December 2001

This is a tale of a smiling gnat and a scowling elephant on a teeter totter. The gnat is us. The elephant, we'll call "September 11 and the Economy" (wouldn't "Jumbo" sound better and friendlier?). And the teeter totter would be the year. The point here is that we had a good year full of the little fun things that make living life and having a family worth it all. But those things seem comparatively trivial in the context of the past twelve months. Virtually everyone reading this will, at a minimum, know someone who knows someone who lost a job this year, or who suffered profound hurt or worse on that awful day in September. To all such people, we're so sorry for what happened. Our own stories, trite as they may seem today, were the year that was for us. Read on for our year. May the new year be a better one for everyone.

Michael had another healthy and happy year: this will be the first time since perhaps 1994 that the George family will have spent more for medical insurance than we received in medical care. Michael is now in his second year of preschool, where he has become increasingly self-confident and outgoing. We currently don't know what to expect as far as kindergarten. As a five-year-old next year, he'll be ready, both agewise and intellectually. But even though he no longer has to wear leg braces, there are enough physical and mobility issues that we may continue him in preschool until he's six. Mikey's appetite for any type of food, served at any temperature, is incredible. He's only two pounds lighter than Emily and gaining fast. The baking soda box is the only thing in our refrigerator without his fingerprints or teeth marks. Between the food, and his eye for attractive females in their early 20s, he reminds his father of Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies TV show. Oh, except that at the time of this letter, he has decided that he should be addressed as "Elephant Mikey," and goes around the house making elephant noises. Maybe kindergarten can wait until he's seven, or his tusks come in.

She is Emily, hear her roar. Sweetly of course. Not for nothing do this girl's initials (E.R.G.) spell what every physicist would recognize as the basic unit of energy. Now six and in first grade, she learned to read earlier this year. How wonderful. A person who very well could have been talking in the womb now has someone else's stuff to use, if she ever runs out of her own material. At her kindergarten open house in the spring, she was actually stopping other parents (complete strangers) and making them listen to her read. Listening to her read the Sunday comics is an adventure in itself. Who else could infuse "Blondie" with enough drama to make it sound like "The Charge of the Light Brigade?" When she's not reading to people, whether they want it or not, she might be found in front of a mirror, preening (vanity is not one of the Deadly Sins in the Gospel of Emily), or leaping in front of cameras to pose (see previous comment), or most likely, just looking for another waist to hug. Friend to all, smart, beautiful, brimming with life, unforgettable. That's Emily.

Then there's Meghan, who continues to be a beautiful girl with eyes to die for. Her time this year was spent among Girl Scout activities, acting classes (including playing the lead in a summer vignette from "Cinderella"), and saxophone lessons. Her third grade teacher continued on to fourth grade, taking Meghan and most of the class along for the 2000/01 school year, making it among the best a student or parent could ask for. She had an excellent teacher and a lot of continuity. Her teacher and much of her class walked with Meghan in the cystic fibrosis walk in May, helping us toward raising more than $4,500. That teacher also encouraged her to try for a second time to get into the school's gifted program, and she was accepted. The extra work is a good outlet for her love of extra reading and creative thinking. This year, fifth grade, is Meghan's last in elementary school, and she's already looking toward middle school - happy that she can ride her bike there, nervous about a new building and new friends.

Katie continued to have a heavy presence in the kids' lives, leading Emily's Brownie troop for the second year in a row, serving as cookie mom for Meghan's girl scout troop, and being a weekly classroom volunteer in Mikey's and Emily's schools. She also turned 40 this year, an event for which Dave surprised her with a dinner with some of her college friends.

Dave, also no longer 39, had a mixed year - bad business, but a lot of fun. On the business side, he was again his office's leading booker, but in the economy of 2001, that's a bit like winning the "all-Hindu Big Mac eating championship." The wildfire that was the electronics industry of 2000 met the tsunami of the 2001 economy. The tsunami won - although at year-end, there were some encouraging signs of improvement. Fun highlights for Dave this year included an RPI (Dave's alma mater) alumni event at a Buffalo Sabres game at which he met the school's president and John Rigas, owner of the Sabres and founder of Adelphia Cable. Dave also attended an outdoor appearance by sports talk show host Jim Rome, proving that any day of ample beer and two hours of sub-sophomoric humor will always get moved to the top of his calendar.

This year, in lieu of a beach vacation, we joined a pool club. The bad news was that we thus had no beach vacation. The good news was everything else. Katie and the kids took advantage of the great weather to go swimming virtually every day of summer. The kids, whose swimming abilities ranged from marginal to sheer terror, all got very good over time, and someone pointed out that Emily has a phenomenal backstroke. Can six-year-olds get college scholarships based on potential? Please? Katie, whose last adult conversation with a non-family member was in 1992, also quickly grew to enjoy discussions in which "Madeline" or "Blues Clues" didn't come up every other sentence.

Our summer started with the first full reunion of Katie's family since 1998. Besides being great fun, the 27 Bledsoes (Bledsii?) nearly doubled the population of Bryson City, NC, at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. We went rafting in 50-degree water, horseback riding, and hiking, and the thirteen young cousins had a blast playing with each other.

We celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary this year. We marked it with a few happy days in San Diego in October, our first getaway with no family or friends since 1988. Fifteen years of having someone warm to hug and to prop you up and to laugh hard with isn't nearly as good as thirty or fifty. But it's a great start.

We had fun this year. But it ended with so many needlessly empty chairs at empty tables, places where thousands of people like Katie McGarry Noack should have been laughing and living for decades more. Good memories may inevitably erase bad, but this year will provide a harsh challenge to that adage.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all. Especially to you and to all the good people in your life.

Dave & Katie

Meghan, Mikey, Katie, Dave, Emily
Clingman's Dome, TN, July 2001