The Florida Circuit
Once Florida winters became a part of our lifestyle, we got in the habit every winter of making a trip to South Florida, primarily to see friends in St. Petersburg Beach and in Fort Myers.
Paul Coggins had been quite close back in 1972 and 3. His hospitality in the summer of 1973 had convinced me that a year at the C of S was the thing for me to do. He made two trips to Winston-Salem. Unfortunately just as I moved to Washington, he moved to St. Petersburg (See The Fifth Day). He dropped out of our lives at that point, although we often thought of him, and occasionally heard of him from Judy Kreeger.
Once we got situated in Florida, we began to think of looking him up. In 1991 we drove down there and found him; it seemed a happy reunion for all of us. The next year he came to Ocala and spent the night in the other bedroom at George's meeting house (thereby incurring George's ire, although we didn't know it at the time). We took Paul back to St. Pete. One year we took him to the St. Petersburg Quaker Meeting. Finally, in 1994, he came up to Salem and spent a few days with us.
We have always valued our friendship with Paul. He is one of the brightest people I've known, although past his best days. He gave up the bright lights and for the past 20 years has devoted himself to helping kids learn mathematics. We always enjoy the time we spend with him.
The other friend(s) were Alfred Ames and his two wives. We found Alfred and Nell at Sanibel Island, one of their three homes, in 1990 and 1991. Then she died in 1992, and Alfred gave up his place at Sanibel and took up (winter) residence at Shell Point, a really luxurious retirement community south of Ft Myers, operated by the CMA, an evangelical denomination.
We got in the habit of going down to see Alfred, and continued this when he married Vi. Each year we drove to St. Pete, spent a day or two there, then on down to Ft. Myers for a lavish meal with the Ames. It adds a bit of variety to our Florida sojourn.
Paul's Career
Paul had maintained some distance from us since high school days. He usually managed to get around once or twice a year, and we all strove to be amiable--sometimes with success, sometimes not. As he got into his mid thirties, he seemed to be more comfortable, or at least less uncomfortable around us. Christmas of 1993 was our best time together that I could remember. (Christmas of 1994 was better, and Christmas of 1995 better yet!)
I had just been introduced to Anthony Trollope by the Larsens. To my surprise and pleasure I found that Paul was also a fan of Trollope. He knew a good bit about Trollope. When I spoke about the relationship between Trollope and Dickens, he opined that Trollope was by far the better writer. (I was quite glad to hear that opinion expressed!). He recommended especially The Way We Live Now, which I immediately read and found most enjoyable. I found it very gratifying to hope and believe that in years to come Paul might come to see us as fellow adults and begin to take more pleasure in our company. And of course that we might return the favor. One of the great things about the later years is to achieve an adult-adult relationship with your children! And who knows? Perhaps some day the shoe may be on the other foot.
Paul had declined college back when he was 18 and set out to create his own life style in an independent way. He had shown great resourcefulness in the things he chose to do. Always a faithful and reliable employee, he had worked through the years primarily for two people--first Peter Smitherman, who had originally employed him in high school as a busboy and eventually promoted him up to chef of his "French restaurant". At one point Smitherman had put Paul in charge of a sort of teen-agers night club at Old Salem---a very prestigious location! Paul operated the place, engaged musicians as well as other types of employees. Unfortunately the place did not make money and was eventually discontinued.
Paul's second job was with Mrs. John Whitaker, whose husband had for many years directed the fortunes of R.J.Reynolds Tobacco Company (they practically owned Winston-Salem!). He had moved to her gatehouse with a high school friend, Frank Bitting, who was a member of the Reynolds clan. Frank was connected with the Reynolds family, but Paul was the more reliable of the two boys. After a while Frank left the gatehouse, and Paul remained there by himself.
For a number of years he worked 20 hours a week for Mrs. Whitaker and lived at the gatehouse as part of his compensation. It was a good arrangement for both of them. She needed a man about the place, and he needed a place to stay. The gatehouse was about as good a house as we had lived in generally speaking. He did a lot for her, and she for him.
In particular that situation gave Paul a breathing space during which he learned to manage well in the majority culture, although probably, like us, never a part of it. During those years he read widely and educated himself about as well as he might have with a liberal arts degree.
Mrs. Whitaker of course had strong financial interests and she gave Paul her copies of The Wall Street Journal. Perhaps she encouraged him in the direction of a business career. At any rate after a few years he started taking courses in Accounting at the local community college. This led to an "Associate Degree" in Accounting, and he soon thereafter moved over to Winston-Salem State University where he went on to earn a B.A.
Meanwhile he left Mrs. Whitaker and moved in with his high school friend, Peter Fox, who lived in a big old house on Clover Street just two blocks from where Paul had lived since the age of 8. And he started working as a temporary, which soon led to a job with the Wachovia Bank. He had let his hair grow from 14 or so to 30, but now he got a banker's trim.
He appeared to be happy at the bank for several years, but eventually became dissatisfied and resigned. At that point he told us that he had enough money to live on for a couple of years. Paul has never been a materialist and knows the value of a dollar at least as well as any member of the family, including his mother. Whatever income he has had, he has always lived below it; that incidentally seemed to be a characteristic trait of Ellie's family.
He took his time looking for work; unemployment was high about that time. He declined a couple of opportunities that didn't exactly suit him. He did some more work at the temporary agency through which he had secured the Wachovia job. Soon he was keeping the books for First Christian Church, and then for the Downtown Church as well, and also, doing various jobs for the Manpower Agency.
Meanwhile he applied himself to the CPA exams. Soon he had passed them all. Now he had 3600 hours to work for a registered CPA, his Manpower boss. By 1994 it appeared that he would be getting close to a partnership with the man. One of the greatest things about Paul is how well he has always gotten along with the people for whom he worked. He has learned to use them, just as they use him--always a mutually advantageous relationship. I wish I could say that about my career, but in truth it has been far from it.
In 1995 Paul was employed as chief accountant for Hospice of Winston-Salem, a large healthcare non-profit. This was a major improvement over the jobs he had held up to this point. He expected to work under the supervision of a man with a CPA; however the man almost immediately moved to a better place in Florida.
Paul bought a condo in 1995, got along well with his neighbors, and wished he had also bought the one downstairs as an investment.
Paul's major interest at this time was and continued to be hiking in the mountains. In 1995 he became vice-president of the local AT club, which actually takes up most of the state.
The West Coast
Mark had a very good experience teaching at Cal Poly, grew as a person, and married Kim in 1990. We made our second trip out there for the wedding. We stayed in their apartment, which was sometimes satisfactory and sometimes not. We also went up, for the second time to see Auntie in Longwood.
I was surprised that we did not meet any of Auntie's children (grandchildren, etc.) in Washington. Apparently they have no sense of kinship with us. Too bad. Auntie always says they are so good to her, and I hope they are. They are apparently an extremely close knit, tribalistic group. Her youngest son, Bill, lived in northern California and does not seem to have had a very good or prosperous life. Of course she has never said anything derogatory about him, although she certainly thought poorly of his first wife.
The marriage of Mark and Kim might have been considered by conventional people as quite a bizarre affair. She had her Yoga group as the primary participants with a yoga 'clergyman' officiating. I read the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Her fellow religionists sang a hymn in Sanskrit or some such language. The wedding party bicycled 8 miles to a yacht club where we all had a very nice party. I danced for the first time in many a year. Jitterbug type dancing seemed to be the main thing in the group of young professors at the party.
Margaret and Jimmy, at some inconvenience, came to the wedding. I was grateful for their presence, and the night of the wedding Ellie and I spent a couple of hours with them in their motel room, while the wedding party were disporting themselves in 'hot tubs'. Happily Mark, and Rob as well, have visited and had very pleasant relationships with Margaret and Jimmy.
On their honeymoon Mark and Kim traveled around Europe on a bicycle built for two. We didn't hear an awful lot about it, although we learned that Rob had spent some time with them in Scotland that summer. (Robby has gotten quite attached to the British Isles, and no doubt plans many more trips over there.) That honeymoon trip was punctuated with a trip to Baden-Baden where Mark read a paper to an architectural convention. Such adventures!
Stanford
Mark taught for 2 1/2 years at Cal Poly, long enough to decide that he wanted a career in teaching. For that purpose another advanced degree seemed necessary, especially when he was passed over for a career track position. (He was lucky to leave Cal Poly when he did because economic problems led about that time to severe limitations on the educational budget in California and a lot of junior staff everywhere lost their positions.)
He started looking around; he had developed by this time quite a network of friends in various educational institutions. He settled on Stanford where he was offered a $20,000 scholarship, strangely enough aiming toward a PhD in Civil Engineering. Unfortunately over half of it was taken up by tuition. But he had a resourceful, gifted, and devoted wife!
Kim originally planned to go to San Jose State, about 30 miles away, and complete work on her degree, but that plan didn't last more than a week or so. She had never been around so many "people of color"! Probably more significantly she just wanted to be around Palo Alto. She got a job or two in the school that didn't exactly suit her, and eventually landed a position as secretary for a man expected to become a Nobel laureate in Bio-Chemistry. They found a nice apartment in Menlo Park, quite near the campus.
Never having been to Palo Alto Ellie and I looked forward to our fourth visit to the West Coast to attend Mark's final graduation. For a while it appeared that he would graduate about the time Rob graduated from William and Mary Law School, but his plans were pushed back until the end of the year. So 1994 loomed as the eventful year in which they might both finish their educations. Meanwhile Paul, having passed all the elements of the CPA exam, was getting his 3600 hours of work under the supervision of a CPA---still in Winston-Salem.
Early in 1994 (when this was written), all of our boys seemed to be in great shape, right on the verge of becoming well recognized, full fledged professionals in their chosen fields. Two were scheduled for advanced degrees that year and the other, close to the CPA rank. We were terribly proud of each of them and looking forward to see what they might achieve in the years ahead.
We perceive these as the achievements of the "first half of life" and sincerely hope and pray that they may do as well with the second half. For some time we have seen ourselves in terms of the tasks of the "second half", focusing more on the “'journey inward”, the spiritual world.
In the summer of 1993, when Mark and Kim spent a week with us at the Lugbill's house and were intensely exposed to our friends and our particular interests, they expressed the judgment that we had gone overboard on spiritual things. I hope by the time they are in our age bracket they will see things differently. What they perceived as 'spiritual' we understand as just the appropriate concerns of mature, non-materialistic people - an interest in ideas, in values, in morals. All that is not necessarily spiritual, but rather intellectual. Kim especially was probably a bit bewildered by our friends and our table conversation. She is accustomed to having a much more dominant role in such things, which was impossible to her in those circumstances.
Two years later - in May, 1995 - we were back on the West Coast. Mark had finally reached the point where he was to attend a graduation at Stanford, although he did not get his degree at that time - the dissertation was still pending. More important than that, we went to meet our new and first grandchild. They were in a little apartment in Menlo Park, adequate for their needs, but not large enough for much in the way of entertaining. Luckily they had a friend in Europe who lent us his house; so we had handsome accommodations during that visit.
We went from New Orleans to Houston and spent some hours at the Clayton library (I found some interesting data about the early Claytons and Spencers in Cheshire County). The following day we went up to a campground some distance from College Station: we were scheduled to meet Mark in College Station; he was coming for a job interview.
We spent a couple of days with Mark at the place where he was to go to work a few months later, although we did not know that at the time. He had applied at about six schools, got firm offers at two. We would have loved for him to take the job at Univ. of Fla, but it was not as good a job as the one he took.
Leaving College Station it was drive, drive, drive until we reached magical California. Ellie had made plans to visit her old high school and college chum, Beverly. That turned out to be very pleasant. Bev's husband, Bill, older than me, I found more attractive than his wife. He had his PhD in Micro-Paleontology from Tulane. He had become one of the leading authorities on the use of that discipline in oil explorations in the Gulf. He was also President of the Congregation at the New Orleans Unitarian Church, a church which my Grandfather Clayton had helped found about the turn of the century. Bill had never achieved any sort of evangelical faith; however he was in the early stages of Altheimer's Disease, and more interested perhaps in spiritual matters than he had ever been before.
Bill was also a tennis player. He played in the mornings at a local club. He was the guest of an older man named Jack, and we became his (and at second hand Jack's) guests the two mornings we were there. It turned out there was a large crowd of men using the two courts, all of them guests of Jack! We had a lot of fun playing with them and getting to know them at a superficial level.
Jack had had a problem with, and banished a female player shortly before we were there. But Ellie and I were determined to play together. We made a plan to go over there early and play for an hour before Jack was due to get there. It turned out that Jack found Ellie there and was quite cordial to us both.
At one point Jack and I were partners playing against Ellie and somebody. Jack asked me what I called her. I said I sometimes called her Ellie Mae, but she didn't like it. Jack promptly called out, "Ellie Mae, serve 'em up." We had lots of fun with those folks.
Ellie and Bev belonged to a set of girls at Behrman High in Algiers who had kept in contact since high school days. Four of them were on the West Coast, and we were to get to see three of them during this trip. Glenda lived in San Diego County, a few miles from Bev. She and her husband, Richard, were evangelicals. One evening Glenda and Richard came over for a celebration. After supper Richard and I had a detailed theological discussion. My liberal theology was pretty difficult for Richard to accept, and likewise about my feelings toward some of his evangelical ideas. Bill just listened, but the next morning he wanted to talk religion; he informed me that he felt that he and I were closer together than Richard.
I felt good about this brief association with Bill. He obviously had some spiritual needs, intensified by his illness, and I felt that I had been of some use to him in the things that I said. A man needs a faith in God at such a time. Bill was a good man; he had done well; he was humble and generous. I hope and pray that I was able to impart to him some of the consolations of my faith.
When we got to Menlo Park, everyone was enraptured with the new baby. Kim would not let anyone into the house with shoes on, or anyone touch Rennie without first washing their hands. I enjoyed seeing the child, but it was no big deal to me, not like the others.
During that visit I spent a good while in Mark's office at Stanford. I surfed the Internet quite a bit and got acquainted with Mark's office-mate, Scott Workinger, a man who had moved recently from engineering to spiritual healing. He was still a Stanford engineering student in body, but not in mind. He reminded me vividly of my own experience at Tulane in the Fall of 1956, where I was formally a graduate student in Physical Chemistry, but about to become a minister. (See Fourth Day).
I had some good, intimate conversations with Scott. He was much like I had been at 30. The main difference was that he showed some hedonistic and acquisitive instincts that I don't remember having. He was trying to become a professional healer. He had undoubtedly experienced significant spiritual events, but like Simon Magus, he wanted to capitalize on them financially. Perhaps I was too judgmental; perhaps his feelings stemmed more from insecurity and the desire to be self sufficient, although abandoning a career which he had followed for a number of years.
I was attracted to Scott and shared with him many of my adventures. He showed an interest in my Blake book, and supposedly put the first chapter on his home page, although I don't recall ever actually seeing it there. It seems likely that his home page got cancelled when he left Stanford, which he must have done soon after that visit.
Kim's two nephews from Iowa were scheduled to hike in the California mountains with their uncle, Mark. At the critical time the weather turned quite cold, and Mark decided to take them to the Big Sur. I had the pleasure of providing the highway transportation for that trip.
This decade, the Seventh Day, has taken for me the nature of lagniappe. On the seventh day God rested from his labors, looked at his creation and he pronounced it good. And so have I. I've told any number of people that 'life begins at retirement'. Through the years of labor and struggle any number of interests, tastes, desires, had to be postponed in favor of the necessities. Now in the seventh day, with the necessities relatively minimal, I've found time for many of the postponed pleasures.
The primary problem became to decide among them where to invest my time. For example in Salem we lived 3 miles from two beautiful lakes, but our canoe remained in the workshop the first seven years simply because the days were too filled with other activities to take time for boating. Tennis of course was our primary physical interest. We'd rather be good tennis players than mediocre tennis players and mediocre canoeists!
By 1994 we had decided that we wanted to emphasize the physical activities even more than we had in the past. For one thing we resolved to do more swimming the next summer, and we seriously considered joining a "Wellness" program at Clemson that would give us the use of an Olympic pool and indoor tennis courts. This would necessitate a lot more driving or optionally partial or complete use of the Clemson house. One reasonable possibility might be to try it for a year, using the basement apartment at Clemson.
The downside of that of course would be to neglect our woods, our little trees, plants, garden, etc. etc. The days (and energy) are simply too short for the many things we want to do.
Langley Friends
We had spent five years (in the Sixth Day) at Langley Hill Friends Meeting in McLean, VA. We had found it very congenial, the meetings creative, an increasing pleasure in numbers of friends. Then after five years retirement came, and we knew there would be no question of living in the area. Most obviously housing costs about half as much in other parts of the country. Other parts of the country are also warmer and more healthful in other ways as well.
We had found a pleasant home in (near) Salem, SC, and developed good, close, and satisfying relationships with Friends at Brevard for the first couple of years and thereafter at Greenville as well. Except for the large amount of driving which our life style required, it was idyllic. We had good relationships with neighbors on each side, but unfortunately little other acquaintance in the area.
In the early years of retirement three things drew us back to the Washington area two or three times every year: Rob remained in the area, our genealogical pursuits led us there periodically, and we maintained (and developed) close relationships with the Langley Friends.
When we left Virginia in 1988 Mark and Tammy Jones moved in with Rob at the Falls Church house. They stayed for a year or two, a good experience for all three of them. After they left, Rob got other friends to help pay the rent. In 1991 he left the Washington area for Williamsburg, and Ellie selected a family from New England to rent the house; the man was one of Bush's federal marshals. They were very satisfactory tenants until Clinton took over. They apparently had very little income thereafter and finally went back to New England.
We moved into the house the day they left intending to look for another tenant. Was it simply providential that when we went into the Arlington Co. Library, one of our favorite haunts, the first person we saw was Tim Lapham, one of Rob's high school and Scout chums? He wanted to rent the house; he took it and proved to be a dependable and responsible tenant.
The old tenants delayed their departure a day or two longer than their commitment, and we were expecting to stay there. In desperation we went over to the Larsen house, but no one was at home. Finally, in further desperation, we retrieved the key from the garage and moved into their empty house; Ellie insisted on our sleeping downstairs. The next day the tenants left. I would not presume to do such a thing with very many houses, but in recent years we had grown so close to the Larsens that I did presume, and when Judith heard about it, she seemed perfectly happy with what we had done. (She had often encouraged us to do exactly what we did.)
We had gotten in the habit of spending a few days at the Larsens about twice a year. One year they went to Europe and invited us to use the house while they were gone. We looked after their old dog on that occasion and took him down to S.C. at the end of our visit.
Judith and Paul arranged things so that our reputation with the Langley Hill Friends continued to grow in our absence. In 1993 Paul scheduled me to teach Quakerism 201 on prayer. We stayed with them that April. Since Mark and Kim had to be in Washington in early July, we needed more accommodations. Ralph Lugbill had been after us to stay with him and Viva, so Ellie called them. We wound up using their house for a week while they were in Colorado. That gave us a pretty extensive visit with the young folks.
Then in November Ellie decided to spend Thanksgiving up there. John Surr offered us the use of his home--while he and his wife were in Calif and Colorado. So we stayed in the homes of three different Friends in the Washington area that year. How rich we were!
Judith continued to maneuver to nurture our ties with her Langley Hill Friends. We had developed a rather extensive correspondence focused especially on Jung and other psychological/ religious subjects. She got John Surr and some others to begin a little quarterly journal in which several of us could broaden our discussions with one another. John took the most active role in this, and eventually became more or less the chief editor. He published quite a few letters and articles that Ellie and I had written. Everyone was encouraged to submit the names of friends to be added to the mailing list. We had it sent to a number of Friends in Carolina and even succeeded in getting written contributions from some of them.
We also used Alfred Ames' condo outside Brevard for a couple of nights that year. That was because Tim Harris wanted us to go to his tennis tournament in Asheville, and Mary Williams had invited us to her piano group the day before. Ellie was willing to use Alfred's apartment rather than make two consecutive trips up the mountain.
Alfred tried to get us to use his flat in England, but we have so far held out against that enticement. A few years earlier Ellie had been eager to visit England, but I resisted. I think I eventually convinced her that it might be too stressful to enjoy. Then I discovered my 17th century ancestors in Cheshire County and had a new motive for such a visit. Who knows what the future may hold?
The Piano
Once we were staying at the Larsen house in McLean, and Rob had come to see us. I was playing the piano, and Rob seemed very impressed. He said, "Dad, you ought to get a piano." For some time I resisted the idea, but Ellie encouraged me, and finally we found ourselves with not one, but two pianos in the house in addition to the old Hammond organ. It happened like this:
By early 1993 I had gotten around to accepting the idea. We left for Florida, but we had more or less agreed to purchase Carolee Cameron's old piano. We got around to it sometime after our Florida vacation. I enjoyed it, but soon realized that it needed work. We engaged a tuner, a young man from the West Coast who did it largely as a hobby. He informed us that it was too old and worn out to tune properly, and he put us in touch with people who had a much better one, which we purchased.
Then we succeeded in disposing of the Hammond organ to a small rural church in the area. The newer piano was more pleasant to use, so the old one sat unused in the front, end room while I worked every day on the one in the middle, end room. That room had become a more or less all purpose work and rest room for me: piano, stereo, and computer, and also my Lazy Boy, in which I frequently slept the hours away.
I had no idea that I would be able so readily to recapture most of the piano technique of former years . I soon had a good repertory and found it easy to spend an hour or more every day with the piano. Then in the Fall of 1993 Mary Williams, a Brevard Friend, invited us to her monthly piano group.
Mary and Jay Williams were regulars at the Brevard Meeting when we started going there in 1988. Lovely people, former Methodists, inveterate outdoor and square dancing people! And Mary had instigated the Conflict Resolution Program which the Friends had taken up and made into quite a big thing in Brevard.
But Mary must have gotten tired of the meeting. Jay often came without her, and in a conversation he informed me that Mary played the piano every Sunday morning. It turned out that a friend came over and played duets with her; presumably this was the only time her friend could do it. Thus it was that we lost Mary from the group; she had been Treasurer for a number of years.
Anyway, when I told Jay about my piano, I soon got an invitation to visit Mary's monthly music group. Ellie and I went and found it most enjoyable, a welcome addition to our somewhat deprived social life. We met every month at the Williams house; each member was invited to play something. Many skill levels were represented. There was little criticism of any sort, although the first month one woman suggested that I take some lessons. (That didn't bother me in the least!) We go more for the relationships than for the music. It is pleasant. Jay customarily would absent himself during the meetings, but for my sake he began to stay in the room.
Children at Brevard
The Brevard Meeting, made up almost entirely of seniors, dearly wanted to have some children in its care. To encourage that possibility the meeting place was moved to Sharing House, with more ample facilities. Soon thereafter we started getting young people. In particular two younger women, Lorene Harris and Diane Harris, began to bring their children.
Lorene and Diane, with the same surname, had no particular relationship. Lorene had recently come with her (black) husband and two boys from the Los Angeles area, which seemed to be getting increasingly uninhabitable. Diane had come without a husband but with two young sons from England. Lorene's husband was a native of Transylvania, but had lived on the West Coast for most of his adulthood; he was related to half of the black population in the Brevard area.
In contrast Diane was a complete stranger to the area; she had simply picked out the area as a good place to bring her two small sons, Tim and Toby. Besides being unknown she was apparently clone to indigent. She was not too proud to let people help her, and quite resourceful. The Brevard Meeting adopted her family and extended a good deal of help of various sorts to them over the next few years.
Diane was about as different from the generality of our Brevard Quakers as one could be. A child of the sixties, she had led a most unconventional life, and at this point she considered herself a Buddhist. Some people suspected that she had been married twice; Tim and Toby, only a couple of years apart, had entirely different ethnic appearances.
However unconventional a life Diane may have led, she had obviously done a good job with her children. We came to appreciate them more and more, until they had become practically on the level of grandchildren to Ellie and me. Diane found work at the Brevard Inn, and, Sunday being by far their busiest day, she rarely had a chance to attend the meeting. But Tim and Toby were very regular and formed the nucleus of a thriving First Day School.
They had not been in Brevard very long when Diane had Ellie and me, and perhaps one or two others to their house for Sunday dinner. She prepared an excellent meal. We were impressed with the mature way in which Tim conducted himself on that occasion. Without direction he cleared the table for example. His brother Toby was two years younger than Tim, but looked up to Tim almost as if he were his father. Tim showed an extremely responsible attitude toward Toby, and toward life in general.
Ellie and I introduced them to tennis; soon thereafter Tim, out of his paper route money, bought two tennis rackets, one for himself and one for Toby. Toby was actually border line in age for playing tennis, but Tim soon became quite proficient. The following year he went out for the middle school team and did quite well.
Ellie committed herself rather extravagantly to doing things for these children. We played tennis with them every Sunday morning before meeting. Soon three of their young friends were coming with them--to the tennis court and to the meeting. We would meet them quite early, play tennis for an hour, then Ellie would feed them, and we'd go to meeting. There she would teach them for an hour.
The Brevard Meeting now had a going First Day School. The other ladies in the Meeting had expected to participate in it, but they soon left it pretty much to Ellie. And of course everyone extravagantly praised what we were doing for the children.
In the summer of 1993 Tim and Toby had pretty busy schedules-- going to camp and such things. However they made time to come down and stay with us for a week. We played a lot of tennis, and they spent a lot of time in the Smith swimming pool next door and fraternizing with
Jack and Lori Smith, children very near their own age. I think everyone enjoyed that visit.
The following year Tim and Toby brought two young friends. With the two kids next door they formed quite a gang. This experience was not quite as pleasant for us as the first had been: the children were too engrossed with one another to offer much companionship with us.
Since retirement Ellie and I had been pretty avid tennis players. We actually anticipated the necessity to build our own court, but we found an available court two miles from the house--in the town of Salem. We soon made arrangements to get our own key and use it at will. Later we met people at the Tamassee DAR Children's Home and began to use their court as well. And we played often at Clemson and occasionally at Greenville.
In spite of all these available courts we did not succeed in finding people to play with, so most of our tennis was confined to hitting with one another. That was one of the reasons that it seemed so important to spend the winter in Florida. We played a few times with Jim Dupre, retired School Superintendent of Oconee County, and Dean Bare, the director of the Children's Home, but they were not often available.
In 1993 things improved considerably. We were playing with the children at Brevard every Sunday. And our good friend, Joe Reid, loved to play. He introduced us to his work friend Art, a young man about Joe's age. Soon we had a standing engagement to play with Joe and Art every Saturday morning. Everyone seemed to enjoy it; after two or three sets we would retire for breakfast at Hardees or some such place and sit around our coffee sometimes for another hour.
It pleased Ellie and me immensely to have such good tennis friends; these boys, in their middle forties, surprised us a lot by being willing to play with us. Actually we paired up pretty well: Joe the best player and Ellie were rarely able to beat Art and me, but it was usually fairly close. And Joe did not seem to mind too much. A good time was had by all.
Art was living with a woman and got around to marrying her the day after we left for Florida on our winter vacation in 1994; otherwise we would certainly have attending the wedding.
The tennis on Saturdays with Art and Joe, and sometimes some of their friends, went on until 1995. That year we were out of town so much and then in November I had my first cataract operation, so the Saturday tennis became a thing of the past. For a couple of years it was lovely.
Here is Ellie's part of the circular letter we sent around at the end of 1993:
January: a fresh month in a fresh year. We've fallen behind on staying in touch with so many friends that we feel impelled to start a group letter to catch up.
For us 1993 was a continuation of the good life that has been ours since Larry's retirement. Our 15 acres, our Quaker Meetings, our travels, and keeping up the property we own in three states has filled our time. We acquired a condo in Ocala, Florida last February which we hope to occupy ourselves on visits to Florida, but since our tenants are not ready to move, we will once again be at the Quaker Meeting House in Ocala for our 1994 sojourn in Florida. Since we were blessed with very good health in '93, we continued to improve our tennis game and even got in a little swimming.
One distinctive aspect of 1993 was the fact that several of our friends allowed us to use their homes when they were out of town, making our travels much more secure, comfortable and convenient than when we travel in our usual mode of camping out. For these generous gifts we thank Ralph and Viva Lugbill, Paul and Judith Larsen, John and Rauna Surr, and Alfred and Vi Ames.
As far as the achievement oriented outer world goes, we must live vicariously through our three sons of whom we are most proud. Paul has interesting and creative work as an accountant for several businesses and non-profit organizations in Winston-Salem. Mark continues to work on his PhD at Stanford with the help of his wife Kim, who works for the Biochemistry Department at Stanford. Rob is in his last year of law school at William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. This week he has the grand opportunity of working in the Old Executive Office Building in Washington with his friend Todd who is the Counsel to Vice-president Gore.
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Rob's W&M Law School Graduation
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The biggest effort we put forth this year was in conjunction with the Regional Meeting of Sayma which was sponsored by our little Quaker Meeting in Greenville. Organizing and implementing the Regional Meeting which was held in September at a group camp in Paris Mountain State Park near Greenville, was the first large project that the Meeting undertook. We were delighted to see how the gifts of each member of the group were called forth to make a successful event. Sixty three people from nine Quaker Meetings participated in the weekend activities. We felt like our attention to the details and hard work helped provide a joyous and meaningful experience for many.
Another kind of fun we enjoyed this year was acting as surrogate grandparents to Tim and Toby Harris of Brevard as they spent a week visiting with us this summer. In spite of the July heat we played a lot of tennis, swam a lot and took them to some of our favorite places. Fortunately the two children from next door, Jack and Lori, helped to keep our guests amused and provided their swimming pool for cooling off in. It was a strenuous week but refreshing.
The biggest change in our lives this year came from the purchase of a VCR to accommodate viewing the video made from years of Larry's dad's home movies. We discovered that the Greenville library has an impressive collection of movies which we can borrow for a week at a time. We have seen many of the movies which Larry remembers fondly from his youth and caught up on others which we had missed through the years of our married life when we saw movies at the rate of about one or two a year.
Another big change came through acquiring a piano to replace the one that Larry gave up thirty years ago. In spite of the fact that he has rarely touched an instrument in thirty years, he has not lost the touch and is quickly, though not effortlessly regaining an impressive repertory. Rob was very impressed with his father's accomplishment and remarked on how fortunate his mother is to have the house filled with live music.
Although we have slacked off on our genealogical pursuits, Larry achieved an important goal this year in pinning down the origins of his first North Carolina Clayton ancestor in Delaware. This connects his family to a family who arrived in Maryland in 1682 on the ship Submission as a part of Penn's fleet. The family went on to produce illustrious members in Delaware as well as Larry's ancestor who immigrated to Hyde County North Carolina. There is much more work to be done on our ancestory and we shall surely get back to it more intensely soon.
January 1, 1996
Time marches on. I'm getting close to my 70th birthday, at which I was programmed to finish this thing. I more or less abandoned it last year; now I wonder if I can remember the important events of the past two years.
One important genealogical event: Margaret Clayton Russell wrote that she had discovered the journal of John Elliott Clayton describing his trip from Montgomery to Panama to Sacramento and then his first year or two in California. In early December of 1995 we drove to College Station to spend a few days with Mark and family (including our first granddaughter, Rennie). We stopped at Montgomery and, without difficulty, procured a copy of the journal. I mean to spread it around, but that will have to wait until March.
I had my first cataract operation on Nov. 14, 1995. It put a severe crimp in our tennis for about two months. It improved my vision tremendously. We plan on the second one maybe in June, after the busy spring season is over and the weather gets hot.
