I was born on July 18, 1948; somehow I have managed to chalk up 78 years, mostly through dumb-luck, good genes, and the gift of good physical and mental health.

How does it feel to be 78 you might ask? Pretty good, for the most part. I certainly don’t feel like I am 18, 38, or even 68, but I can still be physically active and enjoy walking and dancing–but am crap at swimming. I never was much of a runner and please don’t ask me to run a 100-yard dash, but otherwise. 

In the last decade, I have had some medical scares, open-heart surgery six years ago and a detached retina a couple of years ago. I almost certainly wouldn’t be alive today and definitely would be blind in my left eye without modern medicine. My dear Mother will turn 98 on July 22; she really has better genes than me, I think.

It’s scary facing getting older—Mom drove until her early 90’s and lived on her own until she was 95, but these last three years have been very difficult. She had to move into assisted living, and her health seems to degenerate almost daily. Her macular degeneration and glaucoma have robbed her of most of her sight—image not being able to see the face of your loved ones much less the food on your dinner plate. 

Mom can still walk but needs to use a walker to keep from falling, and someone of course has to help her to get from her room to the dining hall. Still, she is almost always upbeat & cheerful. But getting old is not for sissies, as they say, and I am not really sure that I will be able to meet the advancing years with her equanimity and stoicism.

But until that time comes I hope to be able to greet each day like the gift it is. There is always something interesting or worthwhile to do and friends and family to love and cherish. What a lucky man am I!

After a lovely visit of nearly two months–or Home Leave as the State Department calls it, Erin & John left Denver on Saturday After some required training in DC, they will then fly to Barbados on August 8th, where they will be posted for the next three years. After Cuba, they are hoping, as are we, that it will be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. We hope to visit them in the late fall.

On Sunday, Charlie left for a two week summer camp experience at Camp Chief Ouray. This is his fourth or fifth summer, and he always loves it. We’ll miss him, but know that he’s having a lot of fun!

I love the light that comes with Summer. When I wake up at 5:00 am, it is so exciting to look at the light just peaking in around the curtains in our bedroom. I know immediately that I won’t be able to go back to sleep, and that’s OK, because there is always something that needs doing!

Answering that email from a friend or relative that I managed to read, but didn’t have the time or energy to reply to.

Going to the Babble app and do my Spanish or Italian lesson for the day—they get you hooked by telling you that your streak is now 20 or even 200 days long & you can’t not do it today.

Plunking on the electric piano, always with the headphone, so no one else can hear.

Walking to the community garden plot to see if you need to water today or shake your head at how the bunnies are able to climb up on the raised bed & nibble your lettuce, squash or ripening tomatoes. The nice thing about walking is that I can listen to my current audio book and thanks to the public library, I almost always have one in progress and a couple on my hold shelf.

Back to the summer light. It is especially nice in the early morning, before the sun climbs too high in the sky and it is too uncomfortable to venture out of the shade, especially here in Colorado. Fortunately, even on most summer days, it is good to be out in the fresh air, especially if you can find a nice shade tree to sit under.

Just yesterday, Sue and I drove over to City Park, parked near the pavilion, and carried our new camp chairs to our favorite tree and settled in to eat our chicken salad sandwich lunch—it’s hard to imagine a lovelier day. The sun was high up in the sky & the temperature was 90+ but with the lovely breeze blowing over the lake, we couldn’t imagine anything better.

Charlie, our grandson, is 14 this year; he has entered puberty, so he has suddenly begun to shoot up, his voice has changed, and there is hair sprouting every where. The other day we picked him up to take him to a dental appointment, so it was just the three of us, no friends or other family members.

He, of course, had his phone in his hand, but we were able to get him to put it away and talk about his summer and how he feels about starting high school in the Fall. It was good to hear his thoughts and plans and his obvious excitement about his life and interests. After the checkup, we offered to take him to Hapa, his and our favorite Sushi Restaurant. Seated at an outdoor sidewalk table and over the lovely meal, we covered a lot of topics; I even got him to laugh at one of my “Dad jokes.”

And Boy, can he put away an Unagi Magi roll or three!

Erin & John arrived back in Denver on May 11th. Fortunately, we can say that they will not have to return to Cuba ever again. Erin’s next posting will be to Barbados, and she and John will be going there sometime in late July. Meanwhile they have two months home leave to spend here in the States.

The Arkansas River in Buena Vista.

After spending a week with Sue (I was still in Europe), they decamped to Buena Vista–that’s Byoo-nuh Vista” (rhyming with “beautiful”) for non-Coloradans. While they were there, Sue and I twice made the two hour trip to this little tourist town to visit with them. We had never spent much time in the town and were very pleased with what we found. The drive from Denver to BV is incredibly beautiful; much of the time you are traveling through South Park, which is a grassland flat within the basin formed by the Rocky Mountains’ Mosquito and Rampart Mountain Ranges, where the cattle population far outnumbers the people.

Buena Vista or BV is on the Arkansas River and provides great hiking and river sports. This time of the year, the water is still very cold, but lots of people were kayaking and river surfing. We stayed on terra firma, but enjoyed walking along the Arkansas. The highlight of our first visit was a trip to the Royal Gorge and a ride on the Royal Gorge Railway, a somewhat pricey but delightful way to spend a day, admiring the scenery and the engineering marvel that it represents.

We enjoyed our first visit to BV so much that we asked Erin if we could bring Charlie for an overnight. She happily agreed, so we made the return trip after being back in Denver for only a couple of days. Charlie enjoyed the town and the opportunity to hike and spend time in nature. John is a hiking enthusiast, and he found a trail, Twin Lakes, that provide a good challenge for Charlie and something doable for me. John and Charlie teamed up and hiked the entire trail while Erin and I contented ourselves with navigating only about two thirds of it. Both “teams” had a good adventure.

The hot tub at Erin and John’s Airbnb rental was also a big hit.We couldn’t get anyone interested in a Wizard card game, so we all spent the evening watching The Green Book, a recent movie depicting what it was like for African American Blacks to travel in the Jim Crow era. It’s pretty shocking to watch, but probably doesn’t convey the real evilness of that period in American history. A good choice for our mixed age group crowd.

Twenty four hours, surrounded by adults was just about enough for Charlie so we headed back to Denver the next day–but I think it was a very successful outing all things considered. We were happy to see how much Charlie and John were able to bond over the hiking experience.

We just heard from Erin & Charlie, they are heading back to Denver from Yellowstone & Grand Tetons National Park. We are looking forward to their report on their experience.

Sue and I just got back from an afternoon drive around Denver; spring has arrived here in Denver several weeks early. Usually the peak time for Lilacs is mid-May, and it is still early April. That probably portends a hot summer and a long fire season; let’s hope that’s not the case.

Anyway, back to the drive around Denver. One of our stops was City Park. Between the lake and the Nature & Science museum, there is a lovely grove of lilac bushes, with a large range of colors and varieties. Lilacs grow well here in Denver–they can survive our normally cold winters and our frequent droughts.

I have long loved lilacs as does Sue. I used to be able to luxuriate in their smell as well as their blossoms, but sometime during the Covid Pandemic, I lost most of my sense of smell. It is not completely gone, but these days, I can only detect a slight scent of most aromas that I used to enjoy–like lavender, lilacs and baking bread.

Lilacs always remind me of our dear friend, Marie Funkhauser–perhaps the kindest and most helpful neighbor one could ever have. We lived next door to Marie and her family in Alexandria, VA for more than 25 years. She took care of Bryn and Erin when thy came home from school. We knew that the children were always safe and lovingly cared for, making our work lives just a little bit less stressful.

Each spring, Marie would cut a huge bouquet of lilacs from the bushes in her backyard and bring them to Sue; the whole house would be filled with the aroma of lilacs for many days. What a lovely memory…and what a lovely friend.

Lilacs also bring to mind the first stanza of Walt Whitman’s tribute to the fallen Abraham Lincoln:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, 

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, 

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, 

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, 

And thought of him I love.

Happy Easter Everyone. Spring has certainly arrived in Denver–way too early, but we can enjoy it nevertheless. I hope for you and yours, this is a time of renewal and reawakening.

I am most thankful for family and friends. Tell someone you love them today, it will make you and them feel better.

I have been remiss about posting lately–events in our world are so disheartening, but I am glad to be alive.

Our friend, Martha Birney, recently invited us along with Mart & Bob Larson to join her at the Denver Botanical Garden to view their Orchid Show. We are all members of the Garden, and it is one of our favorite spots in the city in all seasons. My photo library is full of flower pictures going back to the time we first arrived in Denver more than a decade ago.

This show, while not large, did not fail to impress. If you are like us, you can’t pass up the orchids for sale at the supermarket, but given the dryness of our climate and the less than ideal growing conditions in our apartment, we have to treat them almost like cut flowers. You buy them, knowing that the blooms will last a month or, if you are lucky, three; but whatever the time, once the blooms have fallen off, you are faced with the dilemma of throwing them away or placing them in some forgotten corner, never to bloom again & then to be discarded at some later time when plant shelf space becomes scarce. (Actually you can sometimes coax them into rebooking if you happen to have an facing window and a lot of patience!)

But fortunately the Garden has the staff, resources, and conditions to grow a large variety of these lovely blossoming plants. They don’t have a detectable perfume, but boy are they stunning.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit at the Garden, and then Martha treated us all to a sumptuous meal at a new Indian Restaurant, Curry & Grill 2. The food is wonderful with delicate flavors and just the right spiciness for our American palate. The staff were warm and welcoming and the service excellent. There were just a few other diners, which encouraged us to linger and talk, and we never felt any urgency to leave. We’ll definitely go back & soon.

The time spent with Mart & Bob is bittersweet these days for Martha B and us. They told us recently that they have decided to sell their apartment and move to the Quad Cities to be near their son, Isaac, daughter in law, Megan, and two young grandsons, Ezra & Jasper. Knowing how important Bryn, Joel and Charlie have been to us since our move to Denver, we can’t blame them, but we are certainly going to miss them immeasurably. Almost every Sunday, one of us hosts for brunch and then a very competitive card game of Wizard; we won’t know what to do with ourselves once they are gone!

2025 is rapidly coming to an end, and we hope that this Christmas Season you are surrounded by family and friends. We celebrated Christmas a little early (December 20th) with Bryn and her family, because Charlie will be with his Dad and we’ll be in the DC area. Joel made one of his usual delicious meals and lots of gifts were exchanged; and, surprisingly, almost everyone liked what they unwrapped or opened—smiles and wows instead of meek little “thank yous.”

Bryn & Joel moved into their first home this April, finding a lovely house in south Denver with views of the Rocky Mountains and space in the backyard for cookouts, picnics and family gatherings and only 15 minutes from us. Bryn has just completed a year as Comptroller with a Denver nonprofit, Focus Points, which has provided services to immigrant families in the Denver area for more thirty years. She loves the work, although it is quite challenging managing 28 separate grants and budgets. Joel is a now partner in his company and fortunately it is very successful.

Erin & John are finishing up what has been a difficult two year posting to Cuba with the State Department. Food & fuel shortages present daily challenges for the average Cuban and visitors alike. They just found out that their next posting is Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean, which they hope will be a lot less stressful than Cuba. We weren’t able to visit them in Cuba but we are already make out plans to visit them in Barbados.

Charlie will be 14 in January and half way through the 8th grade. He continues to love, breaking, surfing, and basketball, and excels at them all. We see him at least once a week, usually when we pick him and his best friend, Dylan, up after school. These days they like to come to our condo to workout in our exercise room or occasionally play cards with us; whatever, we do, there’s always a few minutes to catch up on what’s happening in his life—though I have to admit that a 14 year old boy is not the best of communicators, but we keep at it.

Now we are back east with Sue’s brother John & sister in law Bonnie at their lovely home on the Eastern Shore. John spends weeks pulling out all of the Christmas decorations, and it seems like every room has its own Christmas tree—of course, it takes almost an equal amount of time to put it away! We love visiting with John and Bonnie at this time of year. Christmas morning was incredible—lots of presents for everyone.

We’ll be in the DC area until the 29th of December when we fly back to Denver—where the Christmas Day weather forecast is 75 degrees and bright blue skies. As Thomas Friedman says, Global Weirding!

2025 has been a good year for the Boyers, featuring good health, time for family and friends and some travel. I have been dealing with a detached retinue for the last 18 months; five operations later, the doctors are hopeful that one more operation will be able to restore sight to my left eye—we’ll keep you posted. Just last month, Sue had a double cataract surgery which looks to have been successful, with good clear vision in both eyes and only the need to resort to “readers” for the smallest of print. Hurray!

We made it to Mexico early in the year, with a week at the beach in Sayulita with Mart & Bob Larson and time in San Miguel de Allende where we were joined by Lenore Grunko and Patrick McGlamery. We finished our visit in Mexico City, an incredibly rich cultural city where it is impossible to see and do everything even if you visit again and again—art, museums, music, shopping, history, food. Carole Reedy, a native Chicagoan but now a proud Mexican citizen, is always the best tour guide & pal.

Here’s hoping for a peaceful and prosperous 2026!