Prologue to my 1999 letter during a happier time:

Consider Christmas— could the devil  in his most malevolent mood have devised a worse combination of graft and bogus spontaneity whereby millions of people get a billion or so gifts for which they have little or no use, while wal-mart greeters, overworked clerks, and UPS drivers collapse from exhaustion—all in the name of the lowly Jesus, a poor Jewish kid with a not very promising future?

Alas, little has changed, as the addiction to consumerism flushes us into an economic abyss.  But enough of the cheery stuff; last year I vowed to go digital in 2008….imagine you are reading the USA Today, yesterday, with more pictures, less dialogue.

Abandon the traditional paper greeting ?

no sappy card from the mantle to hang,

no tip for the letter carrier who rang ?

The short version of our year; nothing tragic happened.  The sun continues to rise and set and gently toast the world each day.  Lynn still weeps silently at the heart-warming Hallmark hall of fame programs. And that’s during the commercials.    I find it easier to place a few band-aids on a paragraph than to reverse our rising landfills, the melting polar icecaps, or as a grandfather, mastering the art of buckling my male grandchildren into their car booster seats.

Who wants to be remembered, not as the benevolent image of Santa Claus, but as an impatient, insane urologist bent on invoking pain on those tender, private parts?

Merry Christmas, sincerely, from Charles and Lynn

Two ‘live wires’, Connolly Station, Dublin, Dec 10,2008    

For those of you with more stamina; the unabridged version follows.

Our grandchild count rose from three to five.  Jennifer and Rob had their third, Megan, in a routine delivery.  Daughter Nancy, nearing age 40, had her first, a child of miracle stature, Oliver.   For her, three major abdominal surgeries in less than a year, 30+ hospital days, a new baby born six weeks prematurely and we nearly lost both her and the baby.  Twice.  It was very, very close and left everyone involved emotionally exhausted.  Touch and go nearly became touched and gone.  We began the year in Indiana, three months in southern Az. punctuated with trips to Albuquerque and Taos NM for Nancy, Jim, and Oliver.  The spring and fall months in South Bend, and the summer in northern Michigan.        Jack, the skunkdoggie



Grandma’s flower garden with Rob and Magdalene

NIALL in the tub, Ballymote, County Sligo, Ireland



In Coral Gables, Oliver and Lynn on a sunny daySide trips:  

• One day too many in Mexico
• 12 day RT to Saratoga, NY for vintage trailer jam, early July back through Canada
• Week in the airstream on the remote southern shore of Lake Superior in late July
• Bridge walked both the Mackinac and the Gogomain River on one long Labor Day  
• Box seat @ Wrigley Field, Sept. 20th; Cubs victory over the Reds clinching the NL Central championship  
• Car convention with friends on a late September week, Laguna Beach, CA, for MB 190SL
• 11 mid-November airstream days to southern FL visiting the Vienups in the new Coral Gables digs
• 11 days in Ireland this month visiting Mike, Rosie and Niall in Ballymote + a tour of Dublin (next blog)