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HOLIDAY GREETINGS 2000! The
Whatley family wishes you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons, and may
your New Year be filled with the realization of your fondest dreams! By now it should surprise no one who receives these greetings that we have skipped a year and that you did not receive a letter from us last year. While that is usually the result of procrastination carried to a ridiculous extreme (by the family’s chief procrastinator, who writes these letters……), that is not the case this time. Instead, it is the results of a drama, which played out over about fifteen months, totally improvised, with no predictable beginning or ending. In
August, 1999, Larry and Marion began living apart, and it seemed at the time
that the ultimate outcome would be the total dissolution of a marriage begun in
1966. The months following were filled
with considerable ambiguity, uncertainty, and many conflicting emotions, not
the least of which was tremendous anxiety, coupled with much sadness. Under those circumstances, our traditional
letter seemed ill-advised, and it was not written. During those months, however, much soul-searching was taking
place, combined with the fervent prayers of some powerful confidants and
friends. During this past October those
prayers were answered: a significant
breakthrough in communications occurred, leading to a reconciliation and a
determination to come back together and to get it right this time! The negative emotions and anxiety have been
replaced by serenity and happiness, emotions that neither one of us has
experienced in a very long time, and the optimism for the future knows no
limits! What remains now is the reduction of three households (two rent
payments and one mortgage plus utilities for all three) back to one (the mortgage
goes on and on….), plus once more moving many
boxes. The plans have been worked out
in a manner agreeable to all (and Chris wins big in the process!). By this coming February, the house on Laurel
Lane will once again be our home and the center of our activities. Chris is still living in Hendersonville and working as a surveyor’s assistant, a job which he has now held for four years (and still enjoys). However, recent changes in the management of the house he has lived in since December, 1998, necessitate a change in housing for him. In February he will move into the little house on Turkey Creek that Larry has been living in (along with the four family cats), and he will begin to enjoy life in one of the most beautiful places to live that one could imagine! (Chris will also now be custodian of the four cats, all of whom he loves dearly.) In
February, 1999, Marion retired from her position at Transylvania Community
Hospital, after seventeen years of work (fifteen of those in the Emergency
Room), and began to work in the far more friendly and sedate confines of a
doctor’s office. More recently, she has
begun working PRN as a psych nurse (a complete
change from the ER) at Park Ridge Hospital.
She has now gained more time to pursue her many other interests, and
life seems very good indeed! At
the end of the 1999-2000 school year, Larry officially retired from his faculty
position at Brevard College, after 37 years of work there in the Music
Department. It was a significant honor for him to retire as Iva Buch Seese
Distinguished Service Professor of Music
Theory, Emeritus. At the BC Homecoming this past October, he
was inducted into the BC Alumni Honor Roll of previous and current faculty
members. So far, retirement has been an
illusion (except for less money), since he is still as busy as ever, although
in different ways. During the current
school year, he is still teaching one course per semester--Form and Analysis in
the fall, Orchestration in the spring; at least for the moment, it is good to
keep one foot in the door. Also, during the fall semester, he conducted the BC
Symphonic Winds in the performance of a march he composed some forty years ago
(and which hadn’t been performed since 1961).
He does consider it better to burn out rather than to rust out. We
wish all of you prosperity and happiness for the coming year, millennium, and
age. December, 2000 |