December1988

Christmas: and family news time again.

The Neergaards are still making soap in Cincinnati, Dick continuing to enjoy his job of doing research into technologies that can help groups deal with complex problems.

We did get away for a while; to Chicago, and later to Washington, to do a bit of sight-seeing and museum-hopping with friends, and to Durham to "help" Sandra Treadaway open her new hotel on the Duke campus, an event which Trig and Steffi also attended.....the trip to the US was Steffi's 16th (!) birthday present. One area of application for Dick's work has been with the company's Mexican subsidiaries, and business trips to that fascinating and touching country have also been providing punctuation for the Cincinnati sojourn.

The kids keep coming in and going out:

Sue's back from Chicago, having decided to make a fresh beginning after her divorce, and is living with us for the time being. The head-hunters she was working with here weren't able to come up with a really good career fit for her, so they hired her themselves. It's working gratifyingly well. Sue's presence and mental nimbleness are being given full rein, and the delight she's taken ever since she's been little at arranging good things for people, is now having her working nights and weekends.....with enthusiasm.

Richard's with P&G in Germany, doing (among other things, as befits a yuppie bachelor on the continent) marketing work. We saw him only once in the past year, on a (literally) flying trip, and are looking forward to his being with us this Christmas.

Arthur, also still with P&G doing packaging research, is rattling around in the apartment he and Richard set up here year ago last fall, and is starting to say wistful things about a European assignment for himself. That is when he's not diving, skiing, or barking his knuckles under one of his three cars.

Peter's still doing esoteric things with aggregations of main-frames at Carnegie Mellon University. Not your prototypical wire-head, mind you: he's partial also to mayhem-oriented sports (e. g. Lacrosse) and has acquired an elderly BMW and what his female admirers tell him is an alluring beard.

The last year has also been one of loss. Dick's parents both died: Gould, jaunty to the end, November '87; and then Ginny succumbed finally, mercifully, last June to the Parkisonism that had debilitated her for years. And our beloved family Labradog 'Meri left us in August.

Lois mother remains very well ensconced in a nearby retirement home, settling in rather more regally, than as a dependant.

We continue to miss Europe and our friends there, and extend to you our deep affection, Christmas greetings, and best wishes for the new year.

Merry Christmas, from all the

Neergaards