December 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
With two of our children in Boulder High School this year—the only school year that that will be true—we decided to build our Christmas photo around the BHS Panthers. Between classes, choir, theater and basketball, it often seems as if our family's life revolves around the 38 blocks along Arapahoe Avenue from our house to Boulder High. It's a year of transition for both Emily, who is enjoying her senior year and planning for next by completing her college applications, and Andrew, who completed confirmation in our church and has successfully made the leap from middle school to high school. We'll share some of these and other transitions and news with you in our annual attempt to connect with both distant and near friends and family.
Since the ultimate transitions are death and life, we begin by honoring the 100+ years of Janet's beloved godmother Halcyon Dowson's life. Aunt Halcyon died peacefully in July. She lived a rich and fulfilling life, full of kindness, generosity and compassion for others. She played a major and endearing role in Janet's life, and all of us miss her.
On the other side of the family ledger, our fifth grandchild, Abigail Malia Knox, was born to Sarah and Sean in Hawaii in March. The birth of another child to join sister Elena (4) was a dream come true after a long quest and many hurdles for Sarah and Sean. We will see Abby for the first time just after Christmas when they all come to Winter Park to ski with some of Sean's family. In another transition, soon after our visit to Sarah and Sean's home in Kailua last Christmas, they completed the renovation of their home and moved into a spacious new master bedroom suite.
The triumph of Emily's senior year has been her casting in a lead role as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, but you'll have to wait for next year's letter to hear about her performance since the show doesn't open until February 2009. Music continues to infuse Emmy's life as she sings in two choirs, plays in the church hand bell choir and pursues voice and piano lessons. Last spring she sang a beautiful "Hallelujah" solo by Leonard Cohen at services in First Congregational Church, accompanying herself on the piano. Other church and music related activities in the last year include a BHS choir performance at Disneyland (with Janet along as parent/chaperone), a powerful experience at a church youth work camp helping to rebuild Katrina-damaged homes in Mississippi, serving as a junior counselor at a music church camp at La Foret and for Peanut Butter Players (talk about transitions—those are both places where she began as a novice performer in elementary school) and teaching dance at Cotillion.
While not necessarily planning to major in music, Emily's college-seeking journey has focused on small liberal arts colleges that offer strong music programs and a rich campus musical life. In the last 18 months we have visited 12 college campuses with her, and she has submitted applications to seven of them, ranging from Oregon to Vermont and North Carolina, with places in between. She says she doesn't have a favorite among them, and will wait until the college's decisions in March and April to make her own decision.
Andrew's life revolves around basketball, not just playing but living. For example, for his "aperture" (culminating) project that all Horizons 8th graders were required to complete last spring, he took on the task of raising funds for the resurfacing of the school's deteriorated basketball court. He successfully raised $8,000 (!) for the project and, together with his teachers, managed the bidding, contracting and implementation of the project. This was a fine conclusion to our family's 11 years of attending and participating in Horizons K-8 Alternative School.
Andrew's graduation from 8th grade was not his only step toward adulthood this year, as he also completed confirmation and became a member of First Congregational Church. His transition to freshman year at Boulder High—a very different place from Horizons—has gone well. He has stepped up his level of responsibility and is performing well. His transition began with a developmental basketball team for Boulder High during the spring and summer that played 45 highly competitive games against teams all over Colorado and Wyoming. He was a leader of that team and is now enjoying the benefits of that experience by serving as co-captain of the school's freshman basketball team. He continues to play recreational ice hockey, serve as a dance instructor for Cotillion, and enjoy his summer camp experiences at La Foret. He is socially active, to say the least.
Our son Eric, his wife Jeanette, and children Micaela, Talia and Jasper continue to grow and flourish in Denver. Eric is now a senior member of the staff of the Colorado Legislature's Joint Budget Committee. Jeanette, on the other hand, "retired" from working for the Legislature and is enjoying devoting full-time to her children and her fascination with photography. Micaela and Talia are 4th and 2nd graders at a school two blocks from their home. Little Jasper looks a lot like Andrew and, as a toddler, shows a touch of his personality.
Janet is happy that the YWCA for a second year exceeded $1 million in operating funds in 2008 in the face of deteriorating economic conditions (next year may be a different matter). She was pleased that the Harvard Kennedy School magazine reported on her 2007 statewide award from the Colorado Women's Foundation, recognizing that she had applied what she had learned at the Kennedy School to the nonprofit world. Karl's 36-year odyssey at the National Conference of State Legislatures continues. One of the highlights of his year was a week-long consulting and training project for the Nigerian National Assembly in Abuja.
There's nothing like being parents of two high school teenagers to dominate your life. Janet and Karl sometimes feel that the only thing that sustains our sense of humor is the newspaper cartoon, Zits. Read Zits, you know our life.
Most of our family travel during the last year has been related to Emmy's college search. The campus visits have been fun and have taken Janet and Karl back to their own college days. It's all we can do to restrain ourselves from letting our own reactions to college visits govern Emmy's. Indeed, we probably don't altogether succeed in letting her make her own decision. It's especially difficult that two of her prospective colleges are our own alma maters, University of Denver and Oberlin College.
The big exception to campus-focused travel was the World Congress on Civic Education in Morocco in May. This is an annual event for Karl in various parts of the world, and Janet fulfilled a long-time dream of visiting Morocco by coming along. The conference itself took place at a university (come to think of it, that makes 13 campuses visited this year) in Ifrane in the mountains under the patronage of His Royal Highness, the King of Morocco. It was rainy, cold and isolated on this campus, but the conference was a success. Beforehand, we enjoyed visiting Casablanca (including dinner at Rick's Café—recreated but nonetheless fun), Rabat (the capital) and, most fascinating of all, the ancient town of Fez and its meandering, wide-ranging, bewildering, sensory-challenging, old world marketplace. The best time of all during this trip, though, was an evening at the home of a Moroccan family whom one of our fellow World Congress attendees had befriended through their son, a waiter at a restaurant in Denver. As always with international travel, the personal connections are the best.
Eric, Andrew and Karl had a great men's outing right after Andrew's 8th grade graduation on a four-day rafting trip on the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon in Canyonlands National Park (Utah). It was a fascinating and often amazing experience: three days of motoring through calm waters with stunning scenery and one rip-roaring day of class 5 rapids with 15-foot high waves that turned our stomachs as we rose and fell from them. The river is completely remote. In four days on the water, traveling 73 miles, we never saw a bridge—and only two other boats—until the very end of the trip.
We also want to brag about our 10-year old golden retriever, Eldorado. At his annual checkup, the veterinarian declared him to be a "beautiful specimen of the breed." We agree. As a licensed "Canine Good Citizen," he visits elder and child care institutions as a companion dog. Janet often takes him to work with her, where he serves as the YWCA's "deputy dog."
This has also been a year of remarkable political transitions. So many people have high expectations for a new era in American presidential politics, and we join in wishing that those hopes are fulfilled. However, Karl has worked with some state legislatures undergoing transitions since the election and seen how difficult it sometimes is to transform government and politics.
We will spend Christmas in Redstone, Colorado this year. As Janet's stepmother Wilma (still going strong at age 97) said the other day, Janet has been visiting this town in the beautiful Crystal River valley for more than 40 years and, as so many of you know, it is the Rocky Mountain sanctuary where we were married (transition may be good, but continuity is also rewarding). We will raise a glass to all of you, our family and friends, during the holiday season, and hope that you are all happy and well.
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