A Christmas Message from Bill and
Ava Frisinger December 1999
The
lead story this year is Rob is now is a home owner. Last year I reported that high housing prices had forced
Diane to get a house about 20 miles east of us in the foothills of the Cascades.
The same forces have driven Rob and
Amber to get a house about 40 miles
east of us and about 10 miles east of the pass over the Cascades.
The good news is that housing
prices are even more reasonable over there.
The bad news is that bad weather can close the pass for 2 or 3 days at a
stretch. (To see what the weather
is at his house, check
the local
WSDPT camera The camera is only about
a mile away) Rob is still working on this side so he as to commute daily
across the
mountains. Their
address
is 31
Rally Way (P.O. Box 506) Easton WA
98925, The phone is 509-656-3232. Easton
is a very small town that is well up in the mountains on the eastern side.
The snow averages about 2 feet all winter with occasional snows that
are up to the windows. There
was a forest fire about a mile from their house last summer that took a couple
of days to put out. Rob had to give
his address to get past the police barricades.
They of course used ground crews, airplanes and helicopters to fight the
fire. Things really got interesting
when they used explosives to build a fire line. It was loud enough to permit Rob’s dog to go through a hole
in the porch railing that he never fit through before. It was also about a 8 foot leap to the ground.
That was one scared dog.
The subject of barricades brings up the WTO conference in Seattle. We thought Seattle was getting a lot of press with Microsoft and Boeing but the WTO put the other coverage to shame. Even Issaquah got into the act sending nine officers to help with security for the President when he came. They were on duty for 12 hours starting at midnight. Not wanting to lose my credentials as a liberal, I marched Monday night with a large group from the Church Council of Washington. It was in support of the 2000 Year of Jubilee, the forgiveness of debt to the poorest of the 3rd world countries.
Grand children are of course a central
part of our lives. For reasons that
I have still not figured out, Amber trusted me to take Joshua to the Museum of
Flight by my self. Getting him out
of their hair was no doubt a factor, Kaleigh was going to a concert with Rob.
I
was loaded up with diapers and related paraphernalia appropriate for a child not
yet 3 and we set out. The first
rule of visiting museums with kids of any age is let them set the agenda.
It turned out that the thing Joshua liked best of all was sitting in the
cockpit of various fighter airplanes. The
fact that he could 
not
see out did not seem to be a problem at all.
All went well and I had to drag Joshua way about 3 hours later.
Everyone wanted to know how it went.
Did I have to do a diaper change? I
explained no, I did not look for trouble and it did
not find me.
This summer
we attended my nephew Arthur Salomon’s wedding in the San Francisco area.
We took a week to drive down visiting numerous friends and relatives on
the way. It was a great wedding and
offered a great excuse to visit people we had not seen in years.
Weddings brings to mind the next for my family. Diane and Scott Lindstrand are planning on getting married next summer. Stay tuned for details or better yet, pester her. She now has an e-mail address, http://home.earthlink.net/~mrandmrsstuck/
Ava is
continuing to enjoy being Mayor. She
is kept busy with a huge number of meetings both inside and outside the city.
She serves on three committees working endangered species
problems. The Riparian
Habitat (Streamside) restoration committee, the Sammamish Watershed Forum, WRIA8
Steering Committee for Early Recovery Programs, the Draft Interlocal
Subcommittee for Tri-county Salmon Recovery Efforts.
This is in addition to 3 different human services committees and The
Seattle King County Board of Public Health.
Two critical City Council races went her way this year so it should be a
better working relationship the next two years.
My favorite
book of the year was Birdsong by Sebastion Faulks, it was Ava’s from last
year. Ava’s favorite this year is
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. I
have not read that one yet so it may turn out to be mine for next year.
I can be
reached all year at my work e:mail, william.n.frisinger@boeing.com,
Ava will be checking our home e-mail, frisinger@csi.com
There is not
much new on our web site but I hope to get it completely revamped next spring
when I am stuck in California. In
theory we will not be working massive overtime although we have heard that story
before. Our web site is at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/frisinger/
Bill and Ava at Issaquah's Millennium Ball
Rev 6/16/02