May
the Giving Spirit of Christmas
Dawn
on Your Life Throughout the New Year
Wire
Lake in the CA Emigrant Wilderness taken '11
Lona
and I wish you all the joys of the season and hope you have a great New
Year.
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This
has been a year of getting better. Lona has once again been
able to do a weekly hike, although not the all day ones like we used to
take.
Getting out in nature again has lifted her spirits.
The
physical therapy exercises for her sacroiliac joint dysfunction has
greatly reduced her pain, and she no longer needs cortisone
injections into the joint. Her Mycobacterium avium
Complex (MAC) lung disease has not returned, but she still has to be
careful not to eat food that is too rich or spicy due to what the year
and a half of
antibiotics did to her GI track. That situation is improving
too.
You may recall from last year's
letter we celebrated our 50th anniversary but could not take
the nice trip we wanted to. At that time Lona was still fighting MAC
and her hip was beginning to hurt when she walked. I wrote then, "We are determined to take our 50th anniversary trip before we hit another
anniversary." After three years of Lona not being out of the
house overnight due to her afflictions, we finally took a trial run, a
3-day trip to Monterey. Oops! Lona's tummy did not
like the delicious, rich food we ate, nor did her SI joint like the
2-days of roaming around the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the hike in
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve in the Big Sur
coastline.
Other than that, we had a
wonderful time. She came home pretty miserable. That took
quite a while to settle down, so we put off our big trip again.
We have since celebrated our 51st anniversary, but maybe our little trip sort of counts .
It has been a lovely
autumn
in CA. The trees started turning colors in late August and the
color lasted into December. This picture looking down the street
in front of our house proves that California really does have autumn.
For the second year in a row, I was not able to take
a backpacking trip with some of my buddies and take new sunrise
pictures. I had a conflict two
years ago. This year, there was a huge forest fire where we were going
to go. Right after our trip in '11 (when the above picture was
taken) I
bought an ultralight, 1-man tent. The bivouac sack I had tried to
sleep in (note: "tried") was miserable so I decided to splurge for
a tent. It still has not been on the ground. I'm not
getting any younger, so I am determined to use it this summer -- maybe
in the
back yard if all else fails. I have two other larger, heavier
backpacking tents
that Lona and I used when she was my preferred backpacking
buddy. I didn't use one of those to save weight. I really
miss backpacking with Lona to share the experience and
beauties together.
Alert readers of these annual Christmas letters may
remember that I did not run for four years due to cracked meniscus
in both knees. As long as I did not run, the knees did not hurt,
so I was loathe to let a surgeon carve on me. Finally, I wanted so badly
to run again that I gave it a try, and miracle of miracles, it
did not hurt. I have been running since, although pitifully
slowly. I never could regain the speed I had before I quit
running. Still, if you stretch the term, what I do now is
running. I always had excellent sprint speed and used a ferocious
kick to the finish line of a race. I may have to give that
strategy up because about 4 months ago I nearly ripped my plantar
fascia off my heal bone sprinting up a hill to the finish line. I
had to use a crutch to go to the rest room that night. OUCH! Aggressive treatments
have cured it, and I am back running again, but it feels like I have
never run before.
Lona and I continue to enjoy museums, occasional plays and symphony
concerts, and we have season tickets to Opera
San
Jose. We had season tickets to the ballet for many years, but
Lona got ballet saturated and wanted to concentrate on opera
instead. I
love ballet and occasionally attend San Jose's excellent
performances. Although Opera San Jose is seriously pinched for
money, it just gets better and better each year. In these
financial times, most cultural institutions are in financial
trouble. I hope culture in this country does not die.
Y'all are probably getting tired of reading of my
annual trips to Columbia, MO to participate in the Physics Alumni
support group I helped organize. I have been doing that since
1996. I also serve on our Dean's Strategic Development
Board. Helping him get alumni support groups established in his
other departments is the main thing I contribute -- that and free
advice. This year, I wrote an article he is including in his
alumni magazine. The article was also published in the Physics
Department Newsletter. Those who are interested may read it by
clicking here.
You should give it a read. The gripping saga involves a female
astronaut, an eminent astrophysicist having a beer with Beetle Bailey,
the inventor of the liquid crystal display, and the past director of
Bell Labs, all of whom are MU Physics Department alumni and members of
our support group.
Lona and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas day
and will have a great 2014. Stay happy and healthy.
Lona and Don