December
12, 1992
Ann Landers’ article about bad Christmas letters a week ago reminded me
it is time to write mine. If you
find them offensive, just mutter something about engineers and chuck it.
For those of you who are
still with me, let me update you on the doings of the Frisinger household.
Like many others, we let the summer’s airline fare war influence our
travel plans. We had originally
planned a car trip to visit friends and relatives in Oregon, California, and
Texas. With the big discounts, we
decided to fly to Michigan and down to Florida instead.
We went back for Ava’s thirtieth high school reunion, visited Ava’s
and my relatives and went up to David Whitaker’s Island off the East end of
Manitoulin Island. While at
Dave’s Island, Dave, Ava, I and Dave’s dog decided on the spur of the moment
to take a trip around the Island, a 200 mile journey in an outboard.
We were just going to go part way but on finding calm water in Lake
Huron, we opted to go all the way around making reservations at a completely
unknown hotel on the far end of the Island.
To humor Ava, we stopped off in a small town and got a tooth brush and
paste. It was interesting to see
three people register at a hotel with no bags save three toothbrushes and a tube
of past.
After returning from the Island, Ava stayed in Michigan to spend more
time with her relatives and I went down to Florida to visit my folks for a few
days; then we both headed home together. I
got down to Florida just a couple of days after Andrew visited there.
Diane had been down just
before Andrew arrived. My
mother’s health seemed to have deteriorated quite a bit since I had seen her
last and my father’s was getting some worse, also.
The condo manager was definitely worried about them both, so we began to
look into the possibility of Diane moving in with them to help out.
Two days after returning to Seattle, my father died in bed, probably of a
stroke. It is amazing how casually
the medical community takes the death of an older person.
The doctor just supplied the required information for the death
certificate over the phone.
All the siblings quickly converged on Florida
for the funeral and to work out how to care for Mother.
Diane volunteered to stay down with her.
Diane’s offer has been a godsend for all of usand it has worked out
very well.
On other fronts, my involvement with the Russian refugees has continued.
This year I helped them through the hoops required to buy a home.
They said the red tape involved was much worse here than in Russia, not a
good sign.
Ava is serving her fourth year as Issaquah Council President and has been
quite active working on one of the local Senate races.
A Democrat finally won in this district.
Of course, it was the year of the Democrats.
Ava will be up for reelection next year.
She may choose to run for another office instead.
The mayor’s spot will be open as well as a county council seat.
Robert is a Senior at the University of Washington and is living at a
cabin that Diane found near where we were living before we moved
into town. They both fixed
it way up. The cabin at North Lake
is what got them interested in cabins to begin with.
Robert was even more involved in the campaigns then Ava.
He managed the campaign of a woman running for the state house in the
Republican Primary. It was a four
way race. Robert’s candidate came
in second. Basically there were
three normal Republicans and one Christian Fundamentalist. The Fundamentalist got a plurality and won the primary but
lost in the general.
While on vacation and back in Florida for the funeral as well as for
quite a while afterward, our house was being remodeled.
We now have a foundation which will be able to survive THE
BIG ONE. We also spruced up the kitchen, replaced the bathroom literally
from the ground up and installed pipes, wires and ducts in the wall to support
the addition of an upstairs bathroom next year.
Living in a house with no bathroom on the floor with the bedrooms seems
to be a growing problem as we become more “mature”.
I am continuing to work a variety of jobs at Boeing.
My current assignment involves a study of the safety of transporting
nuclear warheads aboard C-141 cargo
planes. One of the best aspects of
the job is that it has quite a bit
of travel associated with it. The
most common destination is Albuquerque NM, one of the more interesting places in
the US. It definitely beats LA, the
most typical business destination for me.
To help give you a feeling for what is interesting us, I thought I would
share our favorite books for the year. Robert’s
favorite was the Autobiography of James Doolittle (of “Thirty Seconds Over
Tokyo” fame), Diane likes the books by Ann Rice, particularly “The Tale of
the Body Thief” and “The Queen of the Damned”.
Ava liked the book, “The River Runs Through It”.
The movie was excellent also. My
favorite was “Plaines of
Passage” the latest in the “Clan of the Cave Bear” series.
Of course you always have to take another's recommendations with a grain
of salt. My sister, Mary, and Diane
rented the movie “Black Robe” after hearing me rave about it.
They found it depressing. My
answer is nonsense, see “The Killing Fields” for a depressing look at what
we really are.
Have a good Christmas and may Christ be with you in the coming year.
Rev 6/16/02