Amy's Life

Hello to all,

After a long so called Indian Summer, winter has finally settled upon NE Ohio with a slight white dusting the day after Thanksgiving. For the last few days the temps have been hovering around 45 degrees. The fall was magnificent lasting longer than most with a concert of colors seemly turning simultaneously into a majestic bloom of glory. Fall ushered in major changes beyond that of the leaves. I am sure by now all of you know about BI’s slicing and dicing. Yes, I survived the cut but was given a territory with its nearest entry an hour from my home. It seems little has ever made sense after Boehringer West was buried.

I have time to blog because I am taking on a short term disability stent due to a severe bout of cellulites in my left leg which left an ulcer on my ankle. First time in 25 years I have taken such time which is remarkable knowing my medical history.

It is hard to believe that Cheryl and I have been living here in Hudson for over 13 years. She continues to teach English at Arch Bishop Hoban High School. This has been a wonderful blessing as the kids are great and the administration loves her. She also coaches the academic challenge team which won a major TV competition and $10,000 for the school. This was the biggest award won by any extra circular activity in the history of the school. The school focuses on an education that molds the mind, heart, soul and spirit. Even in these tough economic times the Hoban students collected 39,000 cans of food to replenish all the food closets in Akron.

This past summer was a joy. We celebrated our 30 wedding anniversary, Cheryl surprised me with a wonderful 60th birthday party (which some of you wrote wonderful notes). I became the last to receive BI’s bonus for 25 years of service. We went on a trip to San Antonio TX to attend a Renovari’ conference. Attended the wedding reception for Cheryl’s cousin Elise and her husband Joel Bernanke in Great Barrington MA. Buzzed around in “Nephesh” our 2006 Miata MX-5 we bought with only 5600 miles on her. But best of all just enjoying our friends, family and many quiet moments at home on the porch watching the wild life or having bond fires in our back woods sharing fine wine (I think), marshmallows, and great talks.

May this Christmas season bring all of you great joy and continue blessing.
George

IT HAS BEEN A YEAR

A great deal has happened I am sure in the lives of all the San Francisco District BI Alumni.

Hey, it would be great to hear from you-all, get you annual Christmas letter up and running on
the site. With Facebook, You Tube and Twitter, perhaps we are way behind in our technology.

Any ideas, suggestions or news?

Watch for the big new posting from Mrs. Amy Decker, previously Amy Harris.

Christmas 2008

Dear Family and Friends:

Greetings:
Not much has changed for us in 2008, thank heavens. We attended Bev’s grandson’s wedding in Clovis CA last November, which is where this picture was taken. Scott was the last of the grandkids to get married.
Our daily lives are filled locally with the blessings of Bev’s son Patrick, Daughter in-law Diane, teen age grandson Harry, and beautiful 3 year old granddaughter Colette.
Beverly has been very busy this past year with her church work and as President of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese, which has been a full time job; her schedule is kept full. Bev is now very excited about Spring 2009 and her long awaited trip to Italy, she will be going with two of her close friends. After the tour they are extending the stay so that Bev can visit her father’s birthplace near Genoa and do some family research. Larry is staying home this time to take care of our furry child; a trip like this would be a bit much for him travel-wise.
We had a wonderful trip to San Francisco earlier this year, Elliot, Larry’s retired district manager, had a get together of what is now the S.F. district alumni. It was great getting together with many of the people Larry worked with and we socialized with for so many years.
Larry did have a splendid trip to Oregon in July to be with his sons. The oldest, Ron has a nice boat, and the younger son Jeff has a motor home so the three of them took off for the coast to do some fishing. This year they got lucky catching a limit of salmon two days in a row; are they ever delicious.
We are looking forward to 2009 and any surprises that may come our way.

Merry Christmas & Peace, in the New Year.

Larry and Bev

Hello BI Alumni Friends and Merry Christmas:

Oh time is going so fast, I forgot to write the customary Christmas letter. Sometimes regarded as the annual good news and brag sheet. (no one wants to talk about all the bad things that happened in the past year and with the state of our economy, that should fill up the bad news part of any letter.) I never thought we would see another DEPRESSION in our life time and I remember many stories that my parents told me about the big one and how good their lives were since they both had good jobs, bought a new house and car etc.. As my Dad said, well there were 25% unemployed and that meant 75% employed. That was more than half so things weren't so bad for more than half of the population.
Well now there is only 6-7% unemployment and that means that more than 90% are doing ok or better. JUST DON'T LISTEN TO THE NEWS and or look at your 401K or investment portfolio. Before you know it the market will be roaring up and our portfolios will be back to what they were a year ago. (maybe a year or two?)
This was a good year for our family overall. Except the crab season closed early due to the catch being down 85% and the salmon season was closed altogether. My son Matt is trying to make it now with Herring fishing in the bay. Matt's daughter, Malena made honor roll and scored the highest in all of the 4th grade classes in the Math exam. Her little sister Marisol is in Kindergarten and reading at the 4th grade level in both Spanish and English. Son Paul, was just promoted to Captain in the CDF and is staioned in Petaluma, bicycle distance from his home. Jim is still running the WINE HARDWARE chain, developing the web business and now investing in distressed real estate. While Elizabeth just moved back to the City and is an ICU nurse at SF General, engaged to Cooper, a Google engineer. Donna is at the Gym several times a week and looks fabulous, and with the grand daughters at the farm in Sonoma for a couple days per week.
The Vineyard had a very hard time of it this year, with production down 50% due to the very irregular cold Spring followed the the heatwave. But the quality was exceptional and we enjoyed top prices for our grapes from leading Napa wineries. I made only one barrel of Cab Franc for our own cellar. Our vintages from 2004 through 2007 are all exceptional and we are preparing to market early next year. I submitted 3 wines for the first time to a professional competition and received 2 Gold medals and 1 Bronze, (American Wine Society).
Our Publishing company p is going well. We received a Best Professional Wine book Award in London in April for the WINE MARKETING book and the Andre Simon Award for our NAPA WINE HISTORY book in Frankfurt in October.
2009 promises to be a challenging year for all business, so we plan on lots of time at Tahoe for the winter, a cruise to the Baltic in June, NYC Book expo in May, Canada in July and before we know it, will be time to pick grapes in September. Cheers! Elliott and Donna

What I did on vacation this year by: Larry

Hi Gang: Last month (Aug 2nd - 18th) I went to Oregon to see my son's. Jeff, the youngest, lives in Salem. He met me at the airport in Portland which has grown and changed so much I hardly recognized it. We stopped on the way to Salem to see my granddaughter and the three greatgrand children. I could hardly believe how the kids have grown and matured; made me feel old. I spent the first week at Jeff's, working around the house (picture my work). That Wednesday night we went to the down town area that virtually closed off for a food and wine festival. That area has vineyards and wineries all over the place. It wasn't that way when I lived there; of course that was 33 years ago. Hot, it was unbelivable hot, in the high 90's and 100's and the evenings didn't cool off much. Then at the end of the week it cooled off and actually rained one night. It started heating up again and Sunday so Jeff & I headed for the coast in his motorhome. We met my oldest (55) son Ron at Lincoln City. He brought his boat down for a week of fishing in the Ocean. You could still catch coho salmon. Monday we went out of Depoe Bay and caught 5, that afternoon we went to Newport where we planned to stay till Sunday. Tuesday we went out and by 2:00 pm we caught 6 more; all were a good size as you can see from the picture, the biggest ones were mine. The next day they closed the salmon season. The rest of the week we were weathered in so went crabing in the bay and fiddled around; Salem was 105+ degree. Sunday the ocean calmed a little so we headed out for Halibut fishing. Sixteen miles out and two hours of fishing the ocean began to kick up so we headed in. I'll tell you, two hours traveling in those waters, heading for port, I was glad to to reach the calm waters of the bay. All in all It was a great trip and a wonderful time to spend with my son's, see picture, I'm the slim one in the middle.

George Erdman for President

In this election year we have had little choice for President. Now something new has come to light; there is hope after all. Click on the following link and see what I mean. http://www.thelopezfamilyonline.com/play.php?first=George
Larry
PS:At the bottom of the tv screen click on the (>) to start video.