People and Places

Sunday, April 25th, 2004

Emily graduated from Roger Williams University last summer, and went to grad school in the fall. We’d like to see her come back for a couple more summers, but it depends on whether she can find some summer research work at the university. Rich is now coaching and teaching math full time at Souhegan. We expect to see him back part-time in May to cover Kip and Patrick’s bowling night, and full-time when school gets out.

Cyndi Kiernan’s husband, Michael, is in Iraq for an 18-month tour with his National Guard unit. We’re praying for him and trying to help Cyndi (and other soldiers’ wives) keep things together here. You know, the National Guard families do not have nearly the support structure that the regular army families do. They don’t live on a base or in a military town. They knew they could go, but they haven’t been pulling overseas tours all along. When President Bush and I were that age, the National Guard stayed here in case the North Vietnamese got past the army over there, landed in California, and fought their way over to New Hampshire. There’s a big difference between two weeks a summer in the White Mountains, and a year and a half in a desert war-zone. Oh, sorry for the editorial.

We gave Liz a special award this January: Mother of the Millennium (M.O.M.), for being our “company mother”. I didn’t know how much I needed one, until I got one! More than anyone else, Liz has developed our staff of 35 people (a third of which is under twenty) into more than a team. We’re more like an only slightly dysfunctional family! In my thirty years, I’ve never worked with a team that was so willing to help each other, to share, to care, to get along. I am very proud of her and all of them. We won a sales award from Olhausen Pool tables this year: a Caribbean cruise to Mexico and Central America. Kip and his wife Chrissy will be taking that in September.

Jeanne and I had our twentieth wedding anniversary last September. We had a wonderful dinner with our original wedding party, and laughed about how young we looked in the wedding pictures. In October, Jeanne and I renewed our vows on a cruise from New York City to Montreal. Yes, I know, we’ve been to most of the stops along the way, and could have driven that trip in a car for way less money!

We gave Liz, Taylor, and Emily college scholarships.