It's HERE!

"Mountain Bike! Los Angeles County", by our very own Charles Patterson. It arrived! And, it's BEAUTIFUL!

Way to go NEPH!

(SOMEone on page 131 wasn't wearing her helmet!)

Sunrise at Mono Lake

Hey, Fam. Have you been to Mono Lake via Google Earth lately? The new Panoramio layer has a lot of photos contributed Web 2.0-style by various Friends of The Lake. Here is a really beautiful one entitled "Sunrise at Mono Lake".

I expect Maria and I will be posting a few pix from our T-giving trip up to Casey's in Fairplay (South Park), CO.

Cousin Jim and Anita (pronounced AH'-nee-tah) got married on 12/30/07. Maria and I were there. It took place at the Presdio chapel in Santa Barbara. Present were the new melded family: Allison, Katie, Johnny, Frank, Vija, Nicholas & Natalie (the last two were at the Gulch last year). It was a beautiful event. I took Maria out to Isla Vista and showed her my old dorm at UCSB. Very wierd after 37 years.

Kate has some great news about her ThreadBangers efforts; maybe she'll share...

My best-man toast for Jim included the following (I didn't actually hear Jim's parents laughing ... uh-oh):

. . . I’ve known Jim since 1961, when my family moved to Bonnie Hill Drive.

I came here today prepared to shatter whatever illusions Jim and Gloria may have had about the good schoolboy they thought they were raising during the Woodstock Generation.

But I did the math and realized that there are still 3 members of this new household who are still under 21, so, discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to postpone these revelations.

However, I would like to paint one tantalizing picture for you. I don’t know what the geography is now with all the mudslides in the Hollywood hills, but back in the mid-60’s, if a couple of 14-year-old boys were to go down the driveway from my house, detour around the boulders across from my mailbox, cross Bonnie Hill, get past a chain link fence and tumble down a steep ivy-covered embankment, they would find themselves in Jim and Gloria’s swimming pool with a German Sheppard named Gunner, growling at them from the edge of the pool.

While this particular path was never taken, per se, it behooves me to point something out to Jim and Gloria. Were it not for those boulders across from my mailbox, you would have found, on one sunny morning in 1966, that your beautiful swimming pool had been graced with a most unusual pool toy bearing an astonishing resemblance to my parents’ red 1958 Porsche Speedster.

But, To quote Forrest Gump, “that’s all I have to say about that.”
. . .
For Jim and Anita, I offer this
Irish Marriage Blessing:
May God be with you and bless you.
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortunes
and rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
from this day forward.

And for this entire happy assembly,
An Old Irish Blessing:
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.