Wedding Bells in Lancaster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Lancaster with Love.  

  

May celebrations

A lot to report this week, so we better get right to it.  We have birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, Mothers Day, end of semester and retirement - all in one letter.  We should space these out a little more during the year.  

            The photo included here (that looks like an updated version of the Beatles at Abbey Road) is Margaret's bachelorette party this past weekend in DC.  Very happy occasion and so glad that Melodie, Johanna, Kathleen and Annie could all be in the photo (along with Emily from Wesleyan and Julie from South Africa).  It sounded like a smashing good time, that included dance lessons, dinner, karaoke and then a club.  (An aside on these photos - Pop's Weekly Letter is getting scooped by Facebook, but that's okay.  The more places we see these photos, the better)

Mary and I had driven down to DC with Annie to see Margaret one more time before the wedding.  Mary resisted going to the event herself, so we all took vicarious pleasure in hearing about the fun.  We had our own fun with Andrew and Margaret and Annie at a barbecue on Friday evening and then again on Sunday morning, probably too early for their taste.  We missed Johanna, who was staying with Jeff and Melodie, but did get a chance to see Kathleen, as we drove her to the airport on our way home.

We stayed with Gerry and Dennis, and had our own celebration and late (for us) evening made possible through a rousing game of dominoes.  A word to the wise - we intend to pick up this game in a serious way and challenge all comers who end up in Pittsfield.  We also drove by our old house in Bethesda to see a gaping hole in the ground, to be filled with a big mansion in the next few weeks.  We did get a chance to stop by and see our old neighbors who helped us shovel through some terrible winters.

Our summer is filling up.  Happily.  Peter had a great idea to go see the two best teams in the major leagues this September, out in Cincinnati.  We're also heading out to Chicago and Wisconsin by way of Rochester in June.  Speaking of Rochester, we had a nice long chat with David and Paula, and heard about Paula's art and David's trip to NYC on insurance fraud matters - not his, but some mighty big schemes.

Other major news is Andrew's impending retirement.  Can you hear the ovation and laughter and jumping for joy.  Yes, you can hear jumping.  Congratulations, big guy.  He intends to find contract work here and there, and hopes it will come into effect this July.  

Andrew wrote this about picking up Claire last week at Hope:  "We are now officially one down, three to go with Claire at Hope. Lur and I went up on Thursday and packed her up yesterday to finish the year. While packing the car at one point, on the street outside her dorm, I turned to go back to get more stuff, and was faced with two cops, one with pistol drawn and huge German shepherd, the other with an assault rifle. Needless to say, it was a moment of distress. They moved on looking for someone. On the way out of town, Claire got a text from her roommate that a local bank two blocks away, was robbed. Just in time for the start of the annual tulip festival. One does not think of Holland, Michigan having this sort of action."

            It's also the end of school term for Margaret and Annie finished this week.  Sean must be finishing up as well.  Tina?  And, of course, I finished, and have been celebrating every weekend since March - thank you Mary.

            We went to Boston last weekend to my college roommate Steve Tobolsky's 60th birthday party.   We saw his mother and brother for the first time in years, maybe since our undergraduate commencement.  We stayed with Cliff and Sheila and discussed hiking in Maine and New Hampshire this summer. 

            Happy birthday to Sean and Matthew and happy anniversary to Peter and Janet.  Soon we'll have another May anniversary for Margaret and Andrew.  We're off to Lancaster PA this week, and the big day is the 16th.  

Joe will be coming home for that big day.  He is in Poland this week for an annual European banking meeting.  He said he had a great trip up to Scotland to visit St. Andrews.

Oh and did someone forget to say Mothers Day?  Not me.  Hope all the mothers had a wonderful day.  I know one who certainly did.  

It was wonderfully warm in Washington, with leaves on the trees and the azaleas in bloom.  We'll get there.

 

Love to everyone from up here.

Spring break

This week from Daytona, Florida.  We missed the big college spring break and a bigger bike week, but we just returned from a wonderful and wonderfully warm week with John and Marilyn in their new home outside Daytona.  It's a carefree, relaxed lifestyle they have built in a community with a pool and lots of stuff to do.  Free stuff too.  

We went down last Monday after Easter Sunday here with Annie and Dan Boyle.  We did our traditional Easter dinner at the Red Lion Inn (anyone want to join, come on up).  Annie had come up Thursday in a truck with Greg hauling furniture they were going to store for a while.  Greg left Saturday, and we took Annie to the train Sunday evening.  The Easter bunny came, ate some carrots and got into the Scotch before leaving a few goodies for Sunday morning.  Anyway it was a wonderful weekend, and nice to see Dan, who is teaching swimming in New London.  Mary also is volunteering to teach swimming, to non-swimmers.  Very rewarding to see people go from fear of the water to confidence.  

Since Mary had the week off from school, and my one class had been canceled, we decided to check out John and Marilyn's new digs.  We picked a great week, for the weather.  We never wore socks or long pants, shorts and tee-shirts the whole time.  We went to the beach three times and lost track of time on the boogie boards.  Great waves, long rides.  John and Marilyn were great hosts, taking us up to St. Augustine for one day to sight-see and showing us the local scene.  It was odd, being on vacation, since there we're retired, but we embraced being on vacation from retirement.  Mary went to the local YMCA to get in her laps a couple of times, and found it was the home pool for Ryan Lochey, the Olympic medal winner.  That's excitement.  

One of the reasons she went swimming was we kind of fell way off our diets, and happily so given our Lenten no-sweets fasting.  Marilyn even found a recipe for David Eyre's pancake and surprised us one morning.  We'll have to find it ourselves, cause it was a real treat.  Trivia - where did we live when we were making David Eyre's pancakes on Sunday evenings? 

We just go off the phone with Margaret who is in Lancaster PA with Andrew putting some final touches on their big day in a few weeks.  Joe was also traveling this past week, going back to St. Andrews for the first time since he graduated.  And, he has a new job, back in Washington n the China desk for Treasury.  He'll be returning in mid-June.  ​ 

Some of you may know that Paula has been taking painting classes. This Friday her work is going to be exhibited -- congratulations!  

I had to change the e-mail for posting since at least one of you noticed last week that our site had an unwelcome addition.  I'll send around the new e-mail for posting.

And happy birthday to Peter!  Wonderful.

That means it's almost the end of April and its showers, so we're looking forward to seeing a few flowers, without snow.

Love from over here.  

How do you know it's spring?

When it's not. So sad

You know spring is here when

There's so much to talk about that's related to the weather.  First, as much as I enjoy the other seasons, there's nothing like warm weather.  The photo this week is from Timmy in Mexico, who had gone camping with friends to a place called Mulege on the Pacific Ocean.  Looks nice.

You know spring is here when....

-- the lawn mower starts on the first try.

-- the barbecue starts up on the first try (burgers last night)

-- it's burn day (to burn all the brush from the previous year)

-- you clean out the garage.

-- you see the first crocuses

-- your friend in Maine says he still has a foot of snow on the ground.

All the above happened over the weekend.  How great is that?

How do you know spring is here?  Share on this blog by writing popsweeklyletter@blogger.com.

Some news: Joe ran into the London marathon this weekend; into, not in, as he was out for a morning run and ended up running into those hurting people running the marathon.  Margaret is finishing up some big projects for her coursework, as is Annie.  Annie has been arranging a bachelorette party for Margaret as well.  Mary swam in a meet yesterday, and has been helping the economy out, shopping for our trip to Florida to see John and Marilyn next week and for the wedding.  Me, I have crossed a couple of thresholds to finalize my thesis (defense and rough draft and revisions) but still can't say I am done.  Soon, I hope.  And, channeling John Boyle, if someone ever hears me talking about a PhD, I have a baseball bat that I want you to hit me over the head with.  Knock some sense into me.

This week we opened our website for our project to return to Gabon hopefully next January: encoredelapaix.org.  

Sports has been a big part of the past two weeks; heard from Andrew who was all over the March Madness with Daniel.  He almost won the Warren Buffet 1 billion dollars on his bracket, but I think he had Wisconsin beating UConn.  Go Huskies.  And baseball has started; it's too early to look at the standings, especially if you know your team is in last place.  Go Reds, please.

Here's a new one:  April 10 is officially Siblings Day.  Sorry David, Peter and Andrew, I totally missed that one, so happy belated siblings day.  

Speaking of siblings, David has been in the news quoted on a major fraud report.  And thanks for the updates from Germany Peter; sounds like a great trip.  And on Sunday, we'll see another sibling as Dan comes up to join us for our traditional Red Lion Inn dinner (fourth year!) along with Annie.

So, happy Easter everyone.  We made it.  Love from up here.

  

Oh, and ...

Here's a picture of me with my "house" at Canford -- I'm in the front row at the left in the lighter suit:

http://www.oc-photos.com/proddetail.asp?prod=ELR6906

my roommate and still good friend Paul Mitchell is on my right.

Here's a picture of the "Second IV" rugby team:

http://www.oc-photos.com/proddetail.asp?prod=ELR6826

I am at the far left front. My friend John Hoole is the captain; he did a year at Lawrenceville when I was a freshman at Princeton.

About those Mesopotamian sculptures in John's London post ...

John's post about London mentions some Mesopotamian sculptures, and thereby hangs a tale.

The school I attended in England, Canford, was housed in part in an older English manor house designed by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament and also Highclere Manor, the site of Downton Abbey. (If you go to the school's website, you will see that the highest part of the back of the house is an octagonal tower; my study was at the top of that tower.)

Set at the end of a long cloister was the "tuck shop," English slang for a place where students can buy snacks, drinks, etc. On the walls of the shop were a number of plaster casts of Mesopotamian and Babylonian bas-reliefs, copies of sculptures collected by Lord and Lady Wimborne in the nineteenth century. (In one Downton Abbey episode, mention is made of a party hosted by lady Wimborne!) As they are wont to do, students had scribbled various graffiti on these casts. None of us knew or cared a whit about them.

Well, a few years later, a young assistant professor from Yale came to the school at the beginning of a quest to try to find out what had happened to the originals. He took a look at the casts, and – they weren't casts at all, but the ancient originals! Needless to say, the tuck shop was promptly relocated elsewhere and the sculptures carefully cleaned by a team from the British Museum. Over a period of several years, they were auctioned off, some to the British Museum and some to the Metropolitan in New York, and the abundant proceeds were used to pay for a large capital expansion of Canford, including the construction of several dormitories to house newly admitted girls.