December 22^th, 2005

Dear Family and Friends,

     It’s been kind of quiet around here since Mark left for college.  Micha and Theo are busy with their studies and jobs.  Hubert works so hard.  I am learning to fill the hours creatively and productively.  I read a little, practice the piano, answer emails, write or edit a story, work out.  After Hubert and I drove to Corsica and Sardinia, I wrote for three weeks, 160 pages, about our 2 ½ week trip.  I fell in love with the Italian language while we were there, and bought a little Spanish/Italian phrase book.  To practice speaking, I traveled by train to Florence where I spent a lovely long weekend with my good friend, Kay Forsyth in October.  In the nave of the Basilica of Santa Croce, I stood within fifteen feet of the bones of Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo.  This little town feels like the birthplace of civilization.  The lighting is “Da Vinci,” and Michaelangelo’s David seems to breathe.  Look closely, and you’ll see his pulse.

     Starting last March, I’m the only bass voice in a small, woman’s choir – we are eight – singing folk songs in Ukrainian, Russian, Croatian, Serbian, etc.  Choir practice is a high spot of my week thanks to our teacher, Lorrie Scheller, for whom singing is a true passion.   

     Grossmami is 94 ½.  We will drive to Winterthur tomorrow to pick her up so she can spend Christmas with us.  She gave up riding the train alone.  She is as cheerful, bright, brave, and perceptive as ever.  We cherish each moment with her. 

     Mary and John Bissonette from Logan, Utah, visited from his professorial post in Freiburg, Germany.  We went for walks together and watched thoroughbred horses going through their paces or frolicking in pastures in the village across the fields and behind the little forest.

     Last summer, Carol Carbaugh, my good buddy from GE in the seventies, arrived with her husband, Peter, and their friend, Brian.  The men climbed the Eiger, succeeding on their second attempt on August first, our Swiss National Day.  The North Face proved a bust, thanks to global warming thawing ice which has been in place for millennium to send rocks crashing down.  “They were so plentiful, we stopped shouting warnings,”  Peter admitted.  Read about the ascent at: http://www.climbri.com/EigerTrip/EigerTrip.htm.

     He was accepted at Eckerd College and flew to Florida in August to begin his new life as an American college student at a small liberal arts school located on a spit of land surrounded by water on three sides.  He joined the rescue team, then the rugby team, then, having only so many hours in the day, gave up rescuing for rugby.

     I was driving to the village grocery store one evening when the car radio announced that “the largest hurricane in history” with winds of 347 kilometers per hour was headed for Florida.  Eckerd College closed its doors the following afternoon at 4.30 p.m.  Mark’s buddies flew to their families in other States, so, after finishing his laundry just before 4 p.m., he took a taxi alone to a hotel on higher ground ... right where the sea meets the land in a Class 5 hurricane.  Lugging heavy containers from the shopping mall behind the hotel to his hotel room, he stocked up on five gallons of beverages, several loaves of bread, and beef jerky.  By the time Wilma arrived, she had diminished and veered South.  We were lucky, this time.

     He is studying Japanese, computer programming, and drawing and getting A’s.  At semester's end, he moved into his own apartment at The Emerald Bay Apartment complex 1.5 miles off campus.  Take a virtual tour at www.rent.com.  He’ll stay in Florida through mid-July.  He arrived home for Christmas last Saturday and will be with us for six weeks.  It’s great to have him back!

    Micha and Theo loved their seven-weeks trip to America last summer.  They rented a full-sized Nissan and drove 5009 miles to see every sight we have ever shown Micha in the United States, and then some!  How wonderful to have such generous, good friends and family to welcome one’s children when they have grown up and are trying their wings.  

     They earned their Bachelors degrees in business recently and are already steeped in their studies for their Masters.  Micha left the Credit Suisse Bank at the end of November to focus on her internship at Berne University researching Swiss companies that invest in their own stock.  Listening to her describe how it all fits together, seeing the delight and fascination in her eyes when she contemplates mergers, synergy, the possibility of employees or companies reaching their full potential… as she imagines changing the very shapes of organizations, I think, “Hey, maybe there is something artistic about business.”  She will be moving into Grossmami’s apartment in Winterthur in April when she begins a six-months “Praktikum” with Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Zürich.  

     Theo is working very hard as project leader, while studying full-time.

     In addition to his work in the West Balkans, Hubert is building up the Swiss cohesion program of Swiss projects that will focus on health, research, environment, and regional development in the ten new EU states.  He traveled to all ten countries in the first seven months of 2005.  If all goes well, next year his section will be reorganized and a new section created with the sole purpose of dealing with the cohesion program.  Hubert would take over the new section and somebody else would handle the Balkans.  

    Last February, on the last ski run of the day – isn’t it always the last run of the day? – I fell from a standing position.  If I had been moving, my skis would have come off and none of this would have happened: I chipped off a bit of the knee bone and partially tore the meniscus and the Kreuzband.  No ski patrol appeared, ever.  Skiing on one leg, downhill, backwards, I called to Hubert, “Is there a cliff behind me?”

     “Keep going; a little farther.” 

     We skied to Saas Fee and I walked to the car.  The next day, I couldn’t move.  Happily, we didn’t have to operate and my knee is fine.

     After the last presidential election, I gave up on politics.  Catch you in 2008.  However, the former Minister of Development of Great Britain, speaking to selected members of the Swiss Federal government, including Hubert, recently predicted that civilization as we know it may come to an end within the next hundred years unless we change to a non-oil-based economy in time.  She also said that we are the first generation in history to have it within our power to end poverty for all mankind.  (I will email you a copy of the speech if you like).  Despair, or hope?  Today, I’m standing on the side of hope.  After all, it is Christmas!

 

Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas!

and all the best for 2006

 

with much love from,,

Linda, Hubert, Mark, Micha and Theo