YEAR 2007 IN REVIEW 
We no longer own our old faithful 1990 Toyota Corolla, which did us good service for 210,000 miles. Parking at an angle to a concrete wall, Bob hit the accelerator instead of the brake - hard - and smashed the right front of the car. Colleen McKay found us two cars at the Carmax website, and we soon owned a blue 2004 Toyota Camry. So we finally have a car with one of those cute push-button keys. It’s fun to unlock all the doors with two clicks! Now we’ll get to the trips, most of which were by airplane. In early June, Nancy joined a group from church for a trip to Wales, led by our then-priest, Father Chris Lee, who showed off his former parishes and all the interesting places in the area. Several of our friends from our sister parish in Tokyo joined us at the airport in England. It was a well-arranged trip, except that they forgot to order some non-rainy days. It was a record-breaking amount of rain for June. Very green, reminiscent of the old movie, “How Green Was My Valley,” including a tour of a former coal mine. Colleen joined the large group that went down in the elevator for an underground tour, but Nancy decided to avoid claustrophobia. One of the highlights of the trip was some fine singing by a local Welsh men’s choir at an evening reception for us all. We also were served a fine meal, including a cake with chocolate bars around the outside. Our second trip was to New England, for both of us this time. We had three events in July: the Howlett Reunion on the 7th at brother John’s house in New Hampshire; a picnic for the Murdock family in Hubbardston on the 14th; and a wedding reception for Charlie Frost and his bride, Janice, on the 21st. We stayed at sister Polly’s house at the beginning and end of the trip; Super 8 in Gardner for several days; a suite at Attitash in North Conway, NH, for a week; and a motel in Portsmouth for one night. By the time we got home, it was actually a relief not to wake up wondering where the bathroom was. We have good memories from the trip, though. It was fun to eat out at different places and explore some of our favorite spots. We even found a used book store where we bought enough books to last through the trip and beyond. We also visited cousin Clyde Howlett in the nursing home several times. We had those visits to remember when he died in mid-September, at age 98. And somewhere along the way, Nancy read “Fahrenheit 451" for her book club and got a new permanent wave, and Bob checked the email at the library in Gardner and got a haircut. And the wedding reception, chaired by Pamela Clark, was a wonderful, well-planned event with a beautiful setting in Wells, ME, and excellent food and service. Our third trip was a comedy of errors. It started out well, with a good meal on the trip to Williamsburg, VA. The trip was pleasant and traffic was fairly light. Our check-in was a little odd, as we were told the condo they had assigned us hadn’t been cleaned. Nor had any of the possible substitutes. Eventually they found that the only problem was that no one had notified the computer that the cleaning was done. OK, no big deal, just a little delay. The next day we went shopping and brought in the remaining items from the car. But our keys wouldn’t work! So we left our stuff in the lobby outside the door and dashed back to the office for the correct keys. But our baggage and purchases were missing when we returned to the condo! We reported this problem by phone. The following day, the water heater broke down. They were going to move us to a different condo, but we elected to stay there and avoid baths until we got hot water again. The water heater turned out to be unfixable, so they ordered and installed another. Meanwhile, we kept in touch regarding our valuables that had gone missing. They sent a man to the house to discuss this with us and explain that they would not be replacing the value of any losses, but no progress seemed to be made. Finally, another man notified the office that he had found the items and safely put them away on the day they went missing. It turned out that we had left them in the wrong lobby! The numbers on the condo doors were identical, but the house numbers were different. We had walked into the wrong house! We did have fun in Williamsburg, though. Bob enjoyed his usual burst of shopping, and we chose some restaurants with varied vegetarian foods. Nancy even found some socks like the ones she had been lucky to find elsewhere, and the three knives she bought (on sale, figuring it would cost less than getting our own knives sharpened) are now our favorites. Now for the surgeries... In May, Nancy had arthroscopic surgery, which removed the torn meniscus from that damaged left knee. Then she came down with bronchitis. She left on her Wales trip with the remaining bronchitis medication and her crutches. Colleen, bless her, pushed Nancy around the museums in a wheelchair. In mid-August Bob had laser surgery for prostate. This was a much better deal than the one 20 years ago, which was done with the knife and resulted in five days in the hospital and a delay of his move to Maryland from California. So we both had modern surgeries and were glad not to have the historic type. Father Chris wanted to have a half-page newsletter for the members and visitors to take home, and he even had the title: Blue Church Bugle. He needed an editor, so I told him about Bob’s extensive computer background and our long-lived Murdock Muse. He was impressed when he interviewed us at home and saw our Muse. We were all set to start writing. However, he had definite ideas of what he wanted, but no time to get it done so we could put it into the Bugle. On Sept. 16, he blessed our marriage on our 57th anniversary, and Colleen, who had dashed over after her earlier Roman Catholic service, took a nice photo. That was the last day he was able to conduct a service. He became very ill with a gall bladder infection and died two weeks later of a heart attack, after the gall bladder operation. Colleen extracted his picture from our photo and made at least a hundred pictures of various sizes to give to people at his funeral. His death was a serious shock to our church, and the photos were well received. Meanwhile, the Vestry was asking me what we planned for the Blue Church Bugle. So Bob and I wrote what we thought might be somewhat interesting, and the office secretary got it copied for us on full-size pages. We felt slightly guilty about making these decisions, but no one has complained. And now for the big achievement of the year. We finally, after 20 years here, decided to write our memoirs for this part of our lives. Always before, we had written after moving away from the place we were writing about. It was hard to get started this time, because we didn’t know what we really wanted to say. In the end we came up with something like 120 pages, counting copies of pages from former projects. It's our largest volume ever. For Christmas, we gave copies to all our children and adult grandchildren, and several friends. It was an interesting project. We named it “Baltimore - Only for a Year, Nancy and Bob Murdock’s Memoirs, Volume IX, 1987-2007.” Snappy, huh? We already know we need to write some more, but it was a good feeling to get this much done. Now when we can’t recall some of the details of this period of our life, we can consult Volume IX. We wish you all the best in 2008! May you be as happy as we are. Nancy and Bob Murdock murmuse@comcast.net |