Merry Christmas to all of you

"... and so this is Christmas."

It's funny how John Lennon's anti-war song "Happy Christmas/War is Over" shows up all the time now on stations playing Christmas carols. Maybe it's because there aren't that many carols being written anymore -- the last great one was "Silver Bells" nearly 60 years ago.

I do like the Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling" from the early '70s, but I think whoever it was who wrote "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" should definitely get a big lump of coal in his stocking.

Do they still do that?

This Christmas is an interesting one for our family. It will be our first without my Dad, who died in March, and it is our first with little Madison, our granddaughter who was born in September. I actually have a picture of her -- it isn't on the computer yet -- of her with Santa Claus at the Glendale Galleria at the age of about 10 weeks. She's so tiny that she looks like a little doll in his arm.

But this is a nice Christmas for me in other ways. There are so many of you I never knew in high school who have become my friends in the year since our 40th reunion, either on this site, in our work together on "When I'm 64" or through Facebook.

Merry Christmas to all of you -- and a very Happy New Year from Southern California.

More chapters are on the way

Just wanted to let all of you know the book is progressing nicely. I just finished the first draft of the chapter on class president Mike McCuddin, now retired from the Navy and living in the Pacific Northwest.

I'm not posting all the chapters -- y'all need some reason to actually buy the book.

Currently working on two others -- the friendship between Dale Morgan and Judy Hart Byers, and the one classmate of ours who seems to have best lived the spirit of the '60s -- Lauren Koskella Farley.