Well, after a year's hiatus, I'm finally getting back to the Advent Letter tradition. I have no excuse, but plenty of explanation, why you didn't hear from me at the Advent season last year.
Let's start with first things first: May you have a Holy Christmass and a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
As I had told those of you who got this letter two years ago, I was off at that time to South America, to visit several of the places I hadn't yet gotten to. Started out at Caracas, meeting with friends and checking out the arrangements for the international suicide convention to be held there the next spring.
Then on to Colombia, where my visit to the salt cathedral outside Bogota (actually an immense cave carved from salt) was the highlight. After a brief stop at La Paz, left Bolivia to continue south to Santiago da Chile, where I had an exceedingly memorable New Year's celebration. Shan't forget the irony: after an Italian luncheon, spent New Year's Day lounging at a pool in the impressive mountains that ring Santiago, getting wonderfully pinked.
Then on to Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile. Why there? Well, some years before, as I drove into Wellington in New Zealand's southern island, I saw a sign advertising the city to be the second most southerly in the world. Where was the most southerly? Right: on to Punta Arenas [Sandy Point]. The flight down was spectacular: the mountains as impressive as the Alps, the glaciers as stunning as those at Grossglockner in Austria. However, the most exciting thing in Punta Arenas was checking out the cemetery, which showed the region's long intricate history of migration of Germans, Hungarians, and a diversity of other nationalities not expected in this last stop before Antarctica.
Flew back up to the middle of Chile, where began an idyllic bus/boat/trek trip through Patagonia. From Puerto Montt to Puerto Varas, through the gentle Petrohue Falls to Puella (where I was the only guest in an 90-room hotel, apart from two border polices with whom I spent the evening conversing - helpful later). Then on to Puerto Frias, Puerto Blest, LlaoLlao. There, a graduating class of Santiago high school students adopted me as their mascot as we trekked together through the wildly spectacular mountains, lakes, and waterfalls.
Finally reached the frontier with Argentina, where I was going to be denied crossing because I lacked certain papers; here the border police from Puella - remember them? - made an exception to the rules and allowed me to continue on to one of the most beautiful hotels I've been at. My apartment opened onto a green carpet that extended to the edge of a lake which, with snow-capped mountains, framed sunrises so spectacularly that I didn't miss one of them there (be it a late-to-bed or early-to-rise event!).
Thence to Buenos Aires, on to Asuncion in Paraguay (where I visited various shrines uniquely juxtaposing Latin piety with South American folkways). From Montevideo in Uruguay, out for a day trip to Punta del Este, Uruguay's Riviera. Then, on to one of the gastronomic highlights of all of my traveling. Now get this: it was aboard a SAS flight from Montevideo to Rio we Janeiro, Brazil. The fact that there were only 6 people in my section, with three attendants, had to help; but the food, all six courses, was so memorable: I can still sense the ever-so-gently smoked whitefish.
In his characteristic fashion, my agent found me an oasis of gentility and graciousness in the madness of Rio: the Ouro Verde hotel, right in the center of Copacabana Beach, was so fine. The staff made one feel that there were no other guests, that they existed for you alone. Spent a day on a sailboat cruising with a dozen other people through Septiba Bay, stopping at this idyllic islet for a swim, at that one for luncheon, at another for a cold beer, and so on through the day.
From Rio up to Bahia, another world in Brazil, where a day at Salvador showed me that the nation has much of the diversity of our USA. Then to one of the most forgettable flights of my travels: from Salvador to Recife to Natal to Fortaleza to Belem, and finally getting to my destination of Manaus, about 200 miles from the starting point - three planes and six hours later! Well, I wasn't ready for this remote duty-free port, way up the Amazon to where it meets the Rio Negro, nowhere. But check out the opera house: Caruso and Melba sang there.
Got into my vocation there: met a brother & sister there who had come to overcome their pain at the suicide of the brother's best friend.
A river trip up the Amazon to where it actually met the Rio Negro was memorable: the Amazon is brown and silty; the Rio Negro is black & oily: their waters don't mix for miles, but churn in turbulent combat.
No sooner back to Boston than reality came back: attended the funeral of a jail officer, the second of four who were to die in 1982 of heart attacks. Is it significant that four officers (out of 200) die of heart attacks in one year; whereas none of the 5,000 inmates admitted in each of the past several years have had similar deaths?
In February, began giving the Samaritan training classes an introduction to the LIFELINE program and the dynamics causing suicide behind bars to occur at 13-16 times the rate of the non-barred population. These presentations are the source of an ever-replenishing supply of Samaritans to work With the LIFELINE program; remarkable that these volunteers have been with me for over six years now!
Had a chance to meet with a retired bishop who is helping out in the diocese: Morgan Porteus had been the rector of the parish in Cheshire where I grew up and where all of my family's pivotal events have taken place.
In March began a series of meetings at Wentworth which led to the decision to convert my financial aid operation from totally manual to computer-assisted. Now we have the first reason for no letter last Advent: while continuing the normal financial aid operations, had to spend an additional immense amount of time learning the twentieth century's new language, computerese. I could have been passive about the conversion, allowing the computer people to give me what they thought I needed. Rather, I opted to be an active participant in the process, assuring that I'd get what I knew I'd need.
Good news; bad news. We had bought a new software system or which my financial aid application was built; the people who had designed the software were not familiar with some of the oddities of financial aid (eg: our year is 18 months long; 0 does not equal blank; the only thing certain about financial aid numbers is that they will change). Talk about terminal illness: I spent more time with the terminal than I've ever spent with any human being, getting into a love-hate relationship with it.
Yes, the year of introducing the system was hell for all involved; however, we have been enabled by it to be more accurate, to produce more meaningful and timely reports, and to get information to our students more quickly and clearly. Wouldn't have avoided the pain, given the benefits that have resulted. Now, the system is working; after a year it's operational; all is well. Right? Wrong!
Wentworth has bought a new software package which will enable the financial aid office to talk with the bursar's, registrar's, and admissions offices. Wonderful! One little problem: the system we had sweated for a year to produce is now useless... Back to the drawing boards and to another year of introduction. Oh, well, who likes constancy and non-change, anyway?!
Had opportunity to work with a candidate for governor, assisting him to mold his policies concerning criminals. It's funny: back when I started in this business, I was considered by the incumbents to be a roaring liberal; now, however, as I'm teaching police officers, etc., they find me to be a conservative. I think a large part of this is the 16 years of seeing the same people coming back through the system. Of 20 new people that I see booked for the first time on a Monday evening, statistics show that 17 of them will die in the system. Sure, 3 are there for one stop: but how are we to reach the other 17? I'm convinced that it's almost without hope if they aren't with us by age 5. Nevertheless, we keep trying; without effort, there would indeed be no hope.
Had a second trip to Williamsburg for the conference concerning financial aid and automated data processing, this time accompanied by a member of the computer center staff. We came back convinced that we had to automate the financial aid operation.
Got a chance to participate in a LIFELINE meeting at the Lawrence Jail; though I was neither leader nor active contributor, it was a reassuring visit, as it convinced me that the program doesn't need me to function effectively. We can thus go anywhere.
DISASTER!: I was informed in April '82 by the Prudential Insurance Company, the owner of the building I had been living in for 14 years, that it was converting to cooperative ownership. The result would have been a 141% increase in monthly payments for me. The net result was one more instance that demonstrates that I should title the story of my life, "From Bullshit into Fertilizer", because this apparent catastrophe turned out to benefit me tremendously. The day after I read she announcement, I looked at a cooperative apartment which Wentworth hod been instrumental in starting.
Now let me tell you about my new home, which I looked at - and agreed to buy - with the money Pru offered to pay me to buy back my lease, the day after their announcement: it is a 49-unit co-op, until 7 years ago a one-story taxi garage. Then, it was converted into a 4-story apartment building. First floor, loft studios; 2nd, l-bedrooms, with all of the living rooms facing a common deck; 3rd & 4th, 2-bedroom duplexes, with a deck on each flight. I bought a 2-bedroom, on the end of the building, so that all of my rooms have as one wall the raw brick of the adjacent building. Really nuts: my living room and kitchen are upstairs, and my bedroom and office are down. But, whatever, it is my home, as I had never had before. Gradually, all of the owners are coming to identify with the co-op, recognizing that it is their property, something no apartment-owner could sense. This is the first time I've owned a home where I could put a door knocker on my outside door. Further luck: both upstairs and down, I have window walls facing south, so the sun in the day heats the rooms; thermal drapes keep the heat in at night. Have not yet turned the heat on, in mid-December!
Went to one of the State prisons in Summer '82 to talk about LIFELINE. Though the authorities there were unwilling for a Samaritan-related program to start, there were sufficient of Charles Street's alumni there to start a crisis intervention program, modeled after the LL program. Thus, we're now in four county jails, with an offshoot in one state prison.
Both last year and this, had the pain/pleasure of organizing the Boston Ballet volunteers for their annual bash on the Esplanade. The audience is increasingly generous with their contributions r which is most appropriate, as so many ballet companies are going bankrupt now. Besides, there is no fun quite analogous to that of seeing the incipient primas and primos in their first public performances.
Took two days off from work and jail in September '82 for a trip to San Diego, the flight free due to my frequent use of Pan Am in my annual trips. Gave me opportunity to be with friends there.
Had an instructive death at the jail in late '82: a new arrival had been assessed by the booking officer, by the LIFELINE inmates. and by the medical department to be at no risk of suicide. Twenty minutes later, he was dead. Turns out that he had committed himself to suicide before reaching the jail, was thus not in quandary, was at peace, having decided the result. Thus, the apparent lack of risk.
The Brown phonothon for alumni dollars, which had been taking place at Wentworth for several years, has now moved to a brokerage firm where more lines are available. We've now almost totally moved from the head class agent mode to the phonothon as the most efficient way to raise alumni dollars: we'll see if the breakup of Ma Bell affects us.
Spent Thanksgiving weekend in both '82 and 83 at Bellows Falls, Vermont, at a nowhere place. Now doing that for 5 years, I see that I'm resting up for the final push to get everything ready for my annual vacation.
Winter of '82 vacation was a week at each of 3 Club Med's in Mexico and a week of independent touring. This first visit to Mexico got me into both coasts, as well as Mexico City and several inland archeological sites. A new dimension for me: Club Med has each week an Olympic competition between several groups of members. Not being particularly athletic, I had never participated. At Ixtapa, however, I found myself to be the captain of a team. Well, 1 learned that winning was less dependent on athletic prowess than on spirit: once I convinced my team that we had to win, we did!
Jessica decided to take the Spring semester off from college, instead went to work for the term, got herself an apartment in Cambridge, is now back at college. Though it was agony for her and for her parents as she evolved into greater independence, she is much further along than she would have been without this term of independence.
More complication at work: my assistant aid officer had properly seen that she could not have a career in student services without a Master's, resigned to return to full-time studies. Her successor arrived last March, was working out really well, had to move with her husband to his unexpected promotion to New York City. This latter's successor and I didn't work out well together: he left recently. I thus start the New Year looking for a new assistant.
Other new stuff: had assisted my financial aid counselor, as part of her master's degree work, to draft legislation: it eventually ended on Beacon Hill. Both it, and companion legislation filed by relatives of cell-block suicides, address the problem of death behind bars. Net result: establishment of the Special Commission to Study Deaths in Municipal Detention Facilities (the first in the Nation). We've (note that I've become the de facto expert on jail suicide, as nobody else has the time or interest in dealing with this obscenity) now had public hearings throughout the Commonwealth; we've asked each chief of police in the Commonwealth to tell us about all deaths in the last 10 years; we'll be publishing a report and legislative recommendations in early '84!
Was finding it increasingly difficult to read 'phone books; went for a complete eye exam by an ophthalmologist. He said my eyes were fine, just getting older, prescribed 1.5X magnifying lenses or four hours more/night sleep. Obviously, got the lenses.
Such good classmates at Brown: again, was found to be the head class agent with the highest increase in giving in my peer group. Couldn't do it without the class's support. Now gearing up to the 25th reunion gift, which has to break all records.
As hectic as my life might appear to be in any one year, the above two years' recounting is specially graphic. Thus my rationale for leaving 25 December for a new turf: ultimate destination Tomboctou, Mali. ??Why there?? Well, my agent asked me in April where he should send me this year. I, not remembering what they taught us in seminary (Be careful what you ask for; you might get it.), told him to send me to Timbuctoo. Sure enough: after a few weeks in Morocco (Adagir, Marrakech, Casablanca, Ouarzazate), on to a week in Senegal, then up to Mali, where I'll have what the Mali consulate says will be the first tourist experience in years at Tomboctou (note proper spelling). Shall close with one civilized day in Paris, with a friend I met at the Club Med in Cairo. Then back to Boston. Aren't I lucky? Much love!