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December 14, 1991
     If you did not get a Christmas letter or perhaps not even a card from us last year, it does not mean you have offended us in some way. It is just that the pre-Christmas season was even more hectic then usual. In mid-December we had a disastrous snow storm. A snow storm in Miami would cause more chaos then one in Seattle, but not a lot more. This was the first snow of the year and it started in the middle of a work day. It was the fist time I have ever seen snow in Seattle so dry that it would drift. Robert got home about 1 AM, having started on his 13 mile commute at about 7 PM. Two of my friends did not come home at all. We have a snow like this about every ten years. About half of the time we have no snow all winter. Seattleites believe snow belongs in the mountains, not in the cities. It should be readily available to those who wish to deal with it but it should not be forced on unwilling victims.

      On December 20th last year, Ava and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by attending the Nutcracker ballet in Seattle then spending the night in one of Seattle's finest hotels, the Four Seasons Olympic. The ballet was wonderful, the sets were designed by Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are and other excellent children's books. This version of the Nutcracker was filmed a few years ago and should be available in your neighborhood video store. I highly recommend it. At any rate, as an outgrowth of the continuing chaos caused by the snow, we were in Seattle without a car. We got back to the hotel then back home using the public busses. You have no idea how crowded a bus can be until you try and take an early bus out of downtown on the last working day before Christmas.

      Returning to more traditional Christmas letter material, and adding a transitional clause so Ava will not be so unhappy with my writing style, let me bring you up to date on what is going on in the Frisinger household. The biggest news is that Robert spent the fall quarter studying in London as part of a program organized by a group of west coast schools. He stayed with a family in Pinner, a small town north of London. As Robert is a history major, it was an ideal experience for him although he may have visited enough pubs to decide to become a brewmaster instead. It will be six months before he is of legal drinking age here, but Robert has ideas about how to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

      Diane is living in the rental unit behind our house. It is of indeterminate age but is known to have been built by moving two chicken coops together. The people who built our hose operated a chicken farm. Diane is a supervisor at an answering service in Issaquah which serves 500 clients, all out of her office. It operates 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Last Christmas Diane was on duty during Christmas morning so we took our presents down there and opened them. Most of the calls coming in were related to what time the Christmas mass was at the various Catholic churches who are their clients. Also the thaw was beginning to set in so frozen pipes were beginning to leak and plumbing clients were getting business they did not want on Christmas.

      Ava is still on the City council serving as council president for the third time. This means she also acts as mayor pro-tem. As the mayor holds down a full time job a good commute from Issaquah, Ava steps in a lot for critical tasks like crowning the Senior Citizen of the year as well as more mundane things like addressing the local business organizations and chairing council meetings. The mayor is currently trying to reorganize the city staff along a Japanese management style with nobody in charge and everybody feeling good about themselves and willing to make mistakes. It is one of those experiments that everyone will be able to laugh about afterwards but humor is in short supply now.

      As is always the case, I am working on a different job at Boeing. I am still in the Military Airplane Division, but am now working on military derivatives of commercial Boeing airplanes. The current hot prospects are using the 767 airplane as an AWACS airplane for Japan, a tanker for Saudi Arabia or a VIP airplane for the US government. I had been working on the ATF fighter, now called the F22 but am now barred from any classified programs because I am working through my church to help some Russians who came to this country to be able to practice their religion freely. They are Pentecostals. Of course I could break off contact with the Russians, but I am as stubborn as the people in Security.

      Have a good Christmas and may Christ be with you in the coming year.

                 Love, The Frisingers


Other Years 

Rev 6/16/02