A few notes from the New Jersey contingent.

- I just finished a grueling two week trial representing a citizens' group opposing a proposal by JCP&L to construct a monstrously stupid huge transmission line through portions of Monmouth County that included the town where Janet's parents used to live. We were married in the back yard of their house and Johanna and Sean were baptized by Uncle Bob in the Reformed Church in Middletown. It's not over yet but it looks as if we have killed it. It's nice to be able to make a real difference.

- Doing a trial like this is all-consuming. You more or less leave the world as you know it and live in the trial. I got by on about three hours of sleep a night, getting ready for the next day after each day's twists, turns and surprises.

- I said to one of the other lawyers that I enjoyed a Trump-free experience for those two weeks. It was nice!

- Johanna is working with some interesting authors at Henry Holt. I am getting lots of free books – galley proofs as well as final prints. This week's catch is a book about books. How could I resist?

- Sean's first trial keeps getting pushed back. I can't wait.

- It's also been a tense time. One of Janet's cousins is now in hospice and David and Andrew had surgeries.

- Want to hear some utility jokes? A chemist, a biologist and an electrical engineer were on death row waiting to go in the electric chair. The chemist was brought forward first. "Do you have anything you want to say?" asked the executioner, strapping him in. "No," replied the chemist. The executioner flicked the switch and nothing happened. Under this particular State's law, if an execution attempt fails, the prisoner is to be released, so the chemist was released. Then the biologist was brought forward. "Do you have anything you want to say?" "No, just get on with it." The executioner flicked the switch, and again nothing happened, so the biologist was released. Then the electrical engineer was brought forward. "Do you have anything you want to say?" asked the executioner. "Yes," replied the engineer. "If you swap the red and the blue wires over, you might make this thing work."

- Q. Why do fluorescent lights hum?
A. Because they can't remember the words.

You get the drift.

April is the cruelest month...NOT

Which photo to choose to go with this letter?  It's the hardest part of this letter, since so much has happened since the last letter, including travel to see so many of you and as always lots of photos on my biggest rival, Facebook.  

We arrived home last night after a weekend in Washington anchored around a baby shower for Leonor and Joe.  Annie had flown in from Cleveland to join Margaret and Andrew for the happy occasion.  The highlight of the shower?  All the "onesie" shirts that some very creative folks drew on for the new baby.  Leonor and Joe are excitedly preparing, reconfiguring their house and stocking up for the arrival of what they are now calling cutie patootie.

The weekend was the end of a tour through the Rocehester-Cleveland-Dundee route with lots to report on there.  

It was a planes, trains and automobiles trip, along with buses.  We spent a night at the Fairport yellow inn, which David and Paula continue to enjoy, taking full advantage of the close walking distances to the village.  One nearby shop has the best home-made ice cream I've tasted.  I recommend the butterscotch ripple, by David swears by the back cherry.  Fun, but a little dangerous.

We drove to Annie's from Rochester, and she also has a great living situation, the ground floor of a house in trendy Tremont, or maybe it's transitional Tremont.  Either way, lots to do in the neighborhood.  We checked out a market in Ohio City (yes there is one) and had lunch with Mary's cousin, Joanne and her husband Scott, who live in Cleveland.  Did I mention an evening with LeBron?  Or should I say John Wall, as the Wizards schooled the Cavs.  Exciting, either way.

Mary headed back to Pittsfield, for school, leaving John to wind his way to Chicago, trying the Megabus, for probably the last time.  At least I can say I did it.  It might work for 3-4 hours, a little cramped for 7 hours.  The price was right.  I love how I save money but undergo unnecessary hardship. 

After a few hours in Chicago at the Field Museum, I hopped on the double-decker train out to Elgin where Andrew picked me up in the stretch van.  The next few days, we spent a lot of time chatting, in between dog walks, hospital visits, and a wonderful evening with Bill and Jen and Miles, Auden, and Elliot.  Unfortunately, Jen was on her first day of a cast, having broken her foot the day before.  They have a full plate as they have started a new business.

Other medical updates were also part and parcel of the past few weeks.  When we arrived in Fairport, David's neighbors walked by and said to him "Welcome home."  David clarified that they hadn't traveled any further than the local hospital to check out a heart issue.  Within ten days, with a few tests, he had a stent implanted to help with a blockage.  Good news.

Yesterday, Andrew had his back surgery which we hope will put behind him the last few months of pain caused by herniated discs.  It was not enough to prevent him and Lur from heading to Hope College to see Claire in her final recital over the weekend.  Anyway, wishing him a speedy recovery.

And, not on the same level, we are still dealing with some lingering intestinal issues (euphemism for diarrhea) from India.  

The drive home included much evidence of the changing seasons.  Grass was greener, red buds appearing on the trees, no gloves and coats....... until we pulled in the driveway, and saw snow everywhere, ice on the lake, etc.  Still, we are optimistic about the next few weeks.  On our list this week is to start seedlings indoors.  Eager

Hope everyone is enjoying the warmth.  Love from up here.

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Travelogue, the sequel

We're home.  I seem to recall that the weekly letter after Pop and Grandma's long trips always began with "It's good to be home" and recounting about going through the mail and unpacking and laundry.  Some things pass on to the next generation.  One interesting note - 30 days of mail and one hand-written note.  The rest were appeals for money, flyers and bills.  

Anyway, we are glad to be home and adjusting to our normal, sedate lives, happy to have bland food and trying to sleep through the night.  We each wake up three times a night, wide awake, and read and force ourselves to go back to sleep.  Hint: read a boring book.  My choice: The Confidence Man, by Melville.  Why, you ask?  Because Philip Roth cited that book as the one best to understand our President.  After 100 or so pages, not sure I've seen what Roth sees, but it does help me go back to sleep.

The second part of our trip was given over to sightseeing, trying to make sense of India on our own, albeit with guides and driver, with various gradations of English abilities.  We went to the places on the normal tourism route, and were awed by the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple in Amritsar, as well as a place not to far from the Taj, called Fatepuhr Sikri, where a King married a Moslem, a Christian and a Hindu wives and built a palace to accommodate all three religions, but abandoned it only a short while later due to water shortages.  

After that, the palaces and forts seemed to kind of blend together,  Spectacular, complex architecture all of them, stunning views, with grisly histories for the most part, dating back thousands of years in some cases.  What a culture, and almost impenetrable to a first time visitor.  

We looked for opportunities to do things off the beaten path and those proved to be eye-opening adventures - a bike ride through a bird sanctuary with a young, enthusiastic guide; a walk through an old, Moslem neighborhood at Friday prayers with a young volunteer for a project called the Hope Project; a visit to the changing of the guard at the India-Pakistan border, where we witnessed a full-throated nationalism on display; a peek behind the scenes at the organization behind feeding 25,000 people a day for free at the Golden Temple.  Among others.

We had our low moments, and they mostly had to do with illness - of the stomach and cold variety.  And we could regale you with our attempts to maneuver walking down and across streets, avoiding the rickshaws, and taxis and trucks and buses and carts and Lexuses and motorcycles and camels.  But, we've had a chance to download with a few people so we can spare everyone the in-person "when-we" stories.  Summed up: we're glad we went, really glad, but it's hard to see us jumping in line to go back, even though the school is a pretty big draw.  Not even sure how to recommend to other people.  

We came back to warm weather, but the bite of 7 degrees this morning when I went out to get the paper, shows we're not out of winter yet. David  made it through a high-wind power outage, enough to host Matthew and Tina who came over to get some warmth.  David also talked about a Shaker woodworking workshop he attended.  Joe and Leonor have been busy with house renovations getting ready for the big arrival; Margaret is trying to navigate the rumors of budgets for the down-sized State Department, and Annie's work has finally picked up.  We have travel ahead plans, on coming weekends, to Arizona for baseball, to Cleveland for basketball, and down to DC for a baby shower.

Next letter, more news from you all.  Love from up here.

Here's a shot from the border ceremony.  Louder than a soccer match. and certainly ore colorful.

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Travelogue

Where to begin?  Perhaps with our host Sam Singh who has taken such good care of us and shown us so many things in India we forget what happened the day before. 

He grew up in the house where we are staying, the descendent of a local prince. He went to the U.K. To study engineering and then on to the US with a job as a textile engineer for DuPont.  He worked there for 40 years, and I think I can remember him saying he moved 29 times

When he retired he decided to return to his home town and he started a school for girls in 2000. He believed you educate a girl, you educate a family. With 40 girls the first year, there are now 1100 girls with side projects like textile factory for their mothers, milk cooperatives, latrines, solar electricity, all for families who send their girls to the school. 

So he's taken us to each of these projects, after we spend the day teaching English.  We've gone to the monkey temple and a temple commemorating Lord Krishna's marriage. We've driven the city streets and back roads, checked out sugar cane production and cow patties. In this picture, we are on a sunset cruise on the Ganges. 

You may ask why?  Not really sure, other than he's genuinely touched people come all the way from the US to work with the girls. He's a great promoter of his dream and yesterday brought in a big donation from an Indian businessman. Today we participated in a fund-raising half marathon race (we walked). 

Teaching is not as easy as we thought even though it's a lot more gentle than fixing up schools. The girls are happy and enthusiastic. Very rewarding, but it's kind of hard to pop in and make a difference. Not sure it matters though since one of his primary goals is not just remove the girls from a difficult environment and let them enjoy themselves and dream of possibilities. 

Food is plentiful but very different. Living conditions are very comfortable but we wake up each morning to loud Hindi music blaring from the temple next door. 

We will be here until Thursday morning when we start the site-seeing portion of the trip. 

We hope you all are well. We hear we missed much snow in Pittsfield but we've managed to keep up with the man who everyone is laughing at here. If only it were funny.  So sad. 

So love from over here. 

Hope

This, just in from Dundee.  Wish I had a photo, or even an audio!

"We went up to Hope this weekend to see Claire perform at the annual Hope Musical Showcase, which highlights Hope's music students. It ranged from orchestras to jazz bands to the Appalachian String Band (which was tremendous). Two of Claire's roommates were featured soloists, and blew all away. One with the viola, the other alto sax. A student played an amazing song on the huge church organ with just his feet. Amazingly, out of the hundred or so performers, only a third are actual music majors. Some were Biology, some were Engineering, and some were Pre Med. The college prides itself on giving access to the Music department resources to any student who wishes. 

A moment you will probable appreciate was the opening remarks by the President, who is an ordained pastor. Keep in mind the audience was mostly older individuals and conservative. The President announced that the new music center which all were in, just received a national award for being a "green" building. The audience clapped loudly. He then remarked that he was going to tweet out this to all Hope alumni, stating "it is about time that there is a tweet that is affirming and positive."

The audience clapped and CHEERED loudly. Quite a moment."

 

bon voyage

Writing this before kick-off, with no way of knowing how I'm going to be feeling in a few hours.  Did you ever notice that a loss for your team stays with you longer than a win?  I've been spending the last 24 hours wondering what Tom Brady was doing at this precise moment.  What did he do while I took a nap?  While we went out to an Italian restaurant?  While we watched Ben Affleck and The Accountant?  While we slept in late and had blueberry pancakes.  Mary assures me he was not dong any of those things.

Great news from Joe and Leonor (below).  When we went down to DC for the Women's March, Leonor was just beginning to show.  And a boy.  A healthy boy.  Wonderful.  

We had planned to go down for the inauguration of the first woman as President, but alas.  So we did the next best thing and joined the half a million of other people on the day after.  Pretty moving and fun.  Margaret helped steer us through the orderly chaos of the metro ride and walk across the mall.  Then we stood up on the steps of the East Gallery which turned into a kind of a reviewing stand for the crowd.

We stayed with Margaret and Andrew in their nice, comfortable new home, with kitties and Dee.  We picked up Marj at the airport on the way down and there was a bedroom for her too!  Margaret and Andrew are super busy as Andrew is into his second semester of a master's program.  

After the march, we Google mapped it over to Melodie and Jeffrey's new home, which is also quite nice with a sizeable backyard.  We helped move some furniture and gave too much interior decorating advice.  They joined us the next day at Margaret and Andrew's for the football game the next day.  Leonor and Joe who had just flown in from India, also came over the festivities.

On the way down, we stopped in Hightstown for the night, and Peter and Janet joined us at the Americana Diner for dinner?  Remember that one?  They still have Grandma's favorite - a quesdilla - on the menu, and Mary ordered that one  By the way, Peter had sent down a website which said that the Americana was ranked the best diner in New Jersey.  But we knew that already, at least ranked in our minds.  Talk was mostly about what lay ahead on the political front, and their pessimism against my trying to be hopeful looks like has so far won out.  In between, we managed to hear about Johanna's new job and Sean's promotion.

This past week, the running theme has been coughing.  First Mary was sick, and we had to call off our visit to Boston for Burns night.  Luckily, since that day I also got whacked with the chest cold, and it put me in bed for most of Sunday (what a baby.)  Mary's also had this lingering stomache-dizziness issue that she thinks she may have figured out, just in time for our airplane ride this week.

We also played host to John Boyle, who had come up for a week of skiing.  And did he pick the right week.  Last week was rainy and warmer than usual; this week was cold and we even got about 6 inches of snow one day.  Marilyn, for some reason, preferred to stay down where the temperatures were climbing to the 80s.  Colleen came over with Robbie and Julie and Robbie's girlfriend Jamie one night for dinner.  Johnny left this morning on the long drive home, with guess what?  A cold and cough.

I am beginning to see how Facebook does it.  My feed right now is full of nothing but anti-Trump tirades.  Wonder why?  Because I like every one of them, and even post a few of my own.  I see I'm not the only Dickson-Boyle in this cycle.  I should probably like a few more animal or vacation posts.

So, this time next week, we'll be in India.  We depart Wednesday and are back on March 8.  We'll send along our phone number when we get it and we'll have plenty of photos for Facebook and the weekly letter.

Love from up here, 

Big News!

Hello All,

We have some big news: Leonor is pregnant! She's just finished her first trimester. Both she and the baby are healthy, and we recently found out that it will be a boy. We're both very excited, if completely overwhelmed.

Here are two pictures of the little guy. The only things that we know so far - beyond that he's healthy - is that he can't stop moving and that he clearly has the Dickson men chicken legs.

With lots of love,

Leonor, Joe, and Tom Brady Fontoura-Dickson