Our 2023 Christmas Letter

                                                

 

     This has been a family and friends year as evidenced by the numerous photos on our Christmas card. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it helps if some words are added to give more meaning. 

Alice and I visiting her oldest grandchild Kevin and his girlfriend Alex in Minnesota this summer. 

Celebrating my 81^st birthday with Alice and good friends John and Mary Alice Bastian.

 

Alice celebrates her Reseda High School 63^rd reunion with identical twin schoolmates Jeff and Greg Schaffer.

     

My younger brother Ron and wife Kathy at our Point Arena High School reunion, his 62^ndand my 63^rd. 

Celebrating our 34^th anniversary 

Alice admires a small portion of a mural that Point Arena artist Lauren Sinnott created on 

the side of a building in our Mendocino County seat, Ukiah. 

(On a photo not on our card, Alice and Radar admire the self-portrait

 of Point Arena muralist Lauren Sinnott)

     Last year’s Vulcan Wire Christmas party includes eight of its seventeen employees.

 

 

This year's Vulcan Christmas Party

Alice founded Vulcan almost 50 years ago and CEO Mike Graffio 

has been with Vulcan for over 26 years.

  We celebrate friend James Hopenfeld’s birthday.

Friends and family at our Point Arena High School reunion. 

 Our only foreign travel took us to Speightstown, Barbados in late February for ten days, our most relaxing vacation ever. Relaxing, that is, until our flight back to Miami from Barbados. Alice and I were in the third row from the front, left-hand side. We noticed that a fellow in the front row, right-hand side, was noisily laughing. After a while Alice went forward to the restroom, passing by the noisy fellow who  had moved into the flight attendants' serving area. Soon a female flight attendant came down the aisle from that area with a roll of duct tape in her hand, and stopped to talk to a large Polynesian fellow in the next row past me. She asked him to help with an unruly passenger and he said he would, but first recruited two other big guys sitting nearby to help. 

 I was worried about Alice so tagged along, then saw her exiting the restroom. A female flight attendant told Alice to go back into the restroom, and of course she complied. Alice did see me standing behind the big guys and said that she had never seen me look more worried. 

They then confronted the fellow and told him to get back in his seat. He profanely refused, then suddenly the Polynesian grabbed him, moving faster than I thought a big guy could, and threw him into his seat and advised him to shut up, which he wouldn't. However, he noticed red liquid on his seat and suddenly calmed. He was allowed to stand up when it was found that his wine glass broke under him when he landed in his seat. 

A flight attendant went to Alice's restroom and said it was OK for her to come out, although when Alice saw her holding a red-stained towel she wasn't sure that she wanted to. But the red was only wine, not blood. First the Miami police, then the FBI came on board after the boarding ramp was connected. Questions were asked. It appeared that some witnesses would miss connecting flights, but then arrangements were made to have smart-phone videos emailed to the police. 

A moral to this story: Do something dumb like this guy did and forget having your lawyer challenge the witnesses' memories, because there will be at least half-a-dozen video recordings available to be called for evidence.

     If Alice wasn’t still working so hard on Vulcan projects, each day here in Gualala would qualify as very relaxing since we take Radar to Cook’s Beach and walk five miles or more through the woods, up the hills, and across the sand every day. Alice also makes good use of her heated (90 degrees) indoor pool and I just completed listening to all 60 hours of War and Peace while plodding away in our barn on my elliptical trainer. 

     Remember the ant and the grasshopper? Alice works, I play. Coming in late February, early March I’ll perform in “The Greatest Show”, my fifth musical since I turned 71 ten years ago, a very late bloomer. Among my seven numbers, my favorite is the duet from “Gigi”, “Yes, I Remember it Well”.

Our PA reunion was so much fun that the next one will (tentatively) be on July 26, 2025, at Ellington Hall in Santa Rosa, since most Pirates live closer to Santa Rosa than Gualala or Point Arena. Our party is going to the people! Here is the link to our Reunion Page.

Alice’s memoir “The Lady With Balls” consumed her time for seven years, and now it’s Vulcan Wire, the industrial baling wire business she founded almost fifty years ago, that keeps her very busy. Earlier this month we attended Vulcan’s Christmas party in Alameda and all seventeen employees were there for the happiest company holiday party you could imagine.  

2023 Christmas Eve in Lafayette

Front - Josie, Debbie, Jack, Daniel

 Back - Kieran, Alice, Savanah, Kevin, Me, Jeanette, Hans

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!