School and moves and jobs

Mary went back to school this week.  Who else?  I know Claire and Daniel, and probably Oliver and Janet have been back for a while.  Is Myles in school yet?  How about Andrew S.?  He's starting a graduate program in public health.  Back to school for me means traffic, on my long drives to and from UMass a couple of times a week.  It's crazy how many cars there are trying to get over a bridge between Amherst and Northhampton.  Fortunately, there are podcasts and NPR and books on tape.

How about new jobs?  Sean, Margaret and Joe have started new jobs.  And Sean's comes with a badge!  Is it a first for a Dickson?  Perhaps.  Great Facebook photos from what must have been a sentimental swearing-in ceremony as assistant DA, and in the same complex as the statue of Sean's great-uncle.   

How about moves?  David and Paula are in their new house.  They moved over last weekend, and have begun the slow and not-so wonderful process of unpacking and putting things away. It's a good brain exercise as you're forced to remember where you put the forks.  Still, all the work is offset by the happiness of the location, of the front porch, of the curb appeal.  

Annie found she will be moving to Cleveland.  By November.  Her social life seems to revolve around going to weddings on weekends, sprinkled by trying to figure out what's wrong with her car.  I think the Saturn has seen its last days having surpassed 180,000 miles. 

Margaret and Andrew are also moving, as their offer on a new house was accepted.  They are busy now with the financials and organizing a closing date around Columbus Day.  Their new house is in the Brookland NE section of DC, near Catholic University.  And it has a small yard for D!  New job, new school, new house.  Adds to the stress.  Margaret's new job is Fulbright for Caribbean and Central America.  

We drove by their new house over Labor Day, when we went down for the wedding of the daughter of the Schwartzes, friends we knew in South Africa who have children the same ages as ours.  Highlight of the wedding?  A New Orleans procession over to the White House, complete with jazz band.  

We stayed with Joe who was in the final days of his China job before he switches over to the international banking office at Treasury.   He had just finished doing some nice renovation work to the parking area behind his house, making it a nice outdoor area for sitting.  Look for Grandma's glass top tables there soon!  Leonor was in Portugal.

Which is where we are going this week.  Joe is heading out today, and we will be on our way Wednesday.  Look for many Facebook posts from there over the next two weeks.

Speaking of Facebook, we see Tina had jury duty - and from her tone I can't tell whether she liked it or not.  It is a break in routing and she took advantage of the downtime to take in the city sites.

John and Marilyn are here now.  Actually not, they're at Kara and Brian's, but they were here and are coming back. In their down time, Johnny cut the grass and did some plumbing work in our basement (obrigado - practicing my Portuguese for thanks so much!)  Marilyn also arranged our dish towel drawer, and I really should put a picture of that in the letter, or at least on Facebook.  We had a nice Boyle cousins dinner here which was very nice.

So, I got through a whole letter without an advertisement for Trump's new hotel in DC.  Ooops, I did it.

Hope you are well, thriving even.  Love from up here.

Still summer

And, the glorious summer continues.  I understand for some of you, it has been not-so glorious, but just plain hot.  This is why we live here, though.  About this time of the year, amnesia has set in and we have blocked out January through May.

We played host to Margaret and D, who showed up here to spend a week in the north, in between jobs for Margaret.  She went to Boston for a visit with Annie and Andrew flew in.  They went on a search and destroy mission for beaches, and apparently found some close by, on the Cape and then in Rhode Island.  Fun.  

Margaret and Andrew returned to Pittsfield in time to join our friends from Gabon (Drew and Claire) who were driving from San Francisco to Maine when they stopped here for a couple of days.  We overlapped with Annie for about 30 seconds, before we then headed up to Maine for a weekend of relaxation in the Main woods.  Apparently, after we left, there were trips to DreamAway Lodge, golf outings and hiking for those who stayed behind.  More fun.

Then, this week we were joined here by Timmy with his new family.  They were on their way -- all the way from Los Angeles - to drop off Denisa's son, Johnnie, who will be starting a graduate program in photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.  We had a small Boyle family reunion -- dinner really -  for Timmy that included all of Colleen's family.  Timmy had left LA the day after having dinner with John and Marilyn who were beginning their drive across the country on Rte 66.  We've been following their travels on Facebook and are planning our own trip.  Looks like a lot to do on that road.  That makes three trips across country - Drew and Claire, Timmy and family, and John Marilyn.  What does that say about the price of gas?

News from Fairport is the house move is on track with final odds and ends coming together.  David passed along a wesbite with a little history of their new house: http://www.perintonhistoricalsociety.org/index.php/history/preservation/newman-cotter.html

We see from Facebook that the Pennington Dicksons convened for a four-hour Bruce Springsteen concert.  We know that was a highlight, because anytime he gets on stage he seems to out-do what he has done before.

And, out west, on the frontier, Daniel has started college, and has opted for an 8am class.  He's going to be studying business. Speaking of business, Billy is close to launching his new start-up.  Claire was home for a few days, before she headed back to Hope College, followed the next day by Andrew and Lur with the rest of Claire's stuff.  Andrew has picked up a second evening of working in a food bank.

In less than a month, we'll be boarding a plane for Portugal.  We got our new passports so we're ready.  Leonor has already left, but will be spending time in London doing work-related things for a couple of weeks before heading to Lisbon.

Finally, the Olympics are over.  We loved watching them, but they ate up all of our entertainment and evenings.  No more Phelps, Bolt, Biles and Ledecky.  Pretty amazing though.

The Olympics meant that I put my reading on hold, although I have made it through quite a few of my summer reading list - Caro (Volume 2 of LBJ) and Bretton Woods, Melville (Pierre) and Berkshire industry.  

Other than that, same old Shaker Village, UMass, Arrowhead and Preserve Pittsfield electoral campaign, and trying to sneak in a nap where possible. 

Looking forward to a long weekend coming up, but one that unfortunately means the end of summer.  Not yet.

Love from up here.   

Signs of autumn

I hate to say it, but the first trees are starting to turn.  There are only a few, but it's unmistakeable.  Our local weather guy ends his report each day telling us the precise times for sunrise and sunset and how many minutes we lose each day.  Sad.  The only consolation is the sun is rising later, letting us sleep a little later.

As you can see from the picture of today's haul - blueberries, tomatoes, green beans, cucumber, squash and lettuce - it's also harvest time for the garden.  We've had our best bumper crop of lettuce, and should have mountains of beans over the next week or so.  Planted this time for the first year were beets, and those are doing very well too.  In fact, what's not doing well?  The woodchucks.  Very little sign of them this year.  Thank you kitty.

As you've seen from all our Facebook postings, we have been up to our necks in local politics, specifically to get placed on the November ballot a question about raising funds for historic preservation -- and parks and housing.  This past Tuesday, after a marathon City Council meeting that considered and voted in favor of banning circus animals, we achieved our first success, to get approval for our referendum question to be on the November ballot.  So, after convincing 11 people, now all we have to do is convince 4-5000 people.  Not even sure how to go about that.  But it sure makes the election this November something besides Trump for us.

We're also into our season of visitors.  Margaret is here right now as she took a week off before she starts her new job.  She is heading to Boston for a few days mid-week to be with Annie, and we get to keep D here.  Camp Dad for dogs.

Foreign service friends were here last week (Larry and Ellen) and Gerry and Dennis are here now.  Next week, our colleagues from our Gabon project will be here, driving all the way from San Francisco.  And then, we're off to Maine for the weekend.  No rest for the weary.  We love it.

It's funny.  Gerry and Dennis have been here in July in past years, and it's usually our hottest time.  So this year, they decided to wait until August, and guess what?  It's the hottest, most uncomfortable time of this summer.

Anyone watching the Olympics?  Of course, but especially Mary's swim coach.  He has the team doing the events from the night before at the morning practice.  I think Mary came in as close to Katie Ledecky as lane 7 did in the 800 freestyle.  Pretty incredible, huh?  We're recording it all, but don't have time to watch the taped show, since the live events keep getting in the way.  Of course, we could just fast forward through the ads and Mr. Costas interruptions. 

Mary is pulling a Pop this summer - she painted the porch, the back one, or what used to be the front porch.  She said it was looking like "tobacco road" and now it looks like Hyannisport.  Almost.  No, not even close, but still a lot nicer.

Annie is off in South Carolina this weekend for a friend's wedding, and Joe and Leonor are supposed to have completed their renovation to their back driveway/patio.  We see on Facebook that Oliver is getting ready for school track (or maybe for next year's Mt. Springs "round the lake" 5 miler.  We also see that Jeff and Melodie are back in Rhode Island for some quality beach time.  We also saw a bunch of photos from Peter and Janet's post-Mt. Springs trip, for Janet's annual theater accessibility conference in Pittsburgh.

Claire should be finishing up her camp any time now, and Daniel is putting in the hours at Sherwin Williams this summer.  We expect that David and Paula are mightily busy with their upcoming move.  

So, hope everyone is managing the heat, not like me.  I mowed the lawn, two and half hours and a loss of four pounds.

Anyway, that's a warp - stay cool and love from up here.  

Road Trip!

We are back from our road trip to Pittsburgh and other points in Pennsylvania. We had planned a longer voyage, but meetings in N.J. summoned us back. On our way out, we stopped at Valley Forge, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Fort Necessity. In Pittsburgh, Janet did three intensive days of the LEAD conference (Leadership Exchange In Arts And Disabilities) while I did two days of fishing and ran errands. We then spent two days in Erie before heading home. Highlights and lowlights:

- This trip corresponded with very contentious days on the electoral front. Lots of conversations at the conference and meals. I truly wonder how this will turn out and how history will view it. It's not likely to be a high point in the nation's history.
                   
- Pittsburgh has made a pretty good recovery from the loss of its status as a leading steelmaking and coal mining center. We had LEAD functions in the Andy Warhol Museum and the Children's Museum. Andrew Warhola was a very successful commercial artist in New York City before he became the Andy Warhol we all know today. And he was a very gifted artist well beyond soup cans.

- The Children's Museum has mementos of Fred Rogers, a Pittsburgh native. The Heinz Center, a collection of museums in a re-purposed warehouse, has the original set for the show.

- Fallingwater is literally built on top of a stream and small waterfall, as the summer home of the Kaufmans, owners of Pittsburgh's largest department stores, now part of Macy's. It's spectacularly beautiful. Edgar Kaufman joked about the problems created by the moisture by saying the house should instead be called "Mold Rising." It costs over $4 million today just to maintain. But hats off to a very nice visitor experience: nice visitor center, low key and knowledgeable tours.

- Valley Forge was not quite the everybody froze to death experience we commonly think of. It was a turning point in the war, because the German Baron Steuben drilled the eager Continentals and militias into a formidable disciplined fighting force. Also a well maintained visitor experience. Lots of information about the many petty jealousies of officers who thought they should have commanded the Continentals, and the lack of cooperation by the Continental Congress. No wonder a new Constitution was written.

- Fort Necessity was built by Colonel George Washington of the British Army in what we call the French and Indian War (the Seven Years War in Europe), in the middle of a meadow surrounded by woods. The French and Indians did not deign to come out of the woods and shot Washington's detachments to shreds. It's the only time Washington ever surrendered.

- We spent a day in Erie, on Lake Erie, enjoying the magnificent Presque Isle State Park, surprisingly no charge for admission, and the Maritime museum, well telling the story of Commodore Perry's successful defeat of the small British Navy (he borrowed the famous "Don't Give Up The Ship" slogan.)

- Lots and lots and lots of trucks on the Pa. Turnpike and I-80. Lots.

- As I've noted before, it is hard to find good nutritious food on the road.

- There is nothing in north central Pennsylvania. However, there is a town called Jersey Shore.

- The LEAD is sponsored by the Kennedy Center, and features lots of good stories about advocates like Janet all over the country. Next year's conference will be in Austin.

- On our way back, we went by the exit for Tannersville, Pa. Lots of good memories.

- Once again, I was reminded that we live in a beautiful country.

Happy Birthday Grandma

Ten years ago, we were in Mountain Springs for Grandma's 80th birthday.  That get-together followed up two other trips to the Poconos and now it looks like this might be an annual tradition.  The verdict this year - even more fun than last year.

Even though this is a tradition, we may have started some new ones this year.  Like Daniel's haircuts.  Like Donald's birthday celebration!  (and Mary's!)  Like the two-lap, around the lake running race (that Sean won in a last-minute surge.)  Like the next generation dinner!  Like water balloon contests.  I'm sure there were some others but these are what I can remember.

Other highlights?  Hanging at the beach.  Laughing on the porches.  Wildlife - snapping turtles (Andrew some them), snake in the water, spider on the dock, deer drinking water.  Fishing - David caught two large fish, a perch and a bass.  Seeing the progress Matthew is making - what a journey over the past nine months.  

And we talked.  There was talk of house hunting and house moving.  It had to be a welcome reprieve for David and Paula from weeks of packing and rides to the dump and Goodwill.  There was talk of the visit to the water park for Matthew, Tina, Oliver and Donald.  There was talk of a wedding in Portugal!  Talk of those who couldn't join us - Bill and Jen and children and Claire.  Talk of new jobs (Margaret and Sean.)  Talk of travel to Denver (Annie) and to Portland (Margaret) and to Green Lake (Andrew and Lur.)  Talk of books we're reading - Sean may have had the most intimidating book - criminal procedure.

I actually don't remember anyone talking about a certain Presidential candidate.  Okay, just a little.  Okay, quite a bit.

Mary and I talked the whole way home about how fast it went. You know it went well when everyone wants to stay an extra day, and when we sign up already for next year.  

It took us a day or two to unpack.  We got the kabob leftovers (thanks David and Paula, Andrew and Lur) and I made about $5 from bottle and can returns.  

Thanks to everyone who pitched in and made this a great weekend.  Thanks for taking the time and braving the traffic and withstanding the heat.  We love you all.  

What A Treat

It was wonderful seeing all of you again. I am reminded that over the course of my professional career I have had the responsibility of dealing with families with grudges and worse, and the contrast with our family couldn't be more plain. We have many gifts from Mom and Pop, but one of enormous lasting value is that they wove us into a true family, much of it by example. Thank you all.

July 12

In honor of Annie's birthday today, I found a photo from last year (only kidding, 1993) of another July 12.  In the background, waiting patiently for their turn at the Kenwood pool slide are Joe and Sean.  Seems like only yesterday.  Actually not - seems like a long time ago.  We expect to see Annie tomorrow night on her way back from a day of work in Schenectedy, but we won't be having a pool party for her.  I hear there may be ice cream cake though.  Any takers?  It's Ben and Jerry's. Now, are there any takers?

If not, more for me.

We're still in the first half of summer which is nice.  We decided this year not to travel anywhere for more than a couple of days.  One of those visits took us to DC, where we were treated to a mother and child reunion to see Paul Simon with Margaret and Joe and their wonderful spouses -- and Dennis and Gerry.  We had lawn tickets at Wolf Trap which meant  the risk of afternoon/evening showers.  They did not disappoint, as it poured while we were waiting in line to get in.  That would have happened even if we had seats inside, so it was nice when things cleared up for our picnic and then our concert.  He's got a qute a range of songs over the years, and his latest album continues his evolution.  

While there, we also had a barbecue at Joe and Leonor's, where we saw Jeffrey, Melodie, Margaret and Andrew.  Leonor was getting ready for a long visit by her mother.  We had dinner with Foreign Service friends and then Mary stayed a few more days to visit with her teacher friends.  I drove home and on the way home stopped in Lawrenceville for lunch with Peter and Janet.  They spilled the news that Sean is starting a new job as an Assistant DA for Newark in September.  Congrats!  

David and Paula are tackling head on their move and putting in long hours cleaning out, taking stuff to the dump and to Goodwill, and getting ready to "stage" their house for sale.  As luck would have it, they had an offer even before the house was listed, and it looks like that will go through.  (Hope I didn't jinx it!)  It's not luck, however - it's hard work.

Out in the far west - or at least Wisconsin if that counts - Andrew and Lur took their annual week on Green Lake, and this year they were joined by Bill and Jen, Miles, Auden and Elliot.  Dan was there with a friend, and Claire, who is working at a camp on the lake came by for a couple of days.  Wish we were there with you.

Other travel news:  Annie had a work trip out in Denver, where she met up with her friend who she spent a year with in Natick after college.  Margaret is out in Portland now, connecting with her exchange groups who are here for the summer.  And, we hear that John and Marilyn are planning a long drive along Route 66.  

How was your 4th of July?  Did you go to a parade?  A picnic?  A James Taylor concert?  WE DID!  And we took the 5th off, we were so tired.  But it was fun, and the fireworks after the JT concert (he goes by JT to his friends) at Tanglewood were pretty amazing.  Shock and awe, with an incredible crescendo ending of rapid fire explosions.  How will they top that next year?  We will probably not know, but we're glad we did this once.  Hope your 4th included some or all or even more of the above.

We were also moved by the week's news.  We had just seen a play on race and policing called "American Son," and our friends who went with talked about knowing an Ethiopian woman whose son was mistakenly killed by police.  Then Baton Rouge and St. Paul and Dallas.  Stunned.  Our minister on church on Sunday responded with a moving message of the reading which happened to be the story of the Good Samaritan. If you have ten minutes, I recommend it: https://soundcloud.com/st-stephens-pittsfield/july-10-2016  

We are sure to talk about this and many other subjects when we all get together in the Poconos.  Until then, we hope you are all well, and love from up here.

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