This Bulletin should have arrived just as you were finishing your taxes.  If you haven’t finished, take a break and grab another cup of coffee ... the Court will come to order.

Lions and tigers and...well, unfortunately not.  MARY JANE and I had an unbelievable time touring South Africa.  We really had a great time at the Jock Safari Lodge within the boundaries of the Kruger National Park, but didn’t get to see any lions or leopards during our safari-ing.  But we but did see plenty of the other Big Five...elephants, Cape buffalo, and both white and black rhinos.  Add in plenty of giraffe, impala, kudos, waterbuck, wildebeest, and an occasional hyena or two and it just begins to describe an absolutely amazing park and experience of a lifetime.  But more on the trip later...but in the mean time, who else has checked in?

RALPH LEWIS is still teaching school and although enjoying the kids, some of the administration stuff is getting a little long in the tooth.  “I am not sure what next school year holds in store for me because I am seriously considering a change.  I may stay in teaching because of how much I enjoy being with the youngsters, but I must admit I am becoming disillusioned with the public education milieu.  DEBORAH has finally relocated back to the home front, but is still very busy in the Reserve.  She currently has the good fortune of working for CHARLIE WURSTER out in CGD14 with her assignment as senior reserve officer.  She says he keeps asking when I will accompany her on one of her trips out to Honolulu.  I went out to Alameda over Labor Day weekend to help her drive back home to Texas.  I took a couple of days off from school and we made it a bit of a pleasure trip rather than the usual “grip the wheel and stare straight ahead until you have 16 hours of driving done before stopping” routine.  We stopped for a night in Vegas and saw the “Blue Man Group”.  Don’t really know how to describe that experience, but it was a real kick.  Then we drove through Zion National Park (awesome!) on the way to Mesa Verde in Colorado.  We managed to squeeze in a half day tour of the Cliff Dwellings, partially fulfilling a long-time dream of mine.  We are planning on a 7 day Caribbean cruise over Christmas as we celebrate out 20th wedding anniversary.”  Ralph sends the following invitation: “Pass along to ’71 that we have room for guests if anyone passes through Texas via I-10.  The welcome mat is out.”  

AL DUJENSKI sent out an E-mail wondering if there were any other ham radio operators in the class.  Are there?  AL’s call is KB7MBI.  

WAYNE and RITA VERRY are enjoying life in LA ... that’s Lower Alabama to the uninitiated.  “RITA and I pulled the plug on our federal govt. jobs in June 2002 and we’re now in the small-but-growing town of Foley, AL, about 10 miles from the Gulf Coast, halfway between Mobile and Pensacola.  We bought two acres down here in 1997, and soon after we arrived we found a contractor to build our new house.   We moved in last April, and during the rest of the year we re-learned what it’s like to take care of a house and a yard.  A cat and a dog joined us during the summer, adding both complications and comedy to our lives. Houseguests began arriving in July, and RITA has had fun proving that her kitchen is big enough to feed the crew of any WLB.  I’ve been busy with Habitat for Humanity, church activities, and I managed to get myself elected treasurer of our homeowner’s association.  I’m also drawing sea pay again, with a 2-person kayak as my first command.  Speaking of paychecks, RITA and I have come out of semi-retirement, and we are now genuine US government contractors.  We’re working out of our home as consultants for the Navy, doing a project as a follow-on to RITA’s old job in international military training management.  Overall, things are very good indeed for us here in Alabama. And our door is always open – y’all come on down!”  Another invitation...how far is it from Foley to visit RALPH in Kerrville?

TOMMY CLARKE has retired ... for the second time.  He retired from the American Red Cross last September and has easily made the transition to househusband.  He’s enjoying playing tennis and hiking and getting Katie to her every growing list of activities.  Susi started working part-time for the United Way which quickly became full time, but should be back to part time...you have to have time to travel to Connecticut to visit granddaughter Gwen!  Great photo of Katie, Wendy, son-in-law Andy, Dan, and Gwendolyn Rose!

Clarke Kids and Granddaughter

Got a great Christmas letter from BRUCE and PATTY PLATZ with the news that son Billy married Anna last April in a beautiful ceremony on the beach in North Carolina.  Billy is playing professional soccer as a goal tender for the Wilmington Hammerheads <http://www.hammerheadssoccer.com/>.  Son Mike recently moved from Houston to Washington, DC and daughter Christine is majoring in speech pathology at James Madison University.  Not sure why I didn’t get a wedding family photo?  Must still be in the mail!

CHUCK BECK reports that BOB GONOR was in Hartford a couple of weeks ago on business and had JIM SYLVESTER with him. They met up with CHRIS VANN, PETE BARRETT and CHUCK for lunch in Hartford at Hot Tomatoes.  Speaking of PUBA, he’s working a new job as an engineer.  Yes, I said engineer.  BOB reports that he at least says he’s got an engineering degree.  He’s working out of his office basement for Flextronics, an electronic manufacturing company.  BOB sent along a new photo of the expanding GONOR clan.  

Clan Gonor

Speaking of new job, CHARLIE HARRIS sent a quick update: “Left Northrop Grumman in December for a new position with AgustaWestland Helicopters, after working Deepwater for the last four years.  I know now that I will be going to heaven as it has been hell here on earth!  MARLAYNE and I have been accumulating toys and furniture for a while and now I have to figure out how to pay the bills; MARLAYNE never met a furniture store she didn’t like and I deal only in “Boat Units”, not dollars.  Anyone who has a boat will understand.”  CHARLIE E-mailed BARNEY: “I’m still trying to get to my sister’s before the snow melts but I’m so out of shape I’ll probably make one run down the hill and go directly to the Emergency Room.  How are Linda and all the little Turlos?”  

How are those little Turlos...and was it a good ER?  Don’t know about the ER, but BARNEY’s alive and well and COLD in Maine.  “LINDA, daughter Dee, grand-kids (Leah, Ally and Jake) and I spend a lot of quality time together when the weather gets THIS cold.  Lots of yelling and fighting about who was playing with which toy...and the kids are noisy, too.  Little ones are fun...most of the time.   But they know "Grampy" means business.   Drives LINDA and Dee crazy that they will "listen" to Grampy.  That's fun, too! Doing three radio shows a week for the "Jan-Plan."   Jan-Plan = student DJs are on hiatus/ internships/ binge-drinking.  I'm also running for Town Clerk again.   It was just so much fun gettin' a whuppin' last year that I'm gonna do it again.  Campaign slogan:  "Vote early and vote often."

JB and KIM and doing well in West Virginia!  “I'm enjoying my work as Deputy Director of the National Conservation Training Center, working for the Fish and Wildlife Service just two miles upriver from our house on the Potomac in West Virginia.  Training always was my second love--next to KIM of course.     This year I even got KIM involved in our work.    She's completing her Doctorate in Organizational Leadership this year and she helped us design and analyze a 5-level evaluation of the USFWS mid-level (GS-11/12) leadership program as her dissertation.    This evaluation goes all the way up to ROI (Return on Investment) and the early numbers look very promising indeed.  Last winter and this winter have been so cold here in the mid-Atlantic that KIM and I have been spending her school 'breaks' in Key Largo and Key West to take the chill off the bones.    Our 'new' favorite watering hole is the Hog's Breath Saloon in Key West, with slogan "Hog's Breath is better than no breath at all".   My official 'leave' balance is hovering somewhere around 'zero' but we're having fun.”

OK, back to South Africa ... We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa on 8 December and spent a couple days recovering from our 26 hours of flying from Seattle to London to J’burg.  We stayed at a great B&B in Sandton and enjoyed a tour of the Cullinan diamond mine outside Pretoria, but were extremely disappointed that they didn’t give away samples.  The Cullinan is where the largest diamond, 3100 carats, was discovered.  Once split, the two largest pieces are in the British crown and royal scepter.  Our first night we met our first wildlife...MARY JANE came out of the bathroom with an “Oh my God!”  A baboon spider, the biggest spider we’d ever seen outside a zoo, was just visiting.  Welcome to South Africa!  Did you rent ZULU?  After our Kruger safari-ing, we spent a day touring the Zulu Battlefields of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift.  Isandlwana is the sight where on 22 January 1879 approximately 20,000 Zulu warriors wiped out a British regiment of approximately 1500.  The battlefield site is very sobering...mounds of white painted rocks marking the mass graves of the British soldiers.  On the same day, about 4000 Zulu warriors held in reserve at Isandlwana, attacked LT Chard and the 100 or so able bodied men he had to defend the mission at Rorke’s Drift.  With virtually every man having been wounded, 11 Victorian Crosses were awarded the defenders.  They lost 15 men and 2 more later died of their wounds and are buried within the stone walled enclosure at the battle site.

Rorke's Drift Monument

 MARY JANE and I stayed outside Elandslaagte at a great B&B, a cattle ranch with a couple of pet St. Bernards...the natives call it the ranch with the two lions.  We had a ground floor room looking out on the gardens and pool.  We went outside and I saw the large male St. Bernard playing with something in the grass...something moving.  A snake...and Toby had killed the banded cobra!  Welcome to South African B&Bs!  Our 600 mile trip across the Transkei, a native homeland between Durban and Port Elizabeth, was very interesting...and fortunately uneventful.  We were warned to make the drive in daylight...lots of cattle, goats, and people walking along and on the two lane highway.  Our impression was one of disbelief...hard to imagine the extreme poverty and destitute living conditions so many people exist in on a daily basis.  We enjoyed the rest of the drive to Cape Town with our B&B stops in PE, Knysna, the wine country of Stellenbosch, and the Cape.  Hardest part was finding things without street signs...too difficult looking out for traffic while driving on the wrong side of the road and at the same time trying to read the curbs for the street names.  Took us about 30 minutes to find our B&B in Stellenbosch even though we had a detailed map...only works if the streets can be identified!  We made a quick stop in Sedgefield and visited with Derrick and Liz Mills, very good friends of CHUCK and CHERYL BECK.  After enjoying morning coffee with them, we angled down and visited Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa.

Cape Agulhas...Southernmost Point in Africa

 Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope south of Cape Town offer impressive scenery and Table Mountain, with a revolving cable car, is a must for magnificent views of Cape Town.  Twenty five hundred miles from J’burg to Cape Town and sites in between...and we’ll have to go back to see those lions and tigers!

Cape Point

 My Antarctic cruise aboard ROYAL PRINCESS was excellent with 9 days crossing the South Atlantic to the Antarctic peninsula (ROYAL PRINCESS anchored off Tristan da Cuhna but no passenger landings), 3 days of beautiful Antarctic scenic cruising, and then another couple of sea days until we finally got ashore in Stanley.  About 25 miles north of Elephant Island, I saw one of the largest tabular bergs I’ve ever seen...a good 5 miles by 5 miles, 25 plus square miles in a single ice cube!  Had excellent cruising conditions while in the Antarctic even though ice conditions stopped us from getting to Hope Bay...very hard for an icebreaker sailor to turn away from relatively open pack ice!  After the Falkland stop, we rounded Cape Horn and then stopped in the South American ports of Ushuaia, Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt, toured the Amalia and Pio XI glaciers in the Chilean fjords, and arrived in Valparaiso 24 days after departing Cape Town.  Tough duty, but someone has to do it!

Capetown from Table Mountain

Have to remind you guys about keeping me posted on ISP changes.  I’ve been successful in tracking down a couple of the recent MIAs, but still looking for BO JOSEPHSON.  BO had a @hotmail address, but that accounts closed.  Anyone have a new E-mail or snail mail address for him?  Take a look at our Classmates page <http://www.oocities.org/CollegePark/Campus/7184/classmates.html> and then look through your address books and Christmas mailing lists and see if we can track down those 19 who still haven’t reported around.  While you’re searching, we’re adjourned ... almost!

CHARLIE BILLS was one of the recent MIAs I tracked down via his old business E-mail.  Where is he?  "CHARLES & DI" still in Petaluma, CA ...couldn't convince DIANNE to uproot & move up to Seattle while "geo-bachelor'ing" with Elliott Bay Design Group.  Now with Hornblower Cruises & Events in San Francisco corporate offices, Pier 3 on The Embarcadero ... managing capital projects and company security officer ("new normalcy" and "maritime domain awareness" & all that).  Kids (3) and grandkids (3) all in SF Bay area ... and I thought DIANNE might move; what was I thinking?  No Hummer yet, but with Arnold in Sacramento & bowflex on order, not sure what's in the future?”  The future?  The Court will entertain Classmate comp cruise packages...now we’re adjourned!


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