My last letter from the Alumni Association started with this sentence: “You are the unfortunate recipients of no news clippings for the winter magazine.” So I guess I’ll be self-indulgent and tell you what I did on my summer vacation! In July, my sister picked me up in Seattle and we drove to Sisters, Oregon, to attend a reunion of our first cousins (imagine, if you will, eight women between the ages of 63 and 82 in a three-bedroom house…) and to attend the fabulous Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. Then my sister and I road-tripped to her home in Bellingham, WA, (stopping at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon) where I spent several days before flying to San Francisco to visit our daughter. Aside from being with my daughter and her boyfriend, the highlight of my visit to the Bay Area was the unexpected gift of passes to Dead and Company’s penultimate concert of their final tour at Oracle Park! Our passes got us in absolutely everywhere, including backstage, the VIP section, the Alaska Airlines Lounge, and the field full of fans wearing flowing skirts and tie-dyed shirts. My husband, who was not on this trip with me, was a bit jealous; I pointed out to him it was only fair, since he got to go to Woodstock on his Triumph motorcycle in 1969. I’ve never really considered myself a Deadhead, but the whole experience was full of the most welcome peace-love groove. It was pretty spectacular.
I will leave you with a challenge. Send me some news to share with classmates or in the next column, I’ll tell you about our family reunion at an 18th-century farmhouse on the Nantucket moors last September!