Thanksgivings At The Davises (NY, NY, mid 1980s)

Often during the 1970s, 80s, and sometimes 90s, we went to Martin & Virginia's for Thanksgiving, most of that time driving down from Connecticut, staying over a few days when we drove down from Boston (e.g. I know we did so in 1992, because Dave and I saw "The Unforgiven" first-run in Times Square the next day. We were the only customers in the 3,000 seat theater, except that as the movie was about to start, a young couple came in, and sat directly in front of us. Outrageous!! After a couple of minutes, the guy turned around and said, "gotcha", or something, and then they moved. New Yorkers!)

M&V always had lots of people over for these dinners, especially foreign graduate students, usually Martin's Italian graduate students. The older couple in some of the pictures below are Virginia's parents. Also there are Nathan, Elise, Peter (pre-Emma), Harold (who might have taken any of the first three pictures, though Virginia also might have) and Harold's friend Pamela.

Transitions (Over the Atlantic, and Woodbridge, CT, Jan and Jul 1990)

1990 was a very turbulent year for us. It started in Brussels, then Multiflow folded and I took my job with HP. A a result, we flew back to the US, and moved to Boston.

Here are Dave and Dora in business class on TWA. I flew back to the US 13 times during our 10 months in Brussels, so by then I was able to buy reserved seats in business class at highly discounted coach prices (usually about $500 round trip). It's worth mentioning that when we used some of my zillion miles to fly first-class to Istanbul in 1991, Dora, nearly 10, made a very important declaration. She said very seriously, as if she had given this a lot of thought and arrived at a considered decision, that she would henceforth choose first class over coach for her travels. As if she had decided to go with Toyota instead of Honda. Even then, she was a consumer with good taste.


My job at HP required us to move to Boston, and spend summers in Palo Alto for a few years. Below is the end of the packing up of the very full moving truck, in our driveway in Woodbridge, that took our possessions away. They were placed in storage while we spent 5 weeks in California (they were later delivered to our new home in Brookline). You can see the outline of Dora's head in the foreground.

Harold at Work (Little Havana, Miami, FL, Nov 2009)

Our friend Harold just returned from two weeks on a humanitarian mission to that little island just south of here. He stayed overnight with us while changing planes.

Harold is a noted photographer and author. We toured Little Havana on his way to the airport, and, since he had just taken many pictures of such monuments from the other side, he couldn't resist taking some from this perspective. The little "Plaza De La Cubanidad" is for the Bay of Pigs invasion (there is a more significant museum and monument on the subject somewhere in Little Havana) and the 13 de Marzo incident. The passage of José Martí says, "The palms are lovers who wait", I suppose they are the palms of Cuba waiting for their heroes to come home and rescue them.

(As always, please click the photo for better viewing)

Asheville Home (Asheville, NC, Sep-Oct 2009)

Just for ease of reference, I'm recording these two pointers to photo albums from our Asheville home:

House Tour

Fall Photos

Swine Flu !! Part 2 (Woodbridge, CT, Dec 1985)

Because I have 6,000 almost-randomly sorted photos, I'm always finding ones that belonged in an earlier post.

When I did the swine flu posting back in May:



I missed this terrific one, from the same great pig-out:

Betty's and Rae's Families (Bronx, NY, and California, ~1957 and ~1995)

Back in Miami, and now I have access to the 6,000 old family pictures again.

The left-most child below is my cousin Verne (Cousin #17/Ray's #2), who I've somehow missed in all these pictures. Just two more of my 19 first cousins to go! To the right of him are his sister Marci, and Ilene and Larry in front of Betty and George.



And here are the four of them again, about 50 years later.

Travels With Mickey (Black Mountain, NC; Paris, France; Rapello, Italy, 2008-9)

Somehow, I keep taking this same picture. Yes, he's wearing a beret in the Paris photo, click on the photo and it will be obvious. Notice, btw, that in all three pictures Mickey is staring right at the camera. In all three pictures, I took the shot with the self-timer. How does a dog know to stare at the camera? He was born knowing how to stare at cameras.

(Next week, I finally get access to the 6,000 old photos again!)