Hello, Culver City Friends: [img]1044|left|||no_popup[/img]
When we looked over our Christmas list, we realized most of you have email addresses. Since we have been receiving greetings from some of our more technologically oriented friends, we decided to do the same and send our holiday letter out this year over the internet. Happy Holidays! Janet and Charley.
HOLIDAY GREETINGS 2010
Dear Friends and Family,
Last year could not be defined in photos, so we decided to write you a letter with the highs and lows throughout the year.
Our year began with negative holdover from the murders in December 2009 of Charley’s daughter, Liza, and his two granddaughters, Julia and Catherine, by his ex-wife who then committed suicide.
The responsibility for Liza’s remains fell to Charley. In early January, with friends and family present, we scattered her ashes at sea.
Other, more positive, family news includes the celebration on Jan. 16 of the 100th birthday of Janet’s Aunt Freida. We are looking forward to celebrating her 101st in 2011.
In July, Charley’s son, Howard, married Sue, his sweetheart of 15 years. Granddaughter Sarah has decided to major in Environmental Science and Marine Biology, so Charley took her and boyfriend, Rick, to Catalina for snorkeling. Grandson Sam has been accepted at Le Cordon Bleu, and is on his way to becoming a world class chef. He and his mother were in Spain over Thanksgiving where he’s been asked to consider becoming an apprentice after completing his studies.
Granddaughter Neda is continuing her medical assistant studies and caring for great grandson Jonathan — one year old on Thanksgiving Day. We pray daily for grandson Mike, a U.S. Army Sergeant, who deployed to Afghanistan in April. Our little puggle (pug/beagle) Ginger is helping us deal with having had to put down our beloved dog Brandy in June.
Last summer, Charley was asked to teach a senior design class for the California State University Long Beach Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Dept. He’s been an adjunct professor during the 2010 fall term, which is just ending. He’s said over years past how much he enjoyed working with students, and that he wished he had started teaching years ago….a month after he started, he complained that the students didn’t listen…!
Charley has written a great deal about sounding rockets and now has a website www.rsandt.com for others to access. He has also continued mentoring the Experimental Sounding Rocket Assn. (ESRA) Club at CSULB and guiding them as they build rockets to compete each year at Green River, Utah. The team took first place in 2009 by coming closest to the 10,000 ft. mark. In 2010, the students did not recover the rocket until the following day — the competition requirement is two hours. When they located the rocket and instruments, they found that they had again come closest to the 10,000 ft. mark.
So although they didn’t win, the judges gave them the award for Engineering Technical Excellence. This year they are building two rockets — one to go 10,000 ft. and the other 25,000 ft.
Janet’s book, “BODY PARTS A Collection of Poems About Aging,” was published in April and won a 2010 Reader’s Favorite award. It can be found at www.outskirtspress.com/bodyparts or is available on www.amazon.com
All of Janet’s proceeds go into an endowment at CSULA for a scholarship for students of Biology established in memory of Janet’s son David.
Hopefully, you will hear more about it this spring since she will be able to do more marketing. She is working on another book dealing with solar eclipses, which includes poems and puppets…more later…!
Still active with the CSULA Emeriti Assn., even though relinquishing her position as chair of the Fellowship Fund Committee, Janet is on the committee to read applications and help in the decision-making for awarding scholarships. Both Janet and Charley continue judging at the CSULA Research Symposium each year.
Janet’s biggest news is that she is finally recuperating from her second total knee replacement in August which became infected after a suture “erupted.” The doctor told her she was in danger of losing her leg or having to have the knee replacement replaced. Only after a series of antibiotics and a second stay in the hospital, was the infection stopped. Just recently, with assistance from the CSU Emeriti and Retired Faculty Assn., she heard from the insurance company that they will cover the cost of the home infusion required for the Vancomycin. Now, in December, she can finally drive and get herself to physical therapy treatments.
We have managed some travelling this year. We went to Florida to visit family and attend Janet’s Aunt Myrtle’s funeral. Of course, each June is a trip to Utah with the rocketeers and in the spring to the AIAA conference — this year in Phoenix —with students we have mentored, many making their first conference presentations. We visited the Biosphere and were inspired to install solar panels on our home when we returned — the savings on our electric bill are incredible. Janet insisted on taking a cruise to Alaska prior to surgery, and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip along the inside passage as well as a short stay in Vancouver, B.C. In August we also had a wonderful visit to Pine Mountain where we gazed wide-eyed — as one can be at 2 a.m. — at the marvel of the Perseid meteor showers.
We hope that the coming year will prove to be a stellar one for all of us and that there will be more brightness in all our lives.
Love, Janet and Charley
Dr. Hoult may be contacted at HOULTight@aol.com
