2005 Tuesday Letters

Tuesday, February 6, 2005
Celebration, FL 34747
Past present and future are three aspects of the same experience.
Tom Groome, "What makes us Catholic" That pretty much sums up our lives since I last wrote. Between sports and politics the newspapers remind us weekly from whence we come. Our new camping guide arrived in late January to help us decide our future and then there's our present, which is becoming past even as I write. When we arrived home, no one really knew our name except Jen, poor woman. She�d had the condo to herself for almost 2 months before we came in with 2 dogs and the full contents of the motorhome (you would not believe what we'd put into 286 square feet!!!!!!!) You�ve read about the challenges parents have when adult children return to the nest? Reverse them. Lucky for her she was brought up to speak up and we've finally gotten into a routine that works for all of us, most of the time. And, people are beginning to know who we are. We work at Disney 3 or 4 shifts a week, I found a little church that has 27 members where Communion really feel like we're sharing a meal, maybe because we meet in the school cafeteria?? We also joined the gym. Art works out upstairs while I do fibromyalgia and arthritis classes in the therapy pool. I have neither condition, but I threw my back out at my first water aerobics class in November and the trainer suggested I take my time in developing my range of motion. Taking time. Isn�t that an odd phrase? As if time were an object instead of a process. Time has two aspects. There is the arrow, the running river, without which there is no change, no progress, or direction, or creation. And there is the circle or the cycle, without which there is chaos, meaningless succession of instants, a world without clocks or seasons or promises. Ursula Le Guin The Dispossessed The fall felt very much like a running river. We arrived in Florida the day the Red Sox and Yankees began the American league play-offs. The next Saturday, with the Red Sox down 0-3, in a conversation with my nephew, I implied that it was a given that the Yankees would win not only the title, but also the World Series. Eric said �well Beth, that's why they play seven games. Ta - da!!!!! That's why they play seven games. The phrase has been a mantra as we've driven up and down the central Florida parkways finding mechanics and medical folk to help us maintain our vehicles and our health. No crises , the RV and car needed warranty repairs, and we were both due for over 50 preventative tests, but its taken time to learn the system. Next year we�ll learn the back roads. At times I rather envy our ancestors who knew which herbs on the side of the road would cure whatever as they traveled where-ever to settle in the promise land � but then again it took them 6 months to go across a pretty wild country. It will take us the same amount of time to travel the country�s perimeter, and we�ll be welcomed wherever we go. (Our plan is to head to CA at the end of April to see a taping of "Ellen" and wish Disneyland Happy Birthday in June before heading to Oregon where were volunteering at an RV weeklong event in July. We�ll be at a friend's wedding September 10th on Cape Cod and then a folk festival in Kentucky on my birthday in October.) With both the Super Bowl and the State of the Union over, the cyclical nature of time is presenting itself. Someone once told me that February only has 28 days because it's the longest month in the year. My mom used it as a time to catch up on her reading, but even her positive attitude struggled with winter until she discovered the UCONN women"s Basketball team whose season usually lasts until the Red Sox"s opening game. As much as he loved them my dad was too passionate to find sports as relaxing as Mom did, and my reactions during the Steelers/ Patriots game confirmed that I'm more like my dad than my mom. Poor Art thought I was going to have a heart attack as my loyalties were torn by my past (New England) and present - I"ve met a lot of people from Pennsylvania that I like a lot! One was a boy of 12 who was waiting to watch the fireworks at Epcot the Sunday before the big game. He and I chatted about the possibility of an all Pennsylvania Super Bowl and must have bonded far more than I realized because 3 minutes before the show began he asked "Where was Sri Lanka on 9/11?" I was quite moved that he felt respected by me enough to trust me with such a profound question, the source of which I've been pondering ever since.
Peace and good__________,
Beth
P. S. The boy and I managed to have a conversation in between the fireworks and I may have opened his heart a little by reminding him that they didn�t have the resources on 9/11, but they prayed for us. Tip O�Neill said, "All politics is local." My conversation with this young man reminded me that it's all personal. The tragedy in Sri Lanka was personal for my cousin Caitrin Lynch who studied there, has friends there and with them has started an organization to bring Solar Energy to Sri Lanka because she knows the hope as well as the tragedy. The organization is fundraising nowcheck them out at http://www.rebuildsrilankasolar.org/
On a smaller, but no less important scale, our friends the Polnys are doing a fundraiser in Holliston for the Magic Foundation: an organization for families of children with rare growth disorders that meets annually in Chicago. They've gotten tremendous support from these folks and would like to give a little back to the travel scholarship fund. You can learn more about MAGIC atwww.magicfoundation.org/

P.P.S. Art says thanks to all of you who supported the Junior Achievement (for inner-city Orlando) Bowl-A-Thon. Next time we�ll catch you up on the Circus and Traveling Show Education Project. We make a presentation in Tampa on Saturday.
Tuesday, April 25, 2005 Spirit of the Suwannee Campground Live Oaks, Florida �Make new friends and keep the old. One is Silver and the other Gold. Girl Scouts of America Greetings friends and family, from the Florida that God built, now that we've left the one built by Walt Disney that we love also. We began our journey on April 22nd, Earth Day 2005. How ironic is it that? On the one hand, we expect to get a little more than 8 mpg if we travel at 55mph. On the other we�re developing a much greater appreciation for the challenges facing our environment. Just today we couldn't take a canoe ride because the river was flooded, and so we watched the Suwannee River swirl. It floods with any major rainstorm because of runoff from the Okefenokee swamp in GA that's been redirected by a dam built for somebody's benefit, I�m sure. (Why am I thinking about the book Empire Falls here?) Moving every six months sure helps one define priorities. After 2 trips to Goodwill we were left with the 500 pounds of stuff we find necessary for life, clothes, food, 2 shelves of books and music, three cases of high tech equipment and one dog. (We put Chewie down about the time the Terry Schiavo case ran away with itself. End of life decisions are intense.) Our last day at "work" was special, all alone at 6:30 am we waltzed to Disney love songs past the Beauty and the Beast Topiary on the Epcot Promenade on our way to host a wedding. We spent the rest of the week enjoying how the many dimensions of our lives intertwine. My church prayed for our Circus ministry, one of our Epcot friends left a donation for it in our mail box, we saw my second cousin Sinead Lynch perform in a show choir competition at one of the resorts and met Izzy and Nina Doonan and their parents at a "Princess Dinner" in Epcot the day before we left. (The girls, ages 6 and 11, were pre-school students of mine in Holliston.) And then, as we headed out, and I turned onto the Florida Turnpike, my niece Erica calls Art to talk about plans for her family�s January, 2006 WDW vacation! We'll miss the hum of languages on the Epcot backstage bus as we and the international staff ended each day, the privilege of making someone's day "magical" (the most poignant this year was giving a marine and his girl VIP viewing for the fireworks a few days before he returned to Iraq) the rhythm of Hispanic family conversations in the supermarket, the compliments about our "little town" from tourists who poke their heads into the volunteer library that I staff two hours a week. And we're looking forward to the next six months. Beyond being sure that we'll be in Arizona for Memorial Day, Oregon on the Fourth of July and Massachusetts for Labor Day, we're trying to be flexible so that we can meet as many circus folks as possible as we travel the perimeter of the country. AND we'll stay on the perimeter this year. This morning we rode our bikes with only 20psi in the tires when they need 60. Art said the resistance we felt was similar to the difference between a gas and a diesel engine going over mountains. Seeing as the gas engine will not benefit from Cardio-vascular exercise...We will though. Our plan is to exercise 1 minute/mile. Art won a pedometer in an exercise challenge at the gym and I am very motivated after spending Tuesdays and Thursdays in water aerobics classes with people in their 80�s. We spent a few weeks with a personal trainer who taught us how to encourage and coach each other, Art laughs a lot doing strength exercises in the pool and if he motivates me to exercise every day between now and June 1st he'll treat us to 2 nights at the Disney Hilton so we can attend Disneyland�s 50th Anniversary Party. We'll keep you posted: check out http://www.peaceandgood.us in a few weeks. Art hopes to post our exercise log, reading lists and links to interesting stuff there whenever we have access to high speed internet. Right now we access the internet thru our cell phone so we only use it nights and weekends (it's 65 cents a minute otherwise and we�re saving our pennies for gas J) and it's wicked slow. There is something to be said for slow communication . The text of Founding Mothers, by Cokie Roberts, draws from the letters of the women behind the men who declared independence in 1776. Knowing the letters could be read by anyone before they were read by their intended, knowing that the letters may not ever be read, words were carefully chosen to convey the truth of their lives and the challenges of everyday. And so we'll learn patience because we do want to keep in touch with you all. �Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold. I flew to Massachusetts for the funeral of my friend and my sister-in-law�s mother, Marie Constant, the week that the cardinals were gathering to bury Pope John Paul II. In the 48 hours there, I shared meals with two friends who have the same April birthday as my mom, gave each of my siblings a hug, met the pre-schoolers Merri teaches and watched West Wing with her friend Geoff, every minute feeling blessed by Marie and Mom. I wonder sometimes at the outpouring of grief when a celebrity dies. As a Catholic I was raised to believe that no one is more deserving of God�s love than any other, and while my father would be embarrassed (and rather flattered) to hear that I believe he deserves the same accolades for living his life as well as did John Paul II, my mother would say �Damn right. (I do have some perspective: while writing a reply to a friend from Israel who sent a note of condolence when the pope died, I remembered my sorrow at the death of Menachem Begin - I felt like the Grandfather of the world had died, and mourned his loss as a great- grandchild would. Did you know he was Polish too?) And I�m thinking about my new friends Jim, Linda and Dot, all influential in their respective circles, all not 100 percent well, and the many of you on this list whose lives have changed in this past year. We carry you all in the 286 square foot box we call home.
Peace and good_______,
Beth



Thousand Trails RV Resort,
Soledad Canyon Acton, CA
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Memories of East Texas, and its piney green rolling hills. I started humming Michelle Shocked songs as we left Louisiana for the slow climb to Livingston, Texas and continued until we reached the desert where Marty Robbins�s voice took over (�. Daa-dee--da-da-da, the streets of El Paso) A month ago we were at the flooded Suwannee River; today we're next to the Santa Clare River bed in Acton CA, 3400 above sea level where its so cool that the motorhome heat comes on in the morning, but it�s too dry to risk a fire. As we look back on the past month a few images stand out: the impact of the 2004 hurricanes on Florida's Gulf Coast, the old man who stopped his pick-up truck to check out the very long non-poisonous snake that had Zak and me immobilized at a campground in Alabama, the plains above Texas� Colorado River that had more deer than people at the campground, the moment when, on a sunset walk to Lake Medina north of San Antonio we realized we �weren�t in Kansas anymore. (Okay, so we haven�t been to Kansas yet). Maybe it was the altitude, maybe it was the slow uphill grade, but I think it was the beauty of the scrub pine, sage and flowering cactus that took our breath away. Mother Nature took our breath away over and over during the 2 weeks it took us just to drive across Texas, but what moved us most were the stories of survival and community carved out by the peoples who formed the cultures still very much alive in the southwest. We went to San Antonio to see The Alamo and found a really tiny park surrounded by the 7th largest metropolitan area in the US, When we entered the building, the signs that told us to remove our hats and be quiet because we were in a �Shrine to Liberty� smacked of idolatry to me, and snuffed out the idealism burned into my childhood by Disney�s �Davy Crockett�. Little is made of the Alamo�s faith-based origins because by the time Crockett et al died there in 1836 the Franciscans had gone. The Friars came to the area in the early 1700�s to build a series of missions, communes really, where the natives could learn to govern themselves as Spanish Catholic Citizens while the Spanish military defended them against the "savages", i.e. - the Apache and Comanche who refused to convert or be confined. The ones who survived both foreign diseases and the wars around them are known as Tejanos whose culture and faith, drawn as much from the Aztecs as the Spanish, are the heart of small, vibrant parishes like the one at the Mission of San Jose (built a few years before the Alamo!) and in not so small businesses (We stopped on Charra's Tortillas and Salsa!). The survivors� pride with which the Tejanos told their story reminded me of the Cajun tour guide who took us down the river near Lafayette, LA. But I�m ahead of myself. Our first long stop after leaving Florida was a week touring Louisiana's Mississippi Delta. We walked Bourbon Street, but I didn�t like it very much because I�m more Cajun than Creole I guess. The Creoles descend from the French Aristocracy; the Cajun community is made up of descendants of the Catholic Acadians deported by the British from Nova Scotia, and free blacks from Haiti who were invited by the Spanish to farm the land so they�d defend it against the British. The Spanish sold the land to the French who sold it to the US before the British invaded in 1814. On a riverboat ride through New Orleans� Harbor we sailed past the sight of The Battle of New Orleans which didn�t have to be fought because a treaty had been signed weeks before guaranteeing the lands of the Louisiana Purchase would never again be owned by the British, the French or the Spanish. But no one considered the Mexicans who thought they owned Texas. Which brings us back to the Alamo. We traveled 150 miles off the Interstate to see the Alamo of the Movies because the real Alamo doesn't give one the experience of the isolation of the west. And we weren�t disappointed. The prairie is lonesome, the weather unpredictable, the desert surreal, and if we were to spend more time there we too would wear boots to protect us from rattlesnakes and bandanas to keep the sand out of our lungs. John Wayne built the replica of the Alamo and a small �frontier town� in Brackettville, TX. We watched the documentary on the making of the film and were reminded how politics, like the desert sand, invades everything. It�s said that the film didn�t receive the Oscars it deserved because it�s publicist implied it would be Un-American to vote against it, and Hollywood didn�t buy into intimidation. We also remarked at how much John Wayne�s voice and mannerisms reminded us of the President. � While in Brackettville we camped at Fort Clark Springs RV Park. A military installation for almost 100 years, the fort is now a community much like the one imagined by the Franciscans of San Antonio, only the folk heritage here is Mexican, Apache and German Catholic. The community�s spring-fed swimming pool, larger than a football field, was refreshing in the 100 degrees desert heat, and the story of the pool was equally delightful. It seems that in the late 1930's the Fort's commander, General Wainwright, ordered the pool built as a �watering trough� for his cavalry's horses. The fort was decommissioned after World War II so the general who served in Europe during the war never benefited from his miss-appropriation of funds. While most of the month has been spent in Texas we had a month�s worth of experiences in our week in Arizona. I felt at home in Tombstone, maybe because my first favorite TV shows were westerns? Beth Frigard, a friend from Holliston who now lives in Tucson gave us an auto tour of the University of Arizona, the city's churches and their gardens. We'll visit again some fall day when it will be safe to get out of the car. Art put ice in the Jacuzzi at the campsite that night because the 110-degree heat had made the swimming pool too hot for swimming! We celebrated Memorial Day with a visit to the Kateria Tekawathia Mission and the Poston Monument both on the reservation of the Colorado River Indian Tribes (C.R.I.T). Japanese Americans were interred in Poston during WWII and the monument serves as a reminder of the shame that can result when a government reacts with fear. The C.R.I.T. still have a productive commercial farm started with federal funds given to them so they and the Japanese could farm together, but they also profit from the Casino down the mountain from the London Bridge. That�s the real London Bridge, folks, bought by a man of vision who saw that Lake Havesue, created by the Parker Dam which was built to control the flow of the Colorado River had the potential for being a play space for busy Californians. Art said �No� when I asked if it was possible to recycle the petroleum residue left in the lake and river from the powerboats and jet skis over the holiday weekend, but far be it from us to judge our CA sisters and brothers on their use of gasoline. We get 8 mpg on a good day. And they, like us counter what some would consider excess with positive initiatives. We�d just crossed the border from AZ into CA when we saw wind farms. Everywhere. Those of you who know me well know that I have a tendency to battle windmills. In the future, I'll draw on my experience of the surprisingly diverse, surprisingly Catholic, peoples of the Southwest and with quiet pride claim my identity. I'm a Roamin Catholic right now getting ready to go to Disneyland.
Peace and good _______,
Beth
P.S. Thanks to our friend Paul Lotfy, we have our own domain name. Check out http://peaceandgood.us for links to the places we've been and pictures of our journey so far.

Yosemite Interlude After 6000 feet of right angle turns we enter a cloister defined by waterfalls. All of humanity is not found here. This is not the only most beautiful place in the world. In the Mariposa Meadows (named for the butterflies who meet there) Giant Sequoia remind us of New York City. Our prayer rises with the smoke Of fires set to strengthen the ancient trees We know that all we are is part of All That Is We ask only that we never forget.
Beth June, 2005
The Army Corps of Engineers' Plymouth Campgroundon the shore of the Columbia River


Plymouth, WA
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
We were headed toward Disneyland when we last we wrote, and what a time we had there. We spent two days, didn�t ride a ride, didn't buy a thing (well, almost didn�t) and had a wonderful time! I danced with the characters at the Pixar Block Party and we were in the middle of the fiftieth birthday celebration fireworks. No kidding, the music is surround sound and the fireworks are shot up from all around the park! That would have been the highlight of our trip if we hadn�t had ice cream with the Hoff family. They�re friends Art met thru a Disney chat room when they were looking for pressed pennies for their world-renowned collection and Art was going to info on Tokyo Disney. We spent several hours with them talking about everything but Disney, then they left to pack for a vacation in NYC, Art went to the Disney Kennel to walk Zak and I toured Disney's version of Route 49 to get ready for our trip to the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite National Park. Route 49 was the road carved out by heavy traffic in 1849, and we were advised not to drive the motorhome on it, so we took the main road up the mountain. I was doo-da-doodling along until we started the switchbacks. The motorhome had no trouble with the right angle turns, 10 � 15 in 10 miles in which we went from 300 to 3000 feet above sea level, but I became euphoric so I pulled onto the turnout built on the edge of the mountain and asked Art to drive. Had I known we only had another 1000 ft to climb I might have stayed with it, but Art deserved a little fun. J A ranger told us of a simpler way down the mountain, and we used our computer�s topographical map to find it. While �life is not a dress rehearsal� for me, Art believes in practice, and we were both grateful he insisted this time. �Topo� had Buck Meadow Road marked as a county road - � mile down, it turned into a cow path. After a return to the main road and another almost good choice, we found the road the ranger suggested and a town where time stopped a century ago, but not really. Check www.peaceandgood.us for pictures of Coulterville and Yosemite. If you have been to our web site before, you may need to click the "Reload" button, on your web browser, to get the new information. A visit with my cousin Louise and her husband Mike the first night out of Yosemite helped us reconnect to the world as our conversation flowed from family past and present through politics, literature, religion and back again. I find it delightfully ironic that L & M, who live in an unassuming house and find joy in the classics of all cultures, live on Self-Esteem Lane, so named by the people who live in the "Big House" at the end of the street and edit the, Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I'd be surprised if many people in rural California or Oregon read those books, though. They seem to know they�re okay just by fishing. Lakes and rivers are lined with multi-generation families sitting in their canvas chairs and when we told folks we didn�t fish they�d look at us with more than a touch of sympathy in their eyes. We were so moved that we decided we'd buy a portable boat at the Great North American Rally as our Anniversary present, but by the time we got to shop together, the model we�d each chosen was sold out. The Rally is a combination trade-show and giant party for RVers and we�d explored the 500 vendor booths on our own because our volunteer assignments had us working different shifts. Art helped to park 5600 rigs in 3 days, I helped to register the 12,000 people that were in them and then I served tea to 1000 Red Hatters! My hat goes off to the people who put on the party part. Trying to find six nights of entertainment for people whose only common interest is their lifestyle is a no-win task. Of the two we liked, our favorite was the group �Triple Gold� made up of the lead singers for the Association, the Four Preps and the Diamonds. They started the show by telling us their successes AFTER being teen idols in the 50�s and 60�s, which gave those of us sitting with people we hadn�t yet met when we first danced to the love songs they sang, permission to remember the past while celebrating the present. I did tear up a bit listening to "I'll be yours until the mountains turn to valleys" knowing the number of recently widowed folk I'd registered, but I might have been extra sensitive to grief (are we surprised?). My Aunt Jane (97) and her son Michael (63) both died in the first week of July, and July is the month in which we celebrate both my parents� �transition into new life (mom would rather we remember her birthday, I think). Then of course there was the London bombing so soon after the Fourth of July. I try really hard to keep conversation light, but there must be something about my smile that invites people to share that they are afraid for our country, "not so much for me", they say, �but for my grandchildren.� and it's not terrorists they're concerned about. I�m not afraid, but I am deeply concerned. When the entertainers at the Rally joked about politics (and it didn�t matter which side of an issue they were poking fun at) half the crowd didn�t laugh. They didn�t boo, they just didn�t laugh, and we now know the sound of one hand clapping. Perhaps we wouldn�t be quite so divisive if members of Congress traveled in an RV to opposite ends of the country during their summer recess. When one moves every week, one's sense of home changes dramatically. While President Bush spoke about the hard work it takes to win a war, I chose to watch an Oregon Public TV special about the challenge facing the people of the Klamath River Basin who want the fish to return to the river but are dependent on irrigation for agriculture. No matter the resolution, something precious will be lost. Talk about sacrifice! I can't imagine eating salmon or trout again without being in commune with my Oregon neighbors. Our country is so big and we have so many neighbors! We were going to go from "sea to shining sea" but to go from Yosemite to the Rally via the Washington Coast would have been like traveling from Niagara Falls to Baltimore via Cape Cod, so we drove the valley between the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada which is why we were in Klamath Falls, and how we ended up at Crater Lake. I�d like to volunteer there some summer, but I say that at every National Park we visit. We�re onto Yellowstone tomorrow.
Peace and good_____,
Beth
P.S. A correction re: General Wainwright mentioned in the last letter. My brother wrote, "As a cavalry officer in the southwest, General Wainwright had one major responsibility: the lives of his men, which depended on the health of their horses - using the pool for them was probably not a bad thing; and he didn't save Europe: Wainwright was the general who had to surrender in the Philippines in 1942 and spent the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp; when he was freed in 1945, I think he weighed abut 110 pounds." My apologies to the General, and thanks to Bill for the information.


Tuesday, December 1, 2005
Celebration, FL
Dear All,
A call from friend Paul reminded me that there are lots of people wondering where we are and what we've been up to since we sent the last Tuesday Letter in August.(See that letter and pictures at http://www.peaceandgood.us. Here's a brief catch-up. On Columbus Day weekend we visited Barb and Sam who have just moved back to the states from England. We spent Saturday at our placetalking about the things we've all seen and done since leaving Holliston, thenSunday, while Sam and Art took Sam's 35' cabin cruiser down the river to theshore, Barb and I strolled through the New Bern N.C. Community Fair where she puther name on the mailing list of several organizations we found interesting, and I made a mental note to find similar ones in Celebration. Around four o'clockwe met the guys and decided to take a short boat ride because I'd never been outto sea. We'd just past the Morehead City Coast Guard Station, and were notyet on the ocean, when we rolled up a wave that had no backside. The boat landed,"splat" on the ocean, I landed "splat" on the seat, the EMTsmet us at the coast guard station and I spent 4 days in the pediatric ward of Carteret Community Hospital waiting for a stem to stern brace. It took 5 days for Art to drive back to Florida,andlife, for me, has been pretty much "on pause" Not "on hold" I'm not waiting for anyone or thing. J) until Thanksgiving.Our holiday started on Monday when cousins Kathy and Frank stopped in for lunchon their way to Sanibel and ended eating breakfast a week later with a childhoodfriend and his family before they flew back to Massachusetts. In between we met friendsof my brother's for a little bit, did some window-shopping in Celebration, hada pre-Thanksgiving day brunch with folks from church and attended services for thefirst time since we got home. On Thanksgiving Day, I supervised as Jen and Art cooked a simple but elegant turkey dinner and then we went to see Harry Potter. Earlier in the week I had been quite comfortable sitting with my brace unhooked in a stadium seat to watch Chicken Little, but Harry Potter was a little longer,and as he fought off whomever it was that sent him into another dimension, Jen andI suppressed giggles while she struggled to connect my brace in the dark so I couldwalk off a cramp. (Cramps are good things; they remind me that I've lots more energythan my brace will allow me to use. I'm in very little pain but no matter how onecounts it, 8 weeks doesn't add up to the 3 or 4 months the doctors have told me it takes to heal a burst vertebrae.) The limits set because of my brace have, over time, made me appreciate others, not from an "I should be grateful because it could have been so much worse perspective", but from one of solidarity and awe. Knowing that each day fora month I felt 100percent more myself than the day before, knowing that a month after the accidentmy body was still relaxing from the trauma and I was only beginning to face the magnitude of the "Could-Have-Beens", my heart goes out first to the peopleof Louisiana (Remember how we fell in love with the Cajun Community on the westernGulf Coast in the spring?) who are facing losses beyond imagining, and then to anyonewho has either moved through a crisis or supported someone else through one. (Whichis, come to think of it, just about all of you!)One of the lessons we"d learned in our travels, even before my accident, washow quickly people's lives change. Just about every where we stopped we met someonewho wasn't ever going to make the trip they'd planned, and we'd look at eachother with gratitude and in awe that we two rather conservative folk took the riskswe have to live the life we do. And then we noticed all the other people in ourworld who take risks and live interesting lives (which is also all of you!) and the awe increases.For example, look at the people with whom we spent September. 14 folk grandniecesand nephews and their parents, filled our motorhome for a Mary Poppins party, andthen they filled us in on job changes and school plans (home-schooling, Mass Maritime,Prison Guard, Entrepreneur, pending retirement, our family runs the gambit!).We moved to Plymouth to celebrate a special birthday with my aunt, had our traditionalLabor Day campout with friends, and a 24-hour visit with both Jen and Merri beforethe wedding of Katye Thatcher and John Charette. Katye's mom and I started a parents' group when the girls were babies, and our children spent so much timetogether it's as if we each have three daughters and a son (Scott, Katye's brother.)I was especially delighted to welcome John into "the family" when he beganhis wedding vows with the words "Ellis Paul"! Many of the guests werepeoplewe"d known since they, or their children, were in kindergarten and there werelots oflaughs and a few tears as we realized, yet again, how simply, indelibly, permanently,one life affects another. We moved next to our Holliston/Medway neighborhood for doctors' visits and campfire/teapotsharing, and then we headed south. My niece Kelly and her friend Doug rode with us from Connecticut to Drew University and we all agreed it was the fastest three hours we'd lived in a while. We didn't get to visit family in NYC (we'll find a way, next year!), but we did spend time with nephew Aaron and his bride-to-be in DC, and then the Baldwin Family in Reston, VA. Nora Baldwin is the daughter of my cousin Kathy with whom we started our Thanksgiving Celebration. Don't you love the way life can come full circle?
Peace and good_________,
Beth
PS - Our email list needs to be updated, so please forward this to anyone you think would like to read it. AND, if you no longer want to be on the list, please let us know that too.