Jim Smith: I have recently bought a Tear Drop trailer and have moved into it. I drive everywhere and explore everything. So far stops have been in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, fishin whenever I get the chance. I’m currently doing the “fall crawl” with other Tear Drop owners throughout central and coastal Oregon. Next on my agenda is to learn to paraglide so I can spend my remaining days camping and flying If any classmates want me to stop by and call on them in my travels, contact me at jfsmithiii@gmail.com. Chris Strudwick-Turner: Hello to all. I’ve been in DC for a while with my mom, facilitating her aging in place. Bette Catoe Strudwick is 92 years young and still lives in our family home. She’s mentally all there and has held a medical consulting position for the last nine years. She holds great memories of many of you. It’s been a pleasure and an honor to share this time of life with her. Mom has 10 grandchildren and three great-grands with two more on the way. And that’s my big news. My daughter and sonin-law are expecting twins, a boy and a girl, very soon. They will be born in Toronto with the bonus of dual citizenship. By the time you read this, my firs grandchildren will be here. Needless to say, I’m too excited. Let the fun begin! Updates on the babies, the rest of the family, and my life in the next issue. Chris Tufty: Well, I tried to retire last year but got a work call I couldn’t resist! So I worked on season 2 of the new EPIX series, Get Shorty, this spring and summer. Now I’m trying again to retire but will still actively photograph various ongoing projects, such as a desert fil called Don’t Bomb the Big Horns! and a Hawaiian documentary called The Dark Hobby, on salt water fis . Hoping to visit DC this fall. Next year we’re getting ready to sell our family home in Chevy Chase, DC.
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Mary Reyner mary.reyner@gmail.com Brian Steinbach bsteinbach@ebglaw.com
Ellie Ausmus: I retired in May 2017 after an interesting career as a paralegal and legal executive assistant for a variety of law firms corporations, and a global health nonprofi in and around Seattle. 42
FALL 2018
SIDWELL FRIENDS
Mark and I had decided to eventually retire to Sequim (“Skwim”), a lovely town on the water in the northwest part of Washington state, with the Olympic Mountains in our back yard. We bought our house three years ago, came up on weekends, and loved it so much we accelerated our move by several years. My retirement gave me time to pack up our Seattle house and supervise two trucks onto the ferry. There’s still some unpacking to finis a year later! Mark found a local job but decided to join me in the good life and retired October 1. We’ve been volunteering at a national wildlife refuge with a five-mile-lon sand spit and a lighthouse at the end that is the destination for a lot of our visitors. I’m supporting Mark as his caddy in his love/hate relationship with golf. And in January we rescued a 10-monthold bundle of energy, a terrier-cattle dog mix we named Kona. She’ll keep me young with twice-daily walks on the beach. Ingrid Beach: I’m still living in New Zealand and travel to DC each year to visit my 92-year-old mother, to Sweden to visit one brother, and to Maine to visit the other. I’m also hoping to continue annual trips to India for my meditation development. My husband, Bruce, is equally interested in meditation. That’s good, since it would be difficu pursuing this without support. I have one daughter who is an actor and short fil creator in Auckland and one who works behind the camera on blockbuster film and is living in Wellington. For her current fil , she’s one of the props buyers for the next Avatar. Sometimes I think my early ambition to be on Broadway was all so I could be supportive of my daughters’ ambitions. Michele Bond: I am still happily based in DC after retiring from the State Department in January 2017 after 40 great years. When I retired, three of our four children were living overseas, in Indonesia (Peace Corps), London (law firm) and Turkey (International Rescue Committee), and one was in New York City (banking). So a priority for Cliff and me in that firs year was to take advantage of copious free time to visit the kiddos. I especially enjoyed our time in Antakya, Turkey, where our daughter Elisabeth was helping provide resources and services to internally displaced Syrians. All of our children are now back in the United States. In January, I was sworn in as a courtappointed special advocate (CASA) and have been working with a sweet three-year-old child. CASA, a national organization, recruits
volunteer citizens who act as advocates and mentors for children in foster care, one child at a time; we don’t have a “caseload” like so many of the hardworking people responsible for these children. It’s great to be back on the playground and to be in a position to ensure that a vulnerable child gets all the resources, services, and support he/she needs and is entitled to. I expect “my” child will soon be adopted and leave foster care, which is a fantastic outcome. Julia Challinor: Piet and I moved back to the United States from Amsterdam after 13 and a half years. The tax premium of staying got too high. We are now in Capitola, California, which seems to have only one weather pattern and makes us long for rain. We are consoling ourselves with the fact that we seem to have moved to the Republic of California, which is some compensation for returning to a country we had left for political reasons in 2004. We did leave one son and his family (one girl and one boy) in Germany, so we have good reason to return to Europe regularly. The good news is we are now closer to our daughter and her family (two boys) and our other son and his girlfriend in Oakland. I cannot believe time is flyin just like seniors use to tell us years ago. I’m still routinely visiting my 91-year-old mom in DC. Perhaps a mid-term reunion when I’m in town? Doug Cole: I am still working with kids teaching drama at several schools and enjoying it a lot. I’m also playing a lot of music (harmonica) in a couple different blues bands in Oakland. You can check out my main band on Facebook: Margie Turner and the Outback Blues Band. My wife and I sold our house in Oakland and bought a condo in nearby Walnut Creek and are enjoying a more maintenance-free home. It’s small but super quiet and in a lovely park-like setting. Deer and wild turkeys roam around everywhere; birds wake us in the morning and crickets put us to sleep. Quite a change from 40 years in Oakland! My son, Andre, is a professional dancer and dance teacher living in Oakland, and my daughter, Julia, is just starting community college in Berkeley. It’s hard to believe we are halfway through our 60s, but being a teacher of young kids and playing in a band help keep my spirit young! I haven’t made it to the reunions, but I think of many of you often and have stayed