I had expected not to be able to get this missive done in time to call it an Advent letter this year, as the press of events and obligations has pretty well stressed me out. However, for once the failure of a computer system turns out to be beneficial: the crash of the host computer where I'm now working leaves me with nothing to do for a while except start this letter. Hopefully, the system will be down long enough for me to get some sense of order into this ending year.

As pre-scripted and prescribed, I spent last Winter s' vacation in the (high) Society Islands. Having made a day trip over to Moorea when visiting Tahiti l8 years ago, and having noted that the Bali Hai which overshadows Moorea seems to be the only mountain in the world successful in its attempt to reach the heavens, I finally realized my hope to get back there . With 18 Club Mediterranees under my belt, I was not prepared for the special degree of escape provided by the Club on Moorea, no doubt a happy result of mixing Tahitians' joyful insouciance with CM's hearty pursuit of irrelevance.

Yes. Moorea was my most idyllic vacation spot ever (was it New Year's day or New Year's week we celebrated?!)... ever, that is until I flew more North-ward still, to Bora Bora. Not enough that natives up there saw it as perfectly reasonable that they had never left the postage-stamp of an island on which they were born; not enough that the constant trade winds acted as a palliative to the ever-present sun (just enough clouds on the horizon to accent the sun's violently orange plunge into the Pacific every evening): no, the Chef de Village there (Whom I had first met as a groundsman at the C-M in Djerba, Tunisia ) put me into a thatch-roofed pareo built over the lagoon, so that Nature's sleeping pill - the languorously light lapping waves - enticed me asleep every night. Now, to gild the lily, the C-M on Bora Bora, with all of 80 G-M's provided a retreat for those who really wanted to get away: the Club s own private Ilot of Motu Tapu out at the edge of the coral reef, a few minutes ride away in a proa, but an eternity away from reality . One had to go over there every day, as MM did the luncheon production only on Motu. So, that was the one intensive part of the day - making sure to catch a proa in time for lunch. I got to be rather possessive of Motu Tapu, made it my duty to "beat the bounds of the parish" each day with a circumambulation of the whole ilot making sure that none of the pirouetting palms, nor any of the shimmering seashells, nor a touch of the talcum-soft sand had been disturbed since my last tour. After that grand tour of 15 minutes, I was ready for some serious relaxing.

Happened to visit a local church one Sunday, heard (and recorded) the incredible juxtaposition of Tahitian music with Western theology one could imagine. Learned at the end of the service that there was to be a Society-lsland-wide choral festival to be sung at Bora Bora. got several GM's to join me in a jitney to the sing, realized there that I was out of this world. A few weeks of such activity (?), and I realized I'd have a pretty severe adjustment to make, getting back to our world. So, got onto a puddle-junper of an airplane, which landed me on the pinpoint of Huahine, half-way back to Tahiti. At least there, one wasn't tempted by the groaning tables-full of food which one gets so used to at CM: rather, I had to steel myself to resist the latest seafood delicacy which the fishermen at the hotel plucked from the sea daily.

Back to Boston, having joined the Jail's HMO after leaving the college, I had my first physical in many years. Good I didn't do it before the trip, as I learned that I had severely elevated cholesterol (coconut giving one of the highest concentrations of bad oils of any food, and I having feasted on coconut for weeks. Started a careful cholesterol-reducing diet (adapting my 7-grain bread to use mild olive oil rather than butter, for example); within two months my level of the bad stuff had gotten down to an acceptable range an unintended side effect was the loss of many pounds, so that I'm now back to my college weight, feeling quite good with it!).

Had become the vice-president of the Samaritans USA (the parent organization of the 12 branches in the U.S.A). When the president left to run a branch, found myself as President, just at the time the local branches and the national organization were recapitulating a 200-year-old event, the constituting of the USA. The locals and the national were going through much turmoil trying to juxtapose national standards on local autonomy. Probably my best Christmass gift this year was the commitment by all the local branches to an effective national movement. In a way, the point is moot, as I cannot serve with SAMSUSA now that I've had two terms. For life's sake, they must succeed!

Having beaten my class-mates into such munificence at our 25th reunion, I've been going easy on them this year, but continuing the phone contact so that they will be ready for my 30-year push.

For a year after leaving the college, I worked only at the Jail (if you want to call it work when you're doing what you're happiest at). The new sheriff got me an increase to full-time pay and made serious effort to upgrade my position so that I could stop subsidizing the jail with secular work, as I had done for 18 years. Well, by last July it was clear that such a happy event was not yet coming, so I began using the typewriting skills I had from high school, supplemented by years of getting a financial aid operation automated: data handling and word processing for a temporary employment agency. Though the daily routine of work-jail-sleep... is wearying, the temp jobs I've been given by the agency have been varied (Museum of Science, a public radio station, and for the past three months the pediatric cardiology clinic of Floating Hospital, to which I'll be returning after my Winter trip).

One of the cardiologists at the clinic asked why I wouldn't join the permanent staff: I replied that, were I to do so, I'd have to quit, as there is something about temporary status that frees one from too intensive involvement in the job. Even a temp job, when combined with the daily suicide work at the jail, does get to be a bit much. A few weeks ago, I saw an ad for a windjammer cruise out of Antigua, compulsively called them, found they had space on a New Year's sailing, called my travel agent (for whom this would be my 20th Winter trip), and within hours had a confirmed Beach House reservation on Christmass night, then over to Antigua to join the Windjammer for wandering through St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, etc. (islands of whose existence my only awareness had been their stamps in my collection of first-day covers from around the world), and finally back to another week in Puerto Rico, where one of the jail officers familiar with the criminal justice system in Puerto Rico is arranging for me to visit prisons.

I had had a few requests that I (as an expert in jail suicide) assist lawyers in their trying of cases involving cell-block suicide. I had found the courts in six state and federal jurisdictions that had admitted me as an expert in the field were allies of legislatures in the crusade to deter carelessness or amateur handling of people in custody . However, for over a year, no new cases had come forward. Now, in one 3-day period, I've been asked to join in the trying of six new cases (from as far away as Pennsylvania and Ohio). This validation by the courts of my life work is comparable to a poet finding himself on the best-seller list. One case was tried just as I was putting the finishing touches on my plans for the coming trip and preparing to pay for it. The Boss sure takes care of us in His own fashion!

I would be remiss (and a rather unusual father) if I didn't note with pride that Jessica passed the final exam qualifying her as a stock broker (rather ominously, on the weekend before Bloody Monday's market crash. But having begun work as a volunteer interpreter at MGHospital and enjoying the work so, Jessica is exploring the idea of going back to school to get an advanced nursing degree, so that she might make a career of her enthusiasm. Certainly a father who has made it his life's work to fight the lonely battle against jailers' inhumanity to the jailed (and vice versa) cannot question the propriety of his daughter's Quixotic career choices. It's most gratifying to her mother and me that Jessica is pursuing her life s meaning with such enthusiasm.

In the same vein, this Advent letter comes to you with my hope that you will find your objectives and strength in the Christ Event and will realize them in the New Year ahead. You have my warm (if from afar) best wishes!