Dear Friends:
First of all, here is Thanks for all of us being here NOW and,
and secondly, I HOPE we are all around next year. Since I reached
70 in October, I think about my mortality daily and am very thankful
I have the good health and energy to do the things I want, pursue
the goals I set for myself and finally, very thankful for having
such great friends as all of you!!
A little about my mother, Lois. Reaching 90 in August, she is still housed at the Country Club Center nursing facility in Dover, Ohio and, even though she had 3 falls this past year, she hasn't broken any arm or leg bones but did fracture her pelvis during the last fall in October.
In fact, sister Gloria and I were in Dover when two of the falls occurred. She remains fairly cheerful. I can still humor her and she laughs easily. Memory is slipping but after all, so is mine. Her mother, and my beloved grandmother, Antonia Fulvi Nardi, lived til 91(!) and she passed in 1973. I will be visiting again in the latter part of January.
Unlike l999, when I was back in Ohio for nearly 100 days in my seven trips, this year I have returned only three times and Gloria four. We coordinate our arrivals at the Akron-Canton airport, which is only 38 miles from Dover, and rent a car for 7-10 days. Jim and Norma Jean Bucher, John's niece and her husband, live in Dover and house us in their home as it is only a few miles from the facility where Mom is located. That has simplified the arrangements. The awful price we pay for this is preparing some California Cusine and some Italian dishes. So the arrangement works well. In addition, a cousin, Chris Curtiss, lives in the area and has been wonderful in visiting Mom and spoiling her in a variety of ways. Great to have family in the area as Gloria lives in Maryland. So the situation isn't totally satisfactory but is the best that is available.
Here is a great story from my visits back to Ohio. It concerns
a pharmacist whose name I became aware of in the local Dover newspaper
in December 1998 while visiting my family. The news story described
this well-known person that I had never met but knew of the pharmacy
family name store from visiting Dover as a teenager. The story
described the shenanigans of this character, Jerry Marlowe.
I called Jerry, introduced myself, became friends and visit
on a regular basis when I return to Ohio. What Jerry has done
for the past 34 years has devised ingenious ways to sneak in to
the traditional OSU-Michigan football games played in Columbus
- thus far, he has compiled a perfect record. He is a true legend
and the stadium officials post his pix on all the gates and still
the stadium officials can't stop him! He is featured regularly
in OSU athletic lore and has been the subject of several TV shows.
He uses various disguises to sneak in: nun, band director, football
official, pizza salesman, etc. He actually has season tickets
and is a generous contributor to the School of Pharmacy. Jerry
spent some time in New York fresh out of OSU but returned to Dover
and the family business, but the theatre is still in his blood
which makes him so much fun to be around. Saw him in Annie
this summer in Ohio and he portrayed FDR....better than FDR. A
gourmet cook, Jerry had a local TV cooking class where he would
dress up to match the menu and country of origin. I take him a
few loaves of SFO sourdough bread and that keeps me eligible for
invites for his fabulous dinners!.
When Mom became ill in December of 1997, I had ripped out my
old deck and hot tub and was planning to rebuild the deck and
the re-think the layout scheme of the back yard. Then with the
help of my great friend and teaching colleague, Bill Michaels,
also a OSU alum, the deck was completed in 1999. But with
Mom's illness and my frequent trips to Ohio, I was unable to complete
much of anything due to the constant running back and forth. However,
I did take down 2 huge Redwood trees in the back, one 40 ft. high
while the second was a Sequoia Redwood, 55 ft. high, located only
10 ft. from the house. So with that task done, I had a detailed
plan drawn up and was about ready to begin the construction when
I decided to add a spa. The landscape designer [a very nice woman
who is a landscape instructor at Solano] threatened to kill me
and rather than to face messy homicide charges, we jointly agreed
to revise the plan, add the spa and decided to add 2 pads, Roman
columns, and came up with an Italianate landscape motif.
The project started with son-in-law Andre building a beautiful but awesome looking fence. When a contractor, working in the neighborhood on another house, viewing the newly completed fence, asked if I planned to keep elephants in the back yard! Anyway, that was the start. The work began by breaking up and wheeling out 20 tons of cement; we then poured over 15 cubic yards of colored cement in walkways and pads, erected eight 12 ft. concrete columns requiring 30-inch deep holes with steel reinforcements, and converted the existing cement area, which was 4 ft. deep where the old hot tub was positioned, and transformed the area into a 9 x 7 ft. pool that is now the proud home of Bacchus, the wine God. Bacchus is 5' 8" and weighs in at a svelte 850 lbs. A really key person in all this was Brad Miller, a professional cement worker who lives nearby. I am trying to become his apprentice but Brad has doubts! During the summer, I was working 10-12 hours a day and dropped to 165 lbs. Had previously shaved the mustache so most folks are amazed when I reveal my age. So that is what has kept me fairly busy. And then, there is...the other part......
Continuing my interests in the arts but not much traveling
to other parts of the country to view/hear programs. So my activities
are mostly confined to Berkeley and San Francisco for the theatre,
SFO Symphony, SFO Opera and the SFO Ballet. Looking over the playbills,
I attended over 20 concerts at Davies Hall where the Symphony
is located. I am in San Francisco on the average of once a week
and sometimes more. This feeds my spiritual side .Fortunately,
the cultural seasons run from September thru June, so the summer
was free to work on the backyard.
As far as visitors here at Casa Verde, I had a few this year.
Elliott Marin, a friend from New York, was out for a week
and we played a lot of golf or should I say, he played, and I
became familiar with the local golf course environs. Bill
Wellington, sister Gloria's husband, was out in
July for his second consecutive Snoopy Ice Hockey Senior Tourney
in Santa Rosa. Charles Schultz, a local Santa Rosa resident
who passed on in 1999, loved hockey and supported this senior
tourney for 25 years. It won't be held in 2001 so I get a respite
from seeing Bill but I am sure he will be out to California under
some other guise. He has a rare sense of humor and I just love
him. As for his sense of humor within the
family......Hmmmm. I taught Bill to cook and wash clothes and
now I am in deep trouble with Gloria as Bill tries to exercise
his newly learned skills at home. By the way, Bill is a celebrity
of sorts, forming the Geri-Hatricks, a senior ice hockey
group which won a big tourney in Lake Placid this past January.
Recently, the National Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons did a day-long
video on these guys to show that even 70-80 year olds can play
with knee and hip replacements. More business, I suspect. Bill
will be reaching toward 80 soon and is a wonder. On a sour note,
in late November, Bill was robbed near the ice hockey rink in
D.C. where he helps open 3 times a week in the early morning hours.
Fortunately, Bill was not physically harmed in the encounter.
Also visiting was Tom Wellington, attorney at the U.S. Patent Office and the youngest of the Wellington clan, along with a friend. Had a lot of fun with them during the visit. A constant visitor, in fact who will be visiting the Bay Area this week for several days, is Orlando Padilla. Orlando lives in the Detroit area and is Director of the Public Policy Center for GM. This year Orlando was selected as one of the100 most influential Hispanics in the U.S.. Orlando came into my world through Anne and her sister Judy's late husband, Larry Green, in the GM organization. One of Orlando's colleagues at GM was Andy Card, is President George W. Bush's Chief of Staff. So with this connection and my acquaintance with Condeleezza Rice, our new President's National Security Advisor, I may be changing party affiliations and going for the BIG ONE!
My one trip to the East that I did some visiting outside Ohio
was to my friend of 65 years, Fred Fondriest, who lives
on the Maine coast. The home designed by Fred is spectacular,
looking out on the Atlantic Ocean with a picture-book view. We
had a great time discussing our Catholic school experience, which
justifies the bumper sticker, I Survived Catholic
School! Fred survived much higher..becoming a civil engineer
and patent attorney.
Chris and Lisa
are good. Lisa's two children, Maddy (she's celebrating
her 5th birthday with her Mom) and Cole, 8, are doing wonderfully
well and Andre and Lisa have completed a great remodeling project
on their home in nearby Benicia. Lisa is working as an RN at both
UC San Francisco and at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek. Andre,
an engineer with the Richmond Fire Department with over 20 years
of service, was instrumental in helping put up the fence this
summer. My former mother in law, Bernice Cuneo, moved down
from Groveland near Yosemite this past summer to live with my
ex-wife Shirley Cuneo and it is nice to have her and everyone
else in Benicia. Chris, who turned 40 this year, is
doing well in the South Bay, still working for the digital mapping
company Etak as a senior tech support engineer, which was sold
by Sony this past year and then purchased by a Belgian mapping
firm named TeleAtlas, giving the company a international bent.
For those of you with E mail, you will note a URL at the bottom of the page. Chris has updated the Website with a couple pictures of the project and a few other shots you might enjoy. For those of you who have not joined the computer age, get one of your friends to enter the Website address and you can view this letter with some panache attached.
Rick's Home Page on the Internet:
Hope I haven't bored you too much. Next project is the kitchen and should be into that by February-March. However, if the NASDAQ and the Dow continue their southward trek, this project could be delayed indefinitely!
Happy 2001,
Rick
