The year 2010
We began 2010 with New Years eve with our dear friends Mary and Ron
Neal and their family, at their mountain home above Edwards,
Colorado. To Clare and I this was a marvelous time because
Mary-Beth and family are part of our own extended family. This was
followed by another sojourn to Texas and Galveston Island, where again
we stayed at Mary
and Ron's beach home. Galveston was another relaxing time full of
writing and eating seafood. The island in winter is a bracing
environment and the closeness to our family and friends in Houston,
Baton Rouge and New Orleans made the break from the mountain especially
pleasing.
This was the third time we had
used Ron
and Mary's generosity to escape to a warmer climate. We traveled to
Baton Rouge many times whilst in Texas, as Clare had two cataracts
removed at the Baton Rouge Eye Clinic where Tim Johnson, the son of
our old neighbors in University Acres, practices eye surgery. We
were able to spend valuable time with Vaughan and Anthony during
these visits – of this both Clare and I were very happy because we
see so little of our beloved children.
George notes - I
got involved with 3-D seismic
again
and attempted to make good use of a public domain program [OpendTect]
to work on the Leesville Dome. I got further interested in
understanding the 1700-1800
developments of “The Enlightenment” in Britain, France and the
USA and again read a lot of articles and books to learn about the
principle characters of that episode of humanities history. It was
absolutely fascinating and a renewal, as I had taken European History
[1066-1850] at Neville's Cross High School for my O level GCE.
One of the projects I started this winter was to re-educate myself to the
K12 level! I am aware that if I am to compete intellectually with the folk
coming out of a major University then I need to re-formulate my
base vocabulary and K12 is where to start. The Californian educational system has a set of eBooks
available free for K12: calculus, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, all
aspects of modern physics, chemistry, earth science, and american
history. This is one of my tasks for winter 2010 and spring 2011.
I have finished the American History and learned about many aspects of
our country I was unaware of. I have now started the Geometry eBook. Links to these eBooks are in the left sidebar.
In
the spring Clare worked on more landscaping, and summer brought a
continuous stream of visitors: Ray and Sue Ferrell, Winnie, James,
Olivia and the Scot Guidry family, Beverly and Bill Ross, James and
granddaughter Olivia, Faith LaGay for the annual philosophers
debate at the Ross's; Dan Bonnet, John French and John Shuie, for their
annual visit to relax with us; Paul
Lawless, Mac Jervey and wife Gay, Bob and Linda Pierce, and finally in
October Andrew Ferrell. We loved every visit and visitor.
In October Clare and Winnie went to Washington, DC for their regular
'somewhere-get-to-gether'. These are occasions that Clare loves
and enjoys for she gets time to spend with our fantastic
daughter-in-law. November saw some minor snow-fall but for the
most part the warmth of
the sun made most days a continuing experience of sampling nature: we
really do live in a paradise here on the Mountain! It saw our
dear
friends and neighbors Iris and Terry Jack selling their home and moving
permanently to New Mexico, where I understand they are watching drug
runners from their back patio. In early December Bill and Beverly Ross braved the threat of snow and
came for a jolly evening, along with John French and our Aussie friends
Jeff and Jan Calebough [OK Jan I know you are actually the real
Aussie]. Then there was another trip to the south, for a family
gathering at X'mas in New Orleans where we stayed with Vaughan and then at Winnie and James'
New Orleans home. We spent time with our
friends Walter Simmons, and Puri and Barun Sen Gupta in Baton Rouge and others in Houston,
before returning to Hart's Abode for
New Years Eve.
Most of George's summer time was spent working on the re-painting of
the exterior of Hart's abode: the gates are now bronze-gray, the
columns brown and the walls sandstone. Hart's Abode now fits perfectly into
it's environment. He wrote a lot and continued to add information
into our family biography.
Health-wise we had a very healthy year: after Clare cataract surgery in
both eye's she can now see how good looking George really is; and
George got a tape-worm from eating non-sushi grade yellow-tail!
All sushi-grade fish has to be hard frozen for at least two weeks and
then defrosted for eating. George made a mistake, and paid for
it, as good conventional fresh fish, which is supposed to be cooked, has never been frozen and can have the
tape-worm cysts. However, treatment was quick and effective with
a succession of mebendazole
chewable tablets. The upside was it did allow him to refer to
himself using the royal 'we'
instead of the prol 'I'
for a few weeks. He gave up alchol at 11.00 pm on 9th
March 2010
after a couple of delightful single-malts at Ron's house: he misses the
scotch and red-wine but feels a lot healthier as alchol affected the arthritus in his left hip. In November George
had minor, essentially superficial, surgery to repair a damaged blood
vessel caused by thinning of the skin with age! The biggest problem was the full
anesthesia which resulted in about four days of occasional poor balance
and confusion [over and above the norm that is!].
The sad news was death of former friends: George's former student
Patrick Ryan died in June, in Arizona. Pat was his first Ph.D.
student at
the
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and worked with
him for the 5 1/2 years he was in South Africa. George worked with Pat
on his M.Sc. and saw him through the final draft of his Ph.D. When we
left Jo'burg
our old friend Des Pretorius saw the completion of the formalities of
Pat's dissertation. David Wilensky: a close friend for many
years died on 28th June: he was an interesting man who will be sorely
missed. In September George's youngest cousin Stephen Walker died in
Darlington, England. Steven also was an interesting character and his
funeral service saw a church packed full of local Romany: who were his
close associates as he was the Secretary of the regional Pigeon Racing
Club - an activity which has been in the Walker side of the family for
at least three generations. Tony [A. J.] Cessford had a massive heart attack
and died on 15th October. Tony was George's oldest and dearest
friend and his former M. Sc. student at Witwatersrand, alongside Pat. Ryan,
Tony had a wonderful career in African, Britain, Indonesia and the
USA. He
was the geologist that did the field work and found the lead to the
discovery of the Botswana diamond fields under the sands of the
Kalahari
and later sited the first major oil well in the North Sea. His
career was full of adventure and satisfaction: he taught me how to
drink Armagnac rather than Cognac, although I think we both preferred a
good single malt scotch. Surgery prevented George attending
Tony's funeral, which he truly had wanted to do. In 2010 we also learnt that our old friend, C. Vaughan James,
from Soviet days [1960-61] died in Oxford, England. Our eldest son
Vaughan was named after that delightful Welshman. C.Vaughan James
and I were part of the second group of students exchanged between
Britain and the USSR during the Cold War. Finally, towards the end of
the year we learnt of the death of our old friend and collegue from LSU
days - Professor Donald Kupfer. One should
always try to say a personal goodbye to blood relatives and true
friends because they contain so many of ones own personal memories. As
our blood-kin and friends die so do parts of us for they had memoriesof
us,
with which they could share with others. Farewell
Tony, David, Steve, Pat and Vaughan: we shared some awesome memories and lived in interesting times.
THOUGHT FOR THE YEAR
One of the things the old should do for the younger generation is be
frank about what life is about. I have tried to follow my own
fathers advice - never tell a lie; never answer personal questions,
unless you and the asker have a compromise of absolute trust: a
relationship that can only extend to family and special friends in my opinion;
and, use the answer "I have no interest in answering that" whenever you feel like it. Moreover, when asked a direct question it is OK to answer: "I do not recall that". I now try to say what I think on my blog: www.ScienceAnd.net.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE YEAR
John Kineman: our nutty neighbor.
The Neal's New Year dinner: Ron, Mary, Katy and David.
Scott Guidry: visiting Hart's Abode.
Faith Lagay: who holds the legal right to kill me!
Iris Jack: who with her husband Terry left the Mountain for New Mexico.