Copyright © 2019 John F. Oyler
December 26, 2019
A Christmas Letter
Writing a weekly column is an interesting experience, primarily because of the absence of immediate feedback. My family and close friends do comment frequently, but the vast majority of my audience is remote and unknown to me. Occasionally someone I know will remark on something I’ve written or some complete stranger will announce “I recognize you from your picture. You’re the guy who writes that column in the paper. I enjoy it!”
Nonetheless I sense a bond with all of our unknown readers and have, for the past few years, set aside this one week to write a Christmas letter to you as my way of showing my gratitude to you for allowing me to communicate with you regularly. Let’s pretend this is a typical Christmas form letter you have found folded in a card you just received in the mail.
Season’s Greetings to you from the extended Oyler family! It has been a busy and exciting year for all of us, and especially for me. We hope 2019 has treated you and your family well.
We began the New Year in Maui where I celebrated the holidays with Elizabeth’s family, Sara’s family, and John’s quite extended family, which included Lai An’s other grand-parents as well as Victoria’s aunt. Communicating with three persons whose English is as limited as my Chinese is difficult, but we do share the common interest of loving Lai An.
She is now six years old, bouncing back and forth between precious and precocious. After spending kindergarten in English in the United States, she has spent the Fall term of first grade in Chinese in Beijing. The massive exposure she has had to radically different cultures is difficult for me to imagine. It was wonderful for her to have this opportunity to interact with her four cousins.
John’s company, Beigene, is prospering; the U. S. FDA just approved their first drug.
This was my first full year of retirement, a bittersweet experience. I was happy for the opportunity to stay in bed on snowy January mornings while my ex-colleagues fought the weather and traffic to get into school on time. On the other hand I greatly miss the satisfaction of working with young people and helping them make the transition from student to engineer. I compensated a little by going into school once a week, having lunch with Elizabeth, and mentoring a Senior design team.
A major high point of the year for was being asked to give the Landis Lecture in late April. This is a prestigious honor that has been granted to world class structural engineers in the past; this time they decided to lower the standards in recognition of my retirement. It was a fine event, very well attended. I discussed the importance of focus, judgment, and innovation in Civil Engineering, using three well known case studies as examples.
Later that month was another red-letter day – my retirement banquet. It was held in the Banquet Hall in Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and turned out to be a grand reunion of students from my twenty-six-year career at Pitt. Kevin Abt, class of 1995, was Master of Ceremonies and introduced an impressive parade of students and faculty friends who said lots of nice things about me.
As part of the entertainment the Apollo Quartet, featuring my granddaughter as first violin, performed a group of string quartet selections expertly. Rachael is now sixteen and her musical prowess is growing even faster than she is. This winter she is in the first violin section of the Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestra (TRYPO), looking forward to performing in Carnegie Hall in New York next Spring. She spent a week at Music Camp Chautauqua; we had the privilege of seeing her perform there.
Not to be outdone, my grandson, Ian, also performed. Ian has gone to Jazz Camp at Duquesne University the last two summers. One of his teachers there is Jeff Bush, an outstanding trombonist. He put together a quartet to entertain at the Banquet, and at one point, Ian played “Ain’t Misbehavin” on his trumpet with Bush accompanying him on piano.
Ian is a Senior at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. When he was here for Jazz Camp in June, his mother and I took him to Penn State for a campus tour; later Elizabeth and I took him on one at Pitt. He plans to major in history in college. While he was here he helped me with research on George Washington in western Pennsylvania. Best of all, he gave me an excuse to attend five wonderful jazz concerts at Duquesne.
I always enjoy visiting Fort Collins. This summer Sara took me and Ian’s sister Claire sight-seeing in the mountains, culminating in a wonderful day-long trip on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. It was certainly one of the most memorable trips this venerable railfan has taken. What a thrill to ride behind steam through that magnificent country!
Claire is a classic third child, now thirteen years old and in her first year of Middle School. Like her mother she is easygoing, highly adaptable to any situation, and a perfect companion for a cranky old octogenarian. Nora, now fifteen, is an accomplished athlete, keeping her parents busy transporting her between soccer and basketball commitments. Despite all the fuss, she still is a lovely, lovable teenager.
Reviewing my list of column titles for the past year, I see that the Whiskey Rebellion showed up four times. One was as part of our series of workshops on Washington’s adventures locally. Last year we alternated them monthly with a series on the history of Bridgeville High School. The workshops were a lot of fun, but eventually the level of interest dropped to the point where we elected to terminate them.
The Whiskey Rebellion was also the topic of one of the Bridgeville Historical Society’s programs, presented by Todd DePastino. In July we enjoyed the re-enactments of the Rebellion at Washington, Pa. and at the Neville Plantation where it was part of their wonderful Market Faire. The final incident was a mock trial of the two men convicted of treason, performed by the Women’s Bar Association. I am probably overly interested in the Whiskey Rebellion, but it certainly is a key event in local history.
Having brunch with my high school friends twice a month is always fun, especially now that my brother Joe has “aged up” and joined us. It was a treat to hear him give an update on his book “Almost Forgotten” at the South Fayette Library last summer. Joe and his wife Pauline are two of the finest human beings I know; it is a special treat to be part of their extended family.
My other regular get-together with elderly cronies is our Book Review Club, which continues to find new and interesting things to read and discuss. My favorite this year was “Overstory”, Richard Powers’ masterful sermon on the synergistic relationship between the human race and trees. Powers was at the University of Illinois while Elizabeth and Mike were there; they were excited about the success of his book.
Mike has now retired from teaching Slavic Languages to college students and is enjoying giving flying lessons to prospective aviators at the Zelienople Airport. I can’t imagine a better flight instructor than Mike. The combination of his knowledge and his ability to focus on minute details is invaluable.
Elizabeth’s ability to teach Japanese literature is equally impressive. Her big project this year was bringing a troupe here to perform an English language play “Gettysburg” in the Japanese Noh drama format and to host a symposium related to it. I was apprehensive about the whole idea. The play was sure to be a disappointment and no one would come to see it anyhow. Fortunately I was wrong on both accounts, The play was quite a joy to see, and the Charity Randall Theater on the University campus was nicely filled.
Having Mike, Elizabeth, and Rachael nearby is a blessing for me – it is wonderful to be able to see them often. We have season tickets to both the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Pittsburgh Opera. It is easy to select the highlight of the Symphony season – it would be difficult for anything to upstage Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The orchestra is magnificent. Rachael’s violin teacher, Irene Cheng, is a prominent member of the first violin section. Through her and through Rachael’s involvement with TRYPO, we have become familiar with many of the other musicians.
For me the highlight of the Opera season was the ending of “Madam Butterfly”. When the multi-racial son of Butterfly, nattily dressed in a tiny naval uniform, leaves her to live with his American father, he turns and salutes her. That is theater at its best. Just writing about it chokes me up!
Every walk in our woods is a highlight for me. Trillium and Mayflowers in the spring, pileated woodpeckers in the summer, sugar maple leaves in the fall, a calm morning after an overnight snowfall has left an inch of snow on every twig – each of these is an incomparable experience.
This year was my fiftieth in this house. It is dear to me, full of memories of my wife, who shared it with me for forty seven of those years. I am grateful for every additional day I can spend in it.
I am grateful too for each of you who takes the time to read my columns. I do indeed wish you a Merry Christmas.
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