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Jean Kiyoe Ogawa I enjoyed your New Year letter very much and I could up-date what you've done in 2007. On Christmas Day Akiko was able to come to church! It was so nice to see her with us. She seems weak but looks fine. I was in New York in middle of December. It was my long term dream to see Rockefeller Christmas Tree and my dream comes true. It was only 3-day trip but I enjoyed very much. There were snow remaining from the week before and cold, but enough for us to FEEL White Christmas. I have decided to retire in March this year after 36 years of service at Citigroup. I am not sure what I want to do after my retirement. Will see. I will inform you when I find something interesting. |
with friend Yukie, left and Nancy |
Akiko Matsumoto Hope this find you OK and your church is going all right. Since your trip to Wales England, did all work well for your members? Was the memorial service OK? If I may ask you, I have been wondering if you and your friends in your church are smoothly doing everything. Please tell us anything. I tried to wait your Christmas card. Now 2008 starts. I really hope that everybody is well. Akiko had a physical problem in October and November. Having thrombosis in my chest, I fell down in the back yard. Emergency car took me to the hospital and I stayed there four weeks. Heart and lung stroke like, I don't know the name in English.. anyway before Christmas I could return home. Thus I could not manage all holy greeting cards. But one very big one question is you and your church. I am looking forward to hearing from you. |
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Barbara DiStefano One year when I was particularly overwhelmed with Christmas, I decided not to do the things that I didn't want to do, but instead find something more meaningful. So I take a morning or afternoon and go out to the shops and just browse around until I find someone that my heart tells me could use a lift, or something extra, and I give them $20 and a note that says, "Every year I look around until I find someone who seems to give something extra to those around her or him, and spread the joy of giving, the real meaning of Christmas. I have chosen you this year to receive it. Please sometime in your life, look around for someone else who needs a little something and pass it on." So, instead of my card, could you do something like that, not necessarily what I do, but some little gesture that would make someone's heart sing? |
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Charles Frost Happy New Year!! Family Get-Together December 29th: Pamela reports that she, Richard, and Colleen had a pleasant dinner with Derek, Rosalind, and Jeremy Ruth. "Roz cooked a great pot roast, very tender, a carrot dish with bread crumbs, and baked potatoes. We enjoyed lively conversation and left in time for all the sports enthusiasts to repair to the various television sets for the Patriots game, which they apparently won!" Conquering Climbers: John and Gregg took advantage of the Holidays to get in some good exercise -- and in a warm climate. For New Year's Eve sport, they climbed Camelback Mountain outside Scottsdale, AZ. Both of them are looking quite fit. Record Snowfall in New Hampshire: Kay tells us that the city of Concord broke a record for December snowfall. "We had a total of 44.5 inches in the month, breaking a December record of 43 inches set in 1876." And it snowed again on New Year's Day! Sizzling Sixties in Kirksville, MO: The mercury hit 61 degrees at 2:00PM yesterday and stood at 65 degrees at noon today. Our snow and ice have disappeared. We'll enjoy this balmy weather while it lasts. And perhaps relief is on the way for you beleaguered New Englanders. |
Gallery photos |
Natalie Murdock December 30: Good afternoon from partly cloudy Southern California!! Well, it is 4 days after Christmas now, and things have calmed down a bunch. We're almost finished taking down all of our Christmas decorations and exploring each and every one of our Christmas gifts. By the way, speaking of Christmas gifts, thank you so much for yours...it was much appreciated and I LOVED the memoir book. So, let's get to it, shall we... Christmas was a little different this year, of course, due to Tim's absence, but we somehow managed to get on with it despite our tears and emptiness. It wasn't all bad, don't get me wrong; we did have each other, after all, but you know....that little piece of us named Tim was physically missing this Christmas. Anywho - Mer and Dad came over to my Mom's house and we started the morning off with stockings, of course, and moved on to our tradition of opening gifts from "Out of State People". First was the memoir books; those were great. We all stopped and flipped through the pages for about 10 minutes, just astounded at how interesting this gift was. Then it was the gifts from Tim...I got an awesome pink guitar to add to my collection, which totals 4 now...3 are mine and one is in my safe keeping, but is my Dad's. Then it was on to the rest of the gifts, 11 more each. I got a lot of great stuff. I got a lot of stuff I had asked for, and even some stuff I wanted that I hadn't asked for. It was spectacular. I even got some Marilyn Monroe stuff, Elvis stuff, and some awesome DVDs. I'm leaving out a lot of other stuff, but it was all equally important and cool!! I had asked for Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and Social Distortion records on my Christmas list, because I have a record player, and those records are hard to find...and not real cheap if you do find them. So in the midst of all the gift opening, as the Christmas record we were playing came to an end, my Dad suggested that I open my next gift before I switched to another Christmas record. So...I opened my next gift (it was from my Dad) and to my absolute joy, it was a Buddy Holly record and a Rolling Stone record!!! I was soooooooo happy, I even started tearing up. Come to find out, these weren't just any ol' records. These had been my Dad's records for the past tens of years and he was passing them onto me, which boosted their value to me like 100 times!!!!!! Then my Dad explained to me that the Rolling Stones record was a rare one, because the cover included a bunch of celebrity faces, one being Marilyn Monroe's, and her estate had actually sued the band, and had them remove her face from the album cover. So, I was pretty excited. Anywho - I hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas, and I've attached some pictures for you to enjoy. Love you guys!!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
at 4 months |
Carol (Murdock) Pletcher November 6: Hope you are doing well. Congratulations on 57 years. I am sorry I did not get back to call Nancy later that day. I called and it was impossible to make a call because of the fires. Just wanted to let you know that Robert's son Robert is in the hospital ICU, and it looks like all the tests are Okay. He had several seizures in a row, so the doctors called it one seizure. The results of the test are good so far, so it may be he just has to be on seizure medication for a while. Keep him in your prayers. Thought I would send an email to let you know. |
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Gene Murdock FYI: This is an article that I submitted to the Iowa Aviation Museum newsletter. I thought some of you might enjoy it. Book Review: Death in the Air January 6: The aviation library recently got a large collection of books from the estate of Hugh Sidey of Potomac, MD. This is a unique set with very few duplicates of what we already have, and with an emphasis on World War I aviation. One of the books, titled “Death in the Air”, was especially interesting. It was a pilot’s flying diary along with a lot of photographs from a camera that he had rigged as an automatic gun-sight device. The book did not list an author, it was stated, because it was a court-martial offense to use a camera in an airplane, and he allegedly did not want to risk legal action. The diary is filled with fascinating entries like: “Tuesday. Ground-strafed today as best we could but difficult work. Fighting is terrific. Not much use at present but we manage to fly somehow. Didn’t get a scratch and Huns didn’t pester us. They not so keen about flying low as we are…..” I catalogued the book as best I could, then set it aside to take home for more reading and research. The next book in Hugh Sidey’s collection was one called “No Parachute - A Fighter Pilot in World War I” This was interesting and looked like the same thing as “Death in the Air.” Then I noticed something strange - the design on the jacket of “No Parachute” seemed familiar. I looked back in “Death in the Air,” and there it was. “No Parachute” had lifted it from the other and blatantly used it as its own illustration! I took it out to show it to Lee Ann, and she remarked something to the effect that “Those sure are clear photographs!” She had hit the nail on the head, spotted the flaw, so to speak. A little research on the web showed that the first book was a hoax, perpetrated by an American flying for the British, who built lots of model airplanes and staged them into looking like actual dogfights. It took over fifty years, but it was finally pronounced a fake! The book, originally intended for the WW I History shelf, can now be found in the sections for Humor and Oddities. Little finds like this can make the job of maintaining a library lots of fun. |
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