appropriate for completing studies?  The Thrill is Gone?  We Gotta Get out of the Place?

Today, Mary is off at the New England masters swimming championships.  A pattern has emerged with these meets.  The closer they come, the more nervous and stressed she becomes.  She goes, does well, and is giddy enthusiastic when she gets home.

Other than that, life has quieted down since all the museum jobs ended in early November.  Still going to UMass a couple of days a week, and I have started a new project, a book, on early industry in Berkshire county.  And, we have been busy with our preparations for returning to Gabon at the end of February.  But, I still have time for a nap!

Hope you all are well and enjoying the season.  With so much prep work, it's hard to remember to enjoy.  Love from up here.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Let's start with the good news.  Matthew has been in rehab for a week or so, and wrote yesterday that he was standing.  According to David, he's got two sessions of physical therapy every day, morning and afternoon, of multiple hours.  Sounds like a work-out and sounds like he's a conscientious patient.  When we see the photos of him with Donald, we know he has a lot of incentive!!  That's a huge reason to be thankful.

We talked to David this week, who was in Albany and he gave us the updates on Matthew and Tina.  Annie has a new job, sort of.  She's in her second part of her rotation and is joining a new hi-tech division of GE. I have seen some GE commercials where this guy tells his tech friends he's leaving to work for GE and will work on systems to make hospitals and roads work better.  I think that's her new division.  Anyway, she is telecommuting for the time being, before moving to Boston.  Joe has a full plate of work, with a couple of big meetings in December, and continued work on his house.  Margaret is in her final lap of the semester, and it probably seems like it will never end.  But it does, and then you won't know what to do with your time.  

This past weekend, Peter and Janet came up for a little Berkshire chill.  Peter and I went even further north to watch the Princeton-Dartmouth game, that was going well until the last 24 seconds.  I found out that I actually don't mind losing, I just don't like to see the other team's fans celebrating.  Dartmouth won a share of the Ivy title by winning, reminding us that the last time we were here, Dartmouth won and denied us sole possession of the title.  Peter said he would never go to Dartmouth again, at least for a Princeton football game.

Mary and Janet were spared the agony, as they were going to Northampton for a live performance of one of Mary's favorite radio shows - The Moth.  These are short, true narrated stories that are entertaining and enlightening.  Since the football game ended early, we had time to meet our wives for dinner and shopping in Northampton, even though we did not have tickets for the show.

Among our many topics of conversation was hearing the good news that Sean was sworn in as a bona fide lawyer in the state of New Jersey.  You did it!  

The weekend before Marj and Lew came up, to see an old Berkshire friend who had moved to Montana and was back east for a visit.  We are now the recipients of a 51" plasma television, thanks to Lew's intolerance for a little, hardly noticeable discoloration in the screen.  We set it up and watched the Patriots - Giants football game that was once again a thriller.  Heart attack city.

Yesterday, we saw John and Marilyn who had escaped the sunny weather in Florida for some good old fashioned New England November temps (down to 18 degrees this am).  They are both well, with Marilyn full recovered from her knee problems, sp much that she is now playing racquetball. 

We are heading down to Washington for Thanksgiving.  We're going to be testing our new theory for driving this corridor. You can travel on the heaviest drive days of the year as long as you are through the congestion by noon.  So that means an early start on Wednesday and another early one on Sunday to come home. 

And after that, we head out to Chicago for a weekend with the Dundee Dicksons, who are celebrating the good news of another grandchild!!

Love and may you all have a Merry Christmas (aren't we supposed to start before Thanksgiving?)   

Highlights from Dundee

Jen is expecting. Their third.

I took Daniel and a friend to Western Michigan for a visit. We attended the presentation for the Haworth School of Business, which he intends to apply to. Ranked 5th in nation in undergrad BBA. They have close intern relationships with Smuckers, Kellogs, and SC Johnson.

Claire has numerous concerts in Grand Rapids, and Ann Arbor for the Hope woodwinds orchestra. We are really looking forward to seeing her over Thanksgiving.

On Michigan, Kalamazoo College is right on the border of Western Michigan, and an absolutely beautiful campus. Not many like this one.

Lur continues her studies in social work, and I continue my studies in cooking, cleaning, and vacuuming. 

Back to Claire. She has a close friend who visited us this year and plays the sax. She is involved with a foursome of sax players who jam at concerts, and it is an incredible sight to see and hear. 

And, we close with a photo of Lur in her Dundee boosting role from the summer. 

California dreaming and.....

(almost) all the leaves are brown.... and we turn back the clocks this weekend.  An extra hour of sleep will only slightly soften the blow that we are headed into the season of mittens and boots every time we venture outside.  

Time has really stopped for Matthew and Tina.  Through Facebook and phone calls, we have been able to keep up with the ordeal of Matthew's spinal infection that sent him to the hospital for emergency surgery and now a long re-hab.  The postings tell a story of interrupted lives, of small signs for hope and of a wonderful network of friends and family.  David and Paula have spent long hours over at the hospital, keeping him company and even bearing gifts for the nurses taking care of Matthew.  Jeffrey is up there this weekend, and it sounds like he pulled diaper duty for Donald.  It sounds as if there have been a number of complications for Matthew, but we are grateful every time we read a post from him, since we read he's sitting up, and well enough to type.  We especially liked hearing of his "enthusiastic" physical therapy team, and the goal to move to a chair.  We're all pulling for you Matthew.   

In between phone calls with David, we headed to Washington for the weekend, staying with Annie in her new apartment in Queens on the way down.  More spacious and a great neighborhood.  She is contemplating having to move by the end of the year, though.  Then, we headed to lunch in Lawrenceville with Peter, who told us that Janet's brother broke his leg while on a trip to India.  The flight back in a cast must have been excruciating.  Peter later informed us that Sean passed the bar exam.  Congratulations Sean!

In Washington, we stayed at Joe's new house, and he and Leonor have been busy making it a home.  It's on a surprisingly quiet street, for a house in the city.  Leonor cooked us a Portuguese dish for supper one night (wonderful!), and then Mary and I went to our friends, Gerry and Dennis, for Indian food.  The next night we had Eritrean food at Margaret and Andrew's.  Lest you think we need a visa for all our meals, we did go to a bar for hot dogs and wings to watch the Patriots win.  That never gets old, especially against the Jets.  

My summer of work ended this week, with my last days at Hancock Shaker Village. It was a long seven months, more than I wanted in my retirement, but the opportunity to learn so much was in the end worth it.  And now my next project starts, a photo book on industry in the Berkshires.  But I think I will be able to get some naps in while doing that.

We spoke with Andrew a few times, and learned that Lur is also busy, with all her volunteering activities, at the hospital and for a group of Dundee boosters.  We hear as well that Billy is going to be setting up his own company - go Billy and happy birthday, belated.  I also think I jumped the date last week on Daniel's college tour by a few weeks.      

Our trip to Washington coincided with a memorial service for a colleague who I worked with in Peru, the man who went on Jeopardy while we were there and won five consecutive games earning two Corvettes and a boatload of cash.  Chris was a real character, and his daughter, in her remarks, talked of his Friday the 13th phobia, and how he used to send postcards every month saying that "this month Friday the 13th falls on a Tuesday."  A little joy on a very sad day.  Next month, by the way, Friday the 13th actually falls on Friday.

So, it's a little hard to write about this other news when we are preoccupied with Matthew's recovery.  So we'll close with a major league, world series "You gotta Believe" for Matthew.

Love from over here.  

​ 

10 best

Pop's weekly letters had a regular feature, beyond stories of Spag's and haircuts and the dump.  He would regularly mention that they were enjoying one of the 10 best days of the year.  I am not sure how he kept track, if he marked them on the calendar or not, or if had a criteria-based system giving points for weather (temperature, sun, foliage colors, breeze, humidity, sunrise and sunset, dewpoints) or for activities or get-togethers with family and friends or lottery jackpots.  I suspect it was a decision of the gut.

What made me think of this is we are coming off of three of the ten best days here, and my criteria is mostly weather based, but also foliage.  We are at the very peak of the season, a little late due to warm weather.  The colors are tremendous, and seem to surpass last year.  I suspect the same was true for everyone here, from Chicago to DC from Rochester to NYC.  (Do I sound like the Shirelles singing "Dancing in the Streets"?)  How about Florida?  Hope your long weekend was spectacular.    

Last letter mentioned all the birthdays, except for Janet's (today) or Auden, who turned two and whose picture is included here.  Who do you think liked her birthday more?  I think it was equal.

It was a big weekend up here too, that included the world premiere of the movie I have been working on.  Unfortunately, when we turned it on Saturday night to watch, the tv station messed up something and the quality made viewing impossible.  They have since fixed it, but with the nice write-up in the Berkshire Eagle, anyone trying to watch probably got discouraged.  Not us though, we had a dvd and watched it with a group of friends here.  I will try to upload it on to YouTube so you all can sit through the 84 minutes and see what the all the commotion is about.  Not really, but it was a long haul and I'm glad it's finished.

Other activities from my stupid crazy summer are coming to close as well.  Today was my last day at Arrowhead and this week I will finish with the last of the Fulbright applications as the deadline is tomorrow.

It looks like others have been busy as well.  Johanna was off in Paris, and from her postings it sounded like she was staying at the Ritz with all the famous people she was running into.  Nous aussi aimons Paris.  John and Marilyn were off to a different French city, New Orleans and posted photos of cafe and beignets.  Nour aussi aimons les beignets.  We heard that Andrew and Daniel were off to Michigan this weekend to look at colleges.  Margaret and Andrew had a non-French weekend up in Lancaster, and Joe welcomed back Leonore who had stayed on in Portugal for a few weeks with her family and friends after their trip in September.

The garden is producing only a little, but we have yet to dig up the potatoes.  The last of the cherry tomatoes are coming in, and we have pulled up other veggies and many weeds, getting ready for next spring.  

Lots of baseball watching around here, and some great series.  We are here rooting for the Royals and Blue Jays, Mets and Cubs.  Not sure, though, who Mary is rooting for.  Michael Phelps, I believe.

Here's to a happy, full and enjoyable fall.  Love from up here.  

​

Birthday central

Today is Tina's birthday, and yesterday was Paula's birthday.  We spent the first part of the day with Paula and David, before they drove home in order to be there for Tina's big day.  And this week is Johanna's birthday.  Happy birthday to all.

David and Paula took off for a fall swing through Vermont and New York, before landing here for the weekend.  They joined us at Hancock Shaker Village on Saturday where it was country fair, with all kinds of crafts and demonstrations of oval boxes and timber frame building and quilting and...... a talk by John on the Shakers at Hancock.  We went out to eat Saturday night, and found a wonderful Italian restaurant we had never been to.  Another place for the "36 hours in Pittsfield" update that will never appear in the New York Times, but should be on your list of things to do when visiting here.  And we love visits.  And it was great to see David and Paula over here.  They filled us in on their house work, including a new landscaping and walkway in the front of their house.  Next up, they will tackle their kitchen.  Paula also made some copies of family histories, including Uncle All's work that takes the deans back to the 1620s in Taunton Mass.

The previous weekend, Mary and I headed north to Maine where we joined the Dan Boyle family to spread his ashes in parts of the Bar Harbor area that he loved so much.  We started out with a tradition to see the sunrise at Cadillac Mountain, the first spot on the continental U.S. that the sun hits.  It was a beautiful view that the photo included here hardly captures.  But it is worth seeing.  We then went to his plot of land on a lake called Molasses Pond.  There were remembrances and memories of Dan, and catching up with everyone.  And we ate, lots of seafood, lobster rolls, chowders, etc.  Another place to visit, even if it is a long drive.

Phone calls with folks in DC during the week informed us of all the happenings with the Pope and the Chinese Premier, a man whose named is pronounced "she."  It's a little confusing when the news announces talk about "she", and then refer to "she" as "he".  The last premier was pronounced "who" which leads me to think of an update to the Abbot and Costello skit about "Who's on First?"  No, Who's the Premier of China?  

But I digress.  Sounds like Joe, Margaret, Jeff and Melodie all got days off because of the throngs to see the Pope.  I wonder if the same was true for Annie and Johanna in New York.

The temperatures have fallen to the 30s in the evenings here, but the house continues to stay warm.  It's a good thing since we are reluctant to turn on the furnace in September.  But those temps have pretty much made the hillsides full of color where there was just barest of colors last week.  The temps have slowed down the grass growth, but not enough to stop mowing altogether.  And the garden is slowing down its production, with the last of the beans and tomatoes coning in, leaving just the potatoes and carrots and maybe a few onions to harvest.

One more month of busy-ness, and then the seasonal tour guide commitments close down; I've completed two of my six classes for the Lifelong Learning Institute on historic preservation and I should have just another hour of work to finalize my movie about the restoration of the Anthenaeum.  Hopefully, by the next letter I will be able to include a YouTube link so you can watch my first (and undoubtedly last) full length movie.

So, this has been the quickest September on record; and hope that the next month will slow down a little for us to enjoy it.

Hope you all are well; love from up here.  

"September, I'll remember"

Where's that quote from?  (Read to the end of letter.)

I hardly remember the last few weeks, another whirlwind of travel and activity.  And not just for us, but it looks like for many of you as well, taking advantage of the long Labor Day weekend to.....

Move.  Annie moved to her new apartment in Queens and while the move seemed more drawn out than it should have been, she loves where she is.  She came up over the weekend to pick up stuff she had kept here, and to pick up a car.  Because....

We bought a new car, or I should say Mary did.  It was also a more drawn out process than it needed to be, because over the course of the past two months we actually purchased three cars, and two of them fell through.  Anyway, Mary finally got to choose a car she wanted -- riding in style and comfort in a Honda Accord - leather seats.  I have to admit is nice.  We took it on a test drive over Labor day weekend to.....

North Carolina.  On the way down there, we stopped over and stayed with Andrew and Margaret and heard all about their trip to South Africa.  We headed south to Chapel Hill to visit our Peace Corps friend Charlie and his family and drove his son all the way back to Williams in one day.  I guess we do love the new car.  Sometimes I catch Mary out in the garage just hugging it.  We also went to a wedding for a young man whose parents we knew in Peru....

not Portugal which is where Joe was these past two weeks, traveling all around that beautiful country.  He came back after Labor Day, and spent this past weekend also moving, into his new house, also harder than it should been.  What has been easy, though, is....

catching up on Facebook news, with the Peter Dicksons attending a wedding for Kieren (sp?) and Sean going skeet shooting; Jeff and Melodie headed out to Minnesota, and some fishing, it looks like; Bill and Jen and family went up to Door County (been there?); and Janet marking the third anniversary of her broken leg (still hurts.)

Mary's friend Marj and her whole family were in Pittsfield this weekend for her mother's memorial service and then for Marj's sister's 50th wedding anniversary.  Nice to see a family come together for major life events.  Lots of singing, laughter, eating and love.  We'll have to get the singing together next summer in the Poconos.

What else?  We heard Matthew has started his graduate studies, so he will be a busy somebody in a busy household the next few years.  Margaret began her last semester of school.  John and Marilyn also have a new car, switching from the practical, politically correct Prius to the stylish ride of a Cadillac.  That's 180 degrees.  

Lots of baseball, with the Mets surging, the Reds eliminated and the Yankees closing in.  And football has started, but who's watching anything but Tom Brady's court case?

So, we have a whiff of fall weather right now, enough to know what's ahead.  Hopefully not for a few more weeks.  Hope you all are healthy, happy and safe.  Love from up here.

(and the quote is from Simon and Garfunkel "April Come She Will.")

Where has August gone?

What happens around here when the calendar turns from July is we realize the end of summer is approaching so we have to pack everything in that we had been too lazy to do in the first weeks of the glorious weather.  I hope the summer has not gotten away from you like it has up here.  All this to explain why the weeks have gotten away from me and no letter written for a while.

And pack it in is precisely what has happened.  We have been hosts to Maura and Elsie for a weekend, pictured below on a walk though of the gardens at Naumkeag, an historic mansion in Stockbridge; to Marj and Lew who came with us to dance at Jacob's Pillow and Dreamaway Lodge, to Jan and Peter Lochery who were here to open up their new house they bought in Richmond, to our Peace Corps friend Monette, who we took to a rained out evening at Tanglewood and a Van Gogh exhibit at the Clark among other places; to a few of Mary's high school classmates who were here for her 45th reunion this weekend.  

We were also dog-sitting for D, while Margaret and Andrew were on their trip to South Africa.  They returned yesterday, and I drove down to NYC to hand over our guest for the last two weeks.  He was glad to see them, and it sounds like they had a spectacular and uneventful (in the negative way) trip.  They looked good after just getting off the long 17 hour flight.  Andrew starts a new job in September at Congressional Quarterly.

We had breakfast with Annie, who has spent the last couple of weeks apartment hunting, a joyless task in NYC when trying to work as well.  But she did land one in Astoria, Queens which she's really happy about.  She moves next weekend, which she's not so happy about, the physical move anyway.  

And, we spoke to Joe as he was heading to the airport with Leonore for vacation in Portugal.  He's been at ground zero on the China devaluation and financial situation these past two weeks as well as trying to organize his new house to move in when he returns after Labor Day.   

Big news from Rochester, as Matthew came out on top of a competitive process with his company for an MBA leadership program through RIT.  Sounds like their household just gets busier but this is a wonderful opportunity.  Congratulations Matthew. 

Out in Dundee, Claire returned from her summer camp job for a short while before she heads back to junior year at Hope.  Daniel starts his final year in high school this week.

Gleaned from Facebook:  looks like Melodie hurt her foot and may qualify for a Berenstein Bears book entitled "Too Much Fun;" Johanna got a cute haircut; John and Marilyn had a great visit out to Colorado.

Other stuff mostly about baseball.  Drove deep into enemy territory this weekend by attending a game at Yankee Stadium, with Lew, a die-hard Yankee fan who had never been.  Worth while to have some fun as the Reds may not win another game the rest of the season with their all rookie starting rotation who look like they are AA most of the time.

On the garden front, the weeds are thriving, but we are also harvesting lots of beans and a few tomatoes and zucchini and lettuce every now then.  Incredibly enough, we found a groundhog hole right in the middle of the zucchini and potatoes.  No wonder my carrots were getting eaten.  Can I get my money back on the fence?

So, hope you all are well and enjoying the remaining days of warmth and green and sun.  Love from up here.

 

Too short

A week later and the verdict remains the same.  Wonderful.  Wonderful to see everyone, especially Donald, for the first time for many of us.  Wonderful to chat, to play games, to swim and to fish and make meals and to chat again.  Wonderful to just be close enough to everyone to walk over and share a cup of coffee.   If anything, it was too short, but as Mary says, it's better to feel that way than to feel it was too long.  We should do it again.  WE ARE!

Here are a few things I learned about our family this past weekend.  That Sean who could not make it is taking the bar exam in two states, and still has a sense of humor about it.  That Jeffrey recently had surgery to correct some stomach issues.  Now he can eat as much as he wants.  That Daniel is playing tennis, and is now the tallest Dickson, taking over from someone who held that claim for 40 plus years.  That Donald can sprint across a room on his hands and knees, that he loves cars and plastic rings.  That we can make a lot of noise, just by talking.  That we know how to plan for and prepare great meals.  That Janet takes a group of middle schoolers to NYC every year.  That Matthew and Tina are both so patient parents.  That we take our "Heads Up" games quite seriously.  That Lur is busy volunteering at a hospital.  That Melodie is game for learning how to fish.  That Oliver is a boy scout and can now clean a fish.  That we all get along so well.  

And there were some things I have known for a long time.  That David knows how to catch fish.  That Mary knows how to swim.  That Peter knows how to play the guitar.  That Andrew D. knows how to make everyone laugh. That Paula knows how to organize meals.  That I know how to eat, and eat everything in sight and to eat fast.  That Andrew S. knows how to play golf, and recruited Daniel to play a round with him.  That we all know how to post pictures on Facebook, with one possible exception (who?  you know who you are.)  

The weekend was a welcome respite for those who work, even if it was a little complicated getting to the Poconos.  Joe had this past week closed on his first house, so he was ready to relax.  Tina has long, compacted hours at her new job, so she was eager to just hang out.  Annie had just finished her first pay period at her new job, so she was ready to kick back.  Margaret had completed many weekends of Fulbright orientations, so she was primed for a few days off.  Johanna had brought some work reading with her so she could work and relax at the same time.  

Friday was Mary's birthday, and she celebrated in style.  She spent much of the day on the phone and computer with all her well wishers.  Marj and Lew met us at Tanglewood for an all Beethoven concert; and then in the birthday weekend tradition, we had a pizza cookout on Saturday and a fire in our fire pit.  Today she went to a play "Bells are Ringing" and out for dinner with her girl friends, at least they became friends when they were young girls so I can still call them girlfriends.

I am sure each of us has our own slice of memories of the weekend.  We reached a unanimous verdict to try again next year, and David was already hot off the mark and has reserved a weekend early in July, but is holding out for one later in the month, around the same time.  We'll confirm early next year.

Thank you all for taking days off and for making the long drives from all directions.  We have grown up with the Poconos so it has a special and familiar feel for all of us.

Love from up here.

AWOL

Been a while.  And there's been so much news that we need to get a letter off before the big family reunion.  The next letter will be all about the Poconos.

July 4.  Baseball for some, fireworks for others, parade for some, strawberry margaritas for some and lots of food for all, I bet.  Here, it was a soggy parade, that I helped capture on tv, as a volunteer cameraman for the local tv station.  Most of the time though was spent holding an umbrella.  Mary rode her bike down in the rain for the parade.  In the afternoon, we went over to Bob and Jody's for a picnic, and fortunately the rain had ended and even the sun had come up.  Someone there told us about the fireworks on the lake, so at dusk we went over and saw an incredible show.  I can't believe we never knew about it.  Five or six houses around the lake were competing and put on a long display.

We had a nice long visit from John and Marilyn who came up to escape the heat and to go to high school graduation for Haley, their granddaughter (Heather's daughter.)  They were back and forth between Albany and Boston area, before settling here.  We went to a play -- "Thoreau," a one man show -- and out to eat one night.  Then when we went down to Washington last weekend, they stayed and watched the kitty.....go in and out all day long.  Colleen and Pauline, along with Julie and her fiance Tommy joined us for a barbecue one night, yes, in the rain.

Yes, we went to DC, to go see another play, "The Book of Mormon," with Margaret and Andrew.  It lived up to its billings, very creative, entertaining, funny, good music, and edgy.  But a lot of fun.  We went to a barbecue at Joe and Leonore's to round out the weekend.  I took the train home, and Mary stayed in DC to catch up with her friends.

David and Paula had a few days in NYC where they saw the play "The Kind and I," which they recommend highly.  We see on Facebook pictures of Donald (with glasses) coming up on his first birthday and of Oliver the track star.  There may be a foot race or two in the Poconos.

Peter found an article about the monstrous house next door to our Cincinnati home, that burned down a few years back and that he snuck into last summer.  As we all expected, the firse looks like arson for a house that got out of hand.  And, we may have some NJ peaches in the Poconos.  Can't wait.

Annie got back from her month long train ride across America, and she used up all 18 train trips, from Chicago to San Francisco to the Grand Canyon, New Orleans and Washington DC, and lots of stops in betweeen.  She returned in time to come up here for a day and then she started her new job last Monday.  And she likes it!!   And, she had a birthday on Sunday.  Wonderful.

What else?  All star game, women's soccer, tour de france, toe surgery (you don't want to know) and bad coughs.  Rounding out the weeks.

Photos above are from Bill and Jen's boat with their house in the background.  Andrew and Lur and Daniel had gone up to Green Lake for their annual vacation, where they saw Claire who is working at a camp on the lake, and loving it.  

Some sad news; Marj's mother passed away last week.  Marj had been taking care of her at home, unwilling to put her in a nursung home, and gave her extra years, and it was an awful lot of care and work for Marj.  

We are looking forward to seeing almost the whole clan this weekend.  Love from up here.

 

It's not only Father's Day

but it's also the longest day of the year.  How wonderful to spend a few more daylight minutes enjoying the most wonderful time of the year.  And Mary has made a coconut cream pie, after blueberry pancakes, two naps and three phone calls.  Wonderful.  Hope you all have found your own special ways to make your holiday equally spectacular.  (Do I go overboard on this?)

So, we arrived back from our trip at the obscene hour of 3am on Thursday morning, but as I tell Mary, we saved $40 by doing so,  This was my first time to California, and we saw what -- at least in northern California -- what everyone else sees in the state.  San Francisco has all these great neighborhoods and a different feel.  Our Peace Corps conference was at Berkeley so we recognized from the movie The Graduate the landmark buildings there (before the terrible balcony collapse.  Redwoods and wineries, beaches and Golden Gate all lived up to their billing.  Then on to Oregon where we were steered correctly to Crater Lake (never heard of it.)  We looked at getting a room at Crater Lake Lodge and the website they were all booked and taking reservations for next summer.  So at 11am we called and got a room (obviously a last miute cancellation) at the lodge. Mary is now the patron saint of reservations, as well as parking places.  Santa Maria.  Then on to Seattle to see our friend Valerie who had us on a busy schedule of sightseeing in the cty and on Bainbridge Island, passing Ivar's again.  The photo here is a feeble attempt at art, a reflection at the Chihuly glass museum, with the needle in the background.  

We rented a car to rdrive from San Francisco to Seattle, and drove mostly smaller highways and came away with a distinct impression of poverty in America.  A lot of homeless and down and outers.  Pretty tough out there.

We were not the only ones traveling.  We say Johanna's facebook postings and her account of her trip to Idaho on this site.  Great.  Annie is also in the middle of her train ride across America.  At one point we were probably just a couple of hours away from each other as she disemabrked at Sacremento to head up to Chico to see a friend.  We thought of turning the car left to go see her, but then we'd be the crazy parents.  Sounds like she had a great stay in Dundee and evening hosted by Bill and Jen.  And Margaret and Andrew are ready for a vacation.  Margaret has been putting a lot of weekend time into work, so they will be ready for their trip to South Africa in August.

And, Andrew and Lur sound like they had a great trip to the Carolinas.  They stayed with a friend in North Carolina who has a horse farm, and then on to Myrtle Beach where they withstood the hard sale for a time share to enjoy a coupl eof beach days.

Nature news:  we got home and saw that the peas and beans have been chewed in our fenced in garden.  The mystery was solved this morning when we saw a groundhog in the garden.  When I ran out to chase it out of the garden, I was surprised to see it slip through the fence, which has openings of 4" by 1 1/2".  I tw as a baby but still incredible to see it slide through.  Soon it will be big and fat and hopefully not be able to get through those openings, and hopefully not after it has eaten everything in the garden,

Other news:  John and Marilyn celebrated the sale of their house in Pittsfield.  Our friends from Nigeria (Peter and Jan) celebrated the purchase of their house in Richmond MA.  Joe has put a bid in on a house in DC.  

Happy birthday to Melodie who celebrated with a baseball game at Nationals stadium.  And congratulations to Sean for a distnguished graduation from law school.  

And special thanks to Robbie for looking after kitty while we abandoned her, or him.  He's gender confused, or maybe we are.         

And on that note, love from up here.

A Week in Idaho

Hello all!

As many saw on Facebook, I spent part of last week in Idaho on a business trip. My colleague Lindsey and I are were flown out by our author, Michael B. Koep, for the hometown launch of his second book Leaves of Fire. 

Coeur D'Alene, his hometown, is a resort town on a gorgeous lake. It's very artsy and affluent and full of just about the nicest people you'll ever meet. There was nary a person who didn't say hi to us or smile at us. We arrived early morning Wednesday and had three full days ahead of us before the launch to do what we wanted. Our first day, after settling into our hotel and grabbing coffee and a bite to eat, we hiked up through the woods that over look the lake. It had stunning views all around and turned into a 4-mile excursion. We ended the evening with dinner and foosball at a local tap house. 

We were still required to work while out here so we spent the mornings working at local cafes and then the afternoons hiking. Each day we hiked about four-five miles. The terrain is rather easy, as it's pretty flat, but the length felt like a great workout. Thursday night we joined our author, his wife and son, his publisher and his wife for a lovely dinner at a favorite local tapas spot. Friday night was the hometown launch in a done-up abandoned building. Michael is an  artist and a musician in addition to a writer so the party featured his artwork, local musicians, and plenty of imbibing. Michael did an fantastic reading of an original essay in addition to a chapter from the book, part of a trilogy about art coming to life and changing the past. 

Saturday morning we took a short cab ride over to Post Falls, Idaho where we would be staying for our last night. While Coeur D'Alene is a scenic resort town, Post Falls is pretty much the opposite. The mountains in the background and the area around our hotel were lovely but the town itself was rather dull and lifeless. As the hiking wasn't up to our speed we decided to instead borrow bikes from our hotel and take the Centennial Trail (a paved trail that runs through Idaho and Washington; we hiked part of it in Coeur D'Alene) over to Liberty Lake Park in Washington. It's normally an 11-mile ride each way but we went way off path after losing the trail near Liberty Lake the town. As such we ended up walking our one-speed bikes up a mountain. But we made it to the park and managed to bike about 3 miles in it before deciding to turn around and head back. We were exhausted once back in Idaho but the feeling of having succeeded in that ride was incomparable. Remarkably we weren't too tired to wake up the next morning and hit the hotel's fitness center.

I arrived home safe and sound late last night, high off a wonderful experience. Lindsey and I are already good friends but it was amazing to spend the past five days with her. Not many of my colleagues would have been up for all the activity. 

Coeur D'Alene isn't easy to get to (almost no direct flights and the return trip takes about a whole day) but I highly recommend a visit if you ever have the chance. It's a spectacular town and well worth the trip. And many thanks to my amazing parents for watching my dog while I was away!

Love, Johanna

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From White to Green

I'm still in culture, or should I say, climate shock.  After this winter, it seems strange to look out the window and see green.  It's hard to think of opening the door to the porch and leaving it open.  But, it's here and it will be this way at least until September.  Wonderful.

The green has meant we have been busy getting gardens ready.  Mary's flower gardens around the house look great, but some critter has already started on her flox.  I have one more row of carrots to plant and then I can take a break and just watch everything grow.  

There was a lot of green along Joe's 26 mile marathon route this weekend.  Not sure he had much reason to take it all in, at least after mile 6 or 13.  One man at the finish line asked me if it was Joe's first marathon.  He then offered that this was a particularly hard one to do for the first marathon, with all the hills.  The biggest hill I think started at mile 25.  But he finished it, and has bragging rights.  I had signed up for the half-marathon and toyed with the idea of running even though my toes and my back had stopped me from training.  I chickened out the night before.  Congratulations, Joe.  Margaret wrote him and asked if he pooped in his pants.  We drove home in the same car with him and can reliably affirm that he did not.

Annie was up here as well for the long weekend.  She is getting ready for her cross-country train trip which she starts this week.  Another marathon.  She is planning many different stops, including Chicago.  We hope to see her when we are in Seattle.  Yes, next week we fly to San Francisco for a Peace Corps conference, and then take advantage of being on the west coast to drive up to Seattle.  Only two states away, but two full days of driving.  We miscalculated since we thought it would be like driving from DC to New Jersey, also just two states away.

Other big news were graduations!  In case you missed all the Facebook photos her proud parents posted, Annie had two graduation ceremonies, one for Teachers College and then one for the whole university.  She carried the banner in to the cathedral for her psychology cohort of 100 people!  And Maura also had two graduations, one for her nurse pinning and one for the school.  Congrats to both.  Mary went down for Maura's graduation, and then stayed on to swim in a memorial for Dan at the YMCA, that Annie also came up to swim in.  Patrick, Kathleen, Maura, Elsie and Mary Fort joined for that event as well.  

Annie hopes to see the Dundee folks on her way out west.  Andrew and Lur too will be traveling shortly after that, off to Myrtle Beach SC for some deserved R&R.  Lur, by the way, is taking a pottery class.

Margaret traveled to Pittsburgh this week for work, and I told her to sabotage anything related to the Pirates and the Steelers. We also see on Facebook California travel by Melodie and Jeffrey.  Fun, fun, fun.  And a little work. 

Nature notes - The quiet Sunday morning on the porch was interrupted by a quiet, but very healthy fox, wandering by.  He eventually saw me and ran off, but it was the closest I've been to a fox.  Funny thing is that the cat decided not to go out for the whole day. Wonder if he could smell what I could only see.

Summer reading this year includes lots of Shaker books, another Melville novel, four Shakespeare plays (finished my class on the histories) and hopefully something fun.  I thought that would include listening to Great Expectations in the long car rides back and forth to Amherst.  But I am not sure if I have any expectation that I will finish that one.  

We had some birthday celebrations - Matthew and Sean!  Congratulations.  And whenever Matthew has a birthday, it means Peter and Janet have a wedding anniversary.  Hope everyone had spectacular celebrations.  

We close with two photos of hair, Daniel at his prom and Pop on his honeymoon with Mom.  Am I the only one to see the resemblance in style across generations?

No better brothers

Do you know what a power snap is? Do you know what a dun is? Do you know which trout tolerates the widest range of temperatures? Have you ever seen a tippet (hint: it's not a bird)? Do you know what a Royal Wullf is? Ever tied a surgeon's knot? A nail knot? Do you know what a ferrule is (hint: it's not a lizard)? Have you ever held a Hardy Zenith? How small is a midge (the one with the nasty hook on it)? Done any tying with deer fur? Where is your Hendrickson? What kind of back cast do you do? Have you ever wanted to shoot line? Flourocarbon or monofilament? Have you used a tie-fast? Did you learn the rule of 11? The rule of 4? Do you know why is there a piece of red yarn tied on the end of my line?

Do you know the sublime feeling that comes from standing in the middle of a lovely stream dappled by sunlight and making a perfect cast to the far side and watching it drift behind the targeted rock?

Well, I did, and I do, and I have. What a transcendent weekend. John and I took an intensive two day and three evening fly fishing course at the Joan Wulff Fly Fishing School at the southern end of the Catskill Park, in a lovely meadow and mountain setting way out of cell phone service (thank goodness for that). It was very intense but also relaxed, about 25 people, most beginners but some better. We had five instructors, and Joan Wullf herself, a legend of fly fishing. She and her late husband just about invented the modern pursuit of fly fishing. She spent a few minutes with me and showed me exactly how to get my cast perfect, and the light went on and I am hooked, as they say. Very nicely organized: lecture with demos, then practice at one of the two ponds outside, another talk, more practice, practice tying knots. Talks about trout and their feeding, and what flies to think about. I thought it was funny that it wasn't until late Sunday afternoon that they told us what to actually do if you hook a fish. And one of the instructors tried to hook one of the stocked fish in one of the ponds, and although they were throwing pellets in and several fish were feeding, none took either of the two lures. Even teachers have bad moments.

This was a birthday present from the three best brothers anyone could ever ask for. It was the real deal, no frolic, worth every minute and sore muscle.

John and I opted out of the pricey Inn accommodations and meals near the school and stayed in a simple cabin about 20 minutes away on a pretty stream. We each brought a home cooked supper – thank you Mary for that great marinara sauce – and ate breakfast at the Roscoe Diner, where they also made sandwiches for our lunches. It rained Saturday afternoon, so I practiced in the rain, but hey, it's fishing. While it would have extravagantly enjoyable if I had gone by myself, it was an added bonus to spend time with John.

So a thousand thanks and more to David, John and Andrew. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving. David, get ready for Mountain Springs to show your two fly "toddlers" more of the lore.

Happy Mother's Day

Here's one from the archives.  Take a look at the shoes and stylish black socks.  A poster for all that mothers do out of their love.    

​Surely there must be a mother's day song to go with the flowers and cards and love and bottomless gratitude.  We will have a quiet day here, with rest and gardening and newspapers and coffee and maybe even a nap or a bike ride.  We are ready for one, as we had a whirlwind visit yesterday from Marj and Lew and Marj's mother.  

We went from winter to summer in 3 hours it seems.  It sure is nice, but we don't want to hear any complaining about the heat until at least the end of May.  It's so nice to leave the house without a jacket or boots or gloves.  We have taken advantage with a lot of yard work, and Mary has been busy prepping flower beds and re-arranging and of course keeping the local nurseries afloat, single-handedly.  Our project today is to plant a weeping cherry tree at the corner of the house.

Lots of academic news this week, with Annie and Maura finishing their course of studies!  Final papers and exams done.  Maura graduates this coming week and Annie on the 19th. Congratulations.  Annie will have a good long six weeks off before she starts her job.  You earned it, chica.  When this gets posted, Margaret will only be hours away from finishing her semester.  And Claire must be getting close to the end of the semester.  Celebrate all.

Travel is a big part of these letters.  And, we have the first member in the family to visit Azerbaijan.  I couldn't even remember where on the map it was.  Joe came and went for a quick visit this week.  I will leave it to him to describe the charms of that country.  We made travel plans for the first two weeks of June to go to San Francisco and then head up to Seattle by car.  I've never really been to California, except for 2 San Diego day trips and one unexpected airport stop in SF.  And Margaret and Andrew got their tickets to South Africa for August.  

David and Paula spent a few days in New York City this week, taking advantage of some consulting work for David to go see the King and I at Lincoln Center.  David highly recommends it.  They are doing some infrastructure work to their house (gutters and soffits - I just found out what those were.)

Also highly recommended was a concert that Andrew and Lur went to featuring Steve Winwood.  Andrew also passed around a couple of photos of Daniel at his prom.  I think in the next letter, I will find a photo of Pop and compare it with Daniel's prom picture if only to see the genetic carryover of the hair!!

Peter and I found each other watching the same Mets game on ESPN one night, which the Mets won.  They look like they are for real, though I am not sure Mets fans are quite ready to embrace the confidence yet.

Mary is off swimming this morning, and I will settle down to read some more about the Shakers.  Fascinating group, and I have a ways to catch up with all that David knows on the topic.  He had a head start with Darrow School being on the site of the central Shaker families for over 150 years.

So, here's to all the mothers who read this, and even those who don't.  Thank you, we love you, you are the greatest. 

My new best friends

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I've always dreamt of working on a farm, so at the ripe old age of 60-plus, dreams still come true.  It's not exactly farm work, they have real farmers at Hancock Shaker Village, but I do spend a fair amount of time in the barn.  It's baby animal season there, so there are a lot of children coming to see the calves and lambs and piglets and chicks.  In fact, the piglets above are two days old, and I saw the last one a minute or so after it was born, even before the farmer.  The other day, I told Mary I spent the day picking up chicks.  It's supposed to be about the Shakers and their history, but for now it's mostly about cute animals. One thing is for sure, my nap time has dwindled, even though I spend only two days over there.

It is also supposed to be spring up here.  Yesterday it snowed most of the afternoon, and today a little more.  It even was sticking for a while yesterday.  I think the snow tires will stay on a little bit longer.  I had been hoping to put in a photo of our 3 brave crocuses, but they met a cruel fate.  This is just not the climate for daffodils and tulips that are fooled into sticking their first stems out of the ground, only to get beaten back down, never to recover.  The dandelions have a much better go of it, unfortunately.

But it is baseball season, and we are pleasantly surprised by the Mets, who seemed to have quietly put things together.  We also see photos on Facebook almost every day from Jeff and Melodie at Nationals' games.  Must be nice to live a couple of blocks from the stadium.

We did our annual burn this week of brush that we had accumulated over the past year.  This time, though, we recruited some help, in the form of the three Ghanaian boys who Mary is tutoring at school.  Not surprisingly, we were done in two hours, just before the serious rain started to fall.  It was kind of fun to see the young boys (sixth and ninth graders) use a hand saw.  They tried to make it work like a machete, and broke them both.  That's why it was only kind of fun.

Big news this week was a birthday, Peter's 65th.  Hard to believe.  The photo collage on Facebook that Johanna put together were of happy times.  Aunt Georgia also had a birthday, her 94th!

Mary had the week off, and she headed for Rhode Island to see Marj and Lew, and Mary Fort and Maura. She saw Patrick who has moved back from Colorado, and reports all is well with everyone there. John and Marilyn went down as well for the day, as they had to leave their house for the estate sale they were having.  They have been busy getting everything ready for the sale, including unloading quite a bit of furnishings, of which we were the happy recipients of a few, including new kayak holders - my third try. Unfortunately, their buyer backed out at the last minute, so they're back to square one.  Still they're heading back down to Florida next week. 

We spoke with Joe who's training for the Berkshire Marathon, that will take place on Memorial Day.  Margaret and Andrew went up to New York last week to see Annie and a few friends.  Both Annie and Margaret are still in crunch mode with end of semester requirements.

When he's not consulting on thorny insurance issues, David is keeping up to date on college lacrosse, which seems to be taking place in snowstorms this spring.  Andrew and Lur went out to Hope to see Claire last weekend in a concert.

Finally, as if I didn't have enough to do already, I am taking a course on Shakespeare's history plays through the lifelong learning institute - very stimulating, and with no papers, very enjoyable.  Mary has been heading up a free swim lesson program for the month of April that her team is putting on.  And guess who one of the start students is?  Me.  Although, I did overhear my personal coach tell someone that I had a poor kick.  He's almost right.  Actually, it's terrible.

With that, we close wishing everyone a healthy and joyous week, or two.

Love from up here.  

April come she will

Happy belated Easter.  Happy opening day of baseball.  Happy to see the snow melting.

Happy to see posts from Peter and Andrew of their updates from spring break.  Andrew also started the rounds of college tours with Daniel, heading over to Michigan.  Did I say college and Daniel in the same breath?  Yes,  Hard to believe.  Before we know it, it will be college tours for Auden and Donald.  And over in Fairport, David had spent a few days in Albany doing his commission work.

We had a full house this Easter, and happily so.  On Friday, we needed two cars to pick everyone up who came in on the same train over in Hudson New York, as you can see above in the photo. We were happy to welcome Leonore, Joe's friend from Portugal, who has just moved to Washington.  

We rushed home to dinner where our friends from Lagos, Peter and Jan Lochery, joined us.  They were up here from Atlanta looking for houses, having enjoyed their stay with us last summer.  And they put an offer on a house in Richmond and it looks like it was accepted. They have a house in Wales where we stayed two summers ago, and now they'll have a U.S. base, in the Berkshires.

John and Marilyn came over the next night for dinner.  They are weeks away from closing on their house, and are spending much of their time here cleaning out their house, and giving away its contents.  Serious downsizing project.  I made Grandma's Easter egg cake for desert, which we ate a day before, since we knew we'd be too stuffed from our Easter dinner at the Red Lion Inn.

We actually worked off some of the eating and imbibing as some of us went for a hike in Pittsfield State Forest, and Joe and did some running, or at least Joe did with his 18 miles and I managed to shuffle for 8 miles.  There were a couple of serious games of Catan, I think it's called, a board game that seems like part Monopoly, part Risk, part SimCity.  But no Oregon Trail.  Another treat was the choir at the Easter service in Pittsfield.  From Africa.  Who woulda thought?  Andrew and Margaret went shopping at the Lee outlets, and we also watched Wisconsin upset Kentucky but only to lose in the final game.  Too bad.  And we watched Annie and Margaret try to squeeze in some homework for their courses.  

We had just seen everyone the week before, with a quick trip down to Washington and back through New York on the way home.  We took advantage of an invitation to a "house concert" at the home of one of Mary's former teacher colleagues to stop in and see everyone.  Since we had to be down mid-day on Friday, we headed out late Thursday to see how far we could get.  And guess where we stopped?  Hightstown.  We had dinner at the Americana Diner and saw Meadow Lakes - they still have not torn down the buildings where Grandma's apartment was.

Among other news is I have a new job,  I started today, as an "interpreter" at Hancock Shaker Village.  I hope I did not get in over my head.  It's for just a couple of days a week, but it looks like fun.  I gotta lot to learn.  David, any tips?

Peter sent along the other photo from his trip to Florida.  This is cousin Rell, who looks so much like her father, especially holding a big fish.

That's the update from here; hope you're all well, healthy and happy.  Love




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Sunshine!

We are back from our week plus a day in Florida. Here are some things we saw and did. (We were upgraded to first class on the way down: Janet "I could get used to this." Me, too.)

Friends are forever. We stayed two days in Siesta Key, a funky island community on the Gulf Coast, with Steve and Judy DelViscio. Steve was a Princeton roommate and he and Judy moved to Florida to go into the real estate business in 2005, just when the market tanked. They have a nice house in the highest point in their neighborhood – 5 feet elevation – and are doing much better now. We had a nice supper in town, which boasts that it has not a single chain store or restaurant. We also watched the Princeton women's basketball team beat U. of Wisconsin-Green Bay in the NCAA tournament. We toured the John Ringling house in Sarasota, a fancy palace on the water, but more impressive was a huge diorama (in a separate building) depicting how a circus would arrive by rail, get set up (with all the extras like dining tents, makeup tents, practice rigs, etc.), put on the show and then break and leave town, all in one day. It's the work of one man.

Family is forever. We spent two nights in Naples with Janet's cousin Nancy Byrne Reinhart and her husband Peter. They live in a huge gated and high-walled condo community south of Naples proper, still under construction. We spent the day walking around a large arts fair that closed most of the town's main street, and then had lots of delicious Florida blue crabs at a crab house. Naples has the largest concentration of millionaires and the largest concentration of golf courses (80) in the country. It absolutely reeks money and lots of it. About every three minutes a jet would fly over downtown on its way to the airport. All day. All private jets. Not my life, but the area is rapidly growing.

We also spent two nights at Aunt Georgia's spacious golf-course-side home in Stuart, and spent a lot of time with Rell, her son Jacob and Sarah. This is a nice area of the state – nearby Port St. Lucie is the Met's spring training complex – and all are doing well. Georgia is recovering from hip surgery; she said to Janet "My leg disappoints me." She has round the clock care and her daughters look after her, too. She'll be 94 in a few weeks. Sarah lives in a gated community about 20 minutes away and does a lot of painting. Rell has recently bought a house on the St. Lucie River and takes her canoe out on the river, teaches yoga several days a week and is off to India for a month to work on her knowledge of and devotion to Buddhism. Jacob is a great guy who will graduate from Cal Poly this spring and go up to Seattle to work for Amazon. Great restaurant dinners both nights.

The Everglades may not be forever.

We spent two great days in the Everglades. The original plan had been to spend just one day and then get up to Port St. Lucie to take in a Mets spring training game, but we were glad to have the additional day in the Everglades. I had always thought of this as a dark swamp, but it's not. It's a seemingly endless sawgrass prairie that is wet or damp depending on the time of year, and on the Gulf Coast, an area rightly called the Ten Thousand Islands. We took a boat ride around the islands and saw lots of dolphins. We hiked in an area called Shark River and saw lots of alligators, big blue herons and other exotic birds, striped turtles, and other wildlife. We took another boat ride into Florida Bay, at the southernmost part of the state and enjoyed watching the highly acrobatic ospreys dive for fish and pelicans trolling along the surface of the water. We also took a ranger-guided hike and learned about the gators and birds. I just finished a book about the onslaught of development that continues to degrade the area and adjoining Big Cypress, which is a real swamp.

We stayed in a motel in Homestead, and ate a marvelous genuine Mexican dinner in a dark hole-in-the-wall place.

Money, money, money. On our way from the Everglades to Stuart, we stopped off in Palm Beach to have lunch and to visit the Flagler Museum. On the two block area where we parked for lunch, we saw almost nothing but large Mercedes, BMWs, Lexuses and yes, five Rolls-Royces or Bentleys, four of them convertibles. Across the bay we saw a huge collection of humongous yachts, most of them much bigger than our house. Henry Flagler was the original business partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil of New Jersey, and he built a large Beaux Arts mansion on the Palm Beach waterfront as a wedding present for his third wife. Very, very, very fancy. It was later turned into a hotel and was threatened with demolition, but a niece of his bought it back and $12 million was spent to restore it.

     Well worth the visit: we saw how the other .001% lived then and how they live now.

A day that will forever live in – well, infamy is too strong, but certainly dismay. On Monday, March 23, in the morning I found out that I lost my Supreme Court appeal, 3-2, the majority opinion a completely dishonest pastiche. In the early evening, we watched the Princeton women lose to Maryland.

Overall, a very nice trip. Florida is very very flat: Jacob says the highest elevation in the entire state is 600 feet up in the panhandle. Gated one story communities and subdivisions are absolutely everywhere, interspersed with strip malls. Staying with family and friends is the best way to see any place. Also, I did learn that until I own a Rolls-Royce convertible, I do not want to live in Florida.

Dundee Update

What a week! First, Claire came home for spring break, but a day late because she had car trouble at Hope and had to wait a day to get it fixed. Then last Friday evening saw the Hope symphonette group play at a rural church north of us. Very impressive.

Daniel started physical therapy on his foot, the good news is that there is no tear. The orthopaedic surgeon found out through conversation that I had gone to Ripon, and he mentioned that a close friend from high school went there, and I knew him well. 

Lur is still volunteering at the area hospital on the oncology floor, and she loves it. We decided to rent a raised garden plot at the hospital to grow vegetables and herbs, and whatever is too much, will donate to the area food pantry. We went to the first meeting and were told the do's and don't's. Rule #1: Clean up your mess!

We volunteered at the local St Patrick's Day parade. The little town of East Dundee had over ten thousand people show up. I did crowd control with Daniel, and Lur was on the podium. She volunteers each week at the Village historical site, so she had an "in". One of our local bars ordered two thousand pounds of corned beef, and when we went by later in the afternoon, the place was packed. 

Claire had some friends from Hope come stay with us for four days. Lots of laughter, baking, movies, a day in the city, laundry, cooking and we got to hear them practicing music. A treat.

Lur and I got together with some college friends and got home at three o'clock am. We have not done that in a long time. The next night we went downtown at the Old School of Folk Music to see Tom Paxton and Janis Ian. Incredible. Some great old songs and Janis Ian has a stunning voice, and both are great guitar players. The day before I received an old album of Tom Paxton's from Amazon that I used to listen to all the time at Lawrenceville. It seemed to have the same scratches on it. I told Lur that I might of bought my own album back.

Claire went back to Hope yesterday which was good, because last night we got six inches of heavy snow. I hope it did not reach Michigan because Daniel and I are going up there this week to look at colleges.

A great week. Lot's of really good food. Great music!

Look closely and you might see Lur!  

Next week, spring?

Rumor has it that the sun is shining and some places are actually warm, and perhaps even seeing the first signs of spring.  It is only a rumor, as it snowed here today (didn't stick) and I just went out snowshoeing.  Last weekend, I went cross-country skiing around the lake (photo.)   We are seeing temperatures above freezing, and so we're imagining it's soon to be spring.

I was able to go skiing only because Mary got a bad cold and cut short our weekend trip.  We went to Princeton on Friday, to complete an interview with the Princeton University architect I had been trying to get for months.  After a couple of hours of waiting and missed appointments, I finally got the interview and it was worth the wait.  This is for my project on the Pittsfield library, designed by an architect who had also done 6 different buildings on the university campus, including the one where Grandma and Pop met. 

Anyway, it was a good excuse to stop in and see Peter and Janet.  Of course it had snowed there the day before we arrived, but that didn't stop any of us from our agenda.  We went to a Princeton basketball game, that thankfully was not too heart-stopping, as Princeton led most of the way.  Supper at a brewery (yeah!) and then we submitted Peter and Janet to our slide show of our school project in Gabon.  They were good sports.  By the way, it's coming your way, too, if you want.  Margaret and Andrew had already seen it, but we can show you again.

Sunday morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and heard about Janet's busy schedule, including arranging a trip to New York City for her 6th grade class (I hope I got that right.)  Peter's signed up to audit another class on campus.  After many years of being on the receiving end of Peter's books, I brought one down to give to him that I thought he'd like.  In return he put a bag of about 15 books in the car on leaving.  Not really a fair trade, but thank you.   

So, we were supposed to then head off to Rhode Island but Mary felt a cold coming and we opted to head home.  Not before stopping in to see Annie, though.  (Hope you didn't get sick.)  Annie was busy with school work but was on her way to a conference at the law school on the country's incarceration problem.  

Through the week, though, we've been battling the colds that just seemed to linger around.  Thank goodness for Alka-Seltzer Cold, DayQuil and other assorted medicines.

We saw some wonderful photos from New Orleans, where Margaret and Andrew went for the long weekend and let the good times roll.  We talked to Joe who has been gearing up to run a marathon in Berkshire County in May.  I signed up for the half-marathon, but found that Joe was already running half-marathons as part of his training.  I did 6 miles yesterday on the treadmill.  Hopefully, the snow will be melted by May.

We had a bunch of calls to finalize plans for Mountain Springs in July.  Thanks to David for organizing everything. That should be fun  We were last there nine years ago.  David also told us that they were in the middle of a renovation project to replace all the doors in their house.    

The news from Dundee is Daniel's injury from basketball.  He hurt his ankle tendon, but they were waiting the results of the MRI.  Not sure if I am supposed to say this but he hurt himself by dunking the ball.  That makes him the first Dickson to dunk a ball, at least on a ten-foot basket.  Good news and bad news.

This week is spring break at UMass, but instead of heading to Cancun with all my peeps, I'll be staying home.  Mary has a break in April, and we toyed with the idea of traveling then, but it turns out we had to scratch Daytona off our list as John and Marilyn are coming north then.  Why?  To close on their house.  They got an offer and so they are making the big step final.  Congratulations are in order since I know they've wanted this, but all the same we're going to miss them.  Right now they are in Arizona on a dune-buggy vacation.

This coming week, David's birthday.  Have a great one!   

Love from up here.    

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Tomorrow is March

Which means that spring is around the corner.  It will be especially welcome, even for those of us who missed a month of this winter.  However, snow is expected again tomorrow, so we have a ways to go.

We went cross-country skiing this week, and with a clear, blue sky it was wonderful. It looks like we may have many more skiing days if we want since the snow pack is 2-3 feet deep.  What will it look like around here when it melts?  

Even in Washington it was cold, frigid really.  We went down there last week, during Mary's school break, and stayed with Margaret and Andrew (thank you!)  We arrived a day after a snow storm and the the government was closed.  It was an eerie quiet driving into the city at rush hour and seeing no cars.  We picked up Joe and Leonore at the Jefferson Memorial; Leonore was in town for a long weekend and I don't think she was fully prepared for the cold.  She had been here in August when it was stifling hot so she has now seen the two extremes of Washington weather.

It was a good, and longer than normal week for us.  We met with State Dept friends from Lima and Mexico, and also with Peace Corps friends who were interested in hearing about our Gabon project.  We ate and drank our way through the week, and then had an extra day for such merriment as it snowed along the eastern seaboard on Saturday so we stayed an extra night.  Margaret is busy, even swamped, with school work and work work.  I helped (or tried to) fix Joe's bed with new metal slats.  And on the way home we saw Annie in New York for lunch, and she is winding down her school work with a different kind of semester, with projects with real clients.

We made the rounds with phone calls, with a lot of commiserating over the cold winter in Princeton, Dundee and Rochester.  We're trying to get away to a Princeton basketball game (perhaps this coming weekend.)   And David has made some headway for a family get together this summer at Mountain Springs.

This weekend, Andrew and Lur are watching Myles and Auden (photo below) while Bill and Jen are off skiing.  Andrew reports that Claire has a job as a counselor at Camp Pilgrim in Green Lake for the summer. Camp Pilgrim is the same camp Mom went to as a girl.  Now does that send chills down your spine?

From Florida we saw lots of photos of John and Marilyn with Robbie,their grandson, at the Daytona 500.  Looked like fun, and I even saw them wearing shorts.  Do you think we will ever again be able to wear shorts?  Hard to imagine.

Before DC, we hosted our friends the Dickmeyers who are at the Consulate in Toronto.  Jim was in my class when I started.  While in DC a few days later, we went for the first time to the National Portrait Gallery.  When we got there, we were told that a tour started in 15 minutes, so we waited around.  Much to our surprise, the docent was another of my Foreign Service classmates, who gave us a wonderful tour through the collection, highlighting U.S. history and the history of portraiture.  Recommended.

Back to our routines here, with Mary tutoring and me heading over to UMass a couple of days a week.  Exercise is not enough to keep us from gaining the weight we lost in the village.  Just too much good food, pizza and eggs benedict and bagels etc.  Tonight we're off to an early St. Patricks Day dinner with corned beef and cabbage.  And beer.

That's about it from up here.  Hope you all are keeping warm and happy!  Love. 

  
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Love

Happy Valentine's Day!  And we made it through Friday the 13th with our fingers crossed that we wouldn't get another snow storm.  So spring must be right around the corner.  A corner with a foot of snow ready to drop on us on Sunday.  We also wouldn't mind seeing the temps go above 32 degrees, at least for a minute.  We're beginning to think that 24 degrees is the new 40 degrees.

We arrived back home a week ago and are still living fresh on our memories.  We have tons of photos, that we are trying to organize, on multiple phones and cameras, and dropbox etc.  So, much like when we returned from the Peace Corps years ago, we always seem to be looking at our photos.  And, if you have ten hours or so, we'd love to tell you about the experience.  

It's not just photos we brought home, but some lingering cases of stomach issues.  Mary is having hers checked out at the doctors, and I will likely follow suit.

Since coming home, we've also been hearing of all that happened here with you all.  Like the Super Bowl, and at least one naysayer out there is saying the cheaters won.  I have to admit, one of the first things I did when I finally got to wi-fi was watch the video highlights.  Must have been quite a game.

The second thing I did was catch up on Facebook.  We tried once to get on from the village, but it cost us $20 in data.  Still we saw great photos of Donald and news that Tina has her nursing license.  Way to go.  And way to go to Sean who graduated and had been posting terrific art work.  What a talent.  How is Andrew's drawing coming?  Johanna's all over the place at fashion week in NYC.  Daniel has a new car, Claire has many more concerts.  Annie and Greg spent almost a week in Pittsfield over her break and went out downhill skiing for the first time with Johnny as her instructor.   John and Marilyn have decamped for Florida, so intent that they drove through a snowstorm to start their journey south.  Margaret has been very busy with school work and Joe had a trip to Beijing while we were gone.

Not all was happiness while we were gone.  It was quite a shock to get the news of Dan, for all of us.  We are still sorry we could not join the celebration of his life in Stonington; it sounded very nice and full of friends and co-workers and students, and family.  We close with a photo from 2013; Dan helped us establish a bit of a new tradition, joining us for Easter dinner at the Red Lion Inn.  He also helped me tie the bow tie here.  It will be hard to think of Easter dinner without him, and so many other things as well.  We will miss you. And we remember you with love this Valentine's Day.

Love from the snowy north.

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Bonne annee

Happy new year. We took a photo in 1980 with the words bonne annee printed in it and Pop kept calling it Bonnie Annie. Works for me.

Anyway that was the greeting of choice when we arrived here almost two weeks ago. We spent most of the first week in Libreville and we've been in the village for a week now.

Work us exhausting, and we're not even doing the hard stuff. People have been exceptionally nice and welcoming. Mary is a big hit with the village women who call her over when she's out walking.

There are many adjustments, such as the kitchen and the shower. Much has changed in 35 years, such as cell service in the village so that I can post to Pops Weekly Letter, some electricity each day so we can charge our phones and even television so we can watch Mexican soap operas dubbed into French.

Keeps those cards and letters coming, okay emails. Love hearing any news but especially yours.

Go Patriots. Africa Cup in soccer starts today. Photo is of Mary and our Dutch friend Henk walking home after work.