Pete Spaulding                        e-mail:  petenyvtca@comcast.com

Civil Engineering        California Energy Commission (Retired!)

         2023 Christmas Letter Update

December 2022

To Family & Friends:

Ok, so the excuse for no card this year is…too much travelling! Writing this as we travel to Kauai to celebrate ZILAN’s RETIREMENT! Her actual retirement date is Dec 30, but she’s been running out vacation time since Sept. 30. She’s adjusting to this new chapter very well, taking daily yoga and Pilates classes in the morning while still taking ballet lessons at night. It took her very little time to adapt to ‘sleeping in’! Before we left for Kauai, she appeared in a Folsom Lake College rendition of The Nutcracker Reimagined, as an angel. How appropriate!

This trip comes just 2 weeks after we returned from St. John, USVI. We had already booked Kauai, but we could not pass an opportunity to join our friends Jim & Cathy Zerio on a trip to visit their niece who owns a charter boat company on the island. If you ever go to St John, check out Voodoo Charters, a gorgeous catamaran. We had a great time snorkeling and hiking almost every day, and driving ‘on the left’ on steep, winding mountain roads. Better than an E ticket ride at Disneyland!

In July there was a very rare occurrence, all 3 Spaulding brothers and their spouses were in the same place at the same time! The last time this occurred was 35 years ago! The reason? Laurie & Ken’s son Kevin’s wedding to Kimberly in Agoura Hills

Despite spending 2 days together in Agoura, and Steve, Pat, Zilan and I spending another 4 days on Catalina Island, no fights or feuds broke out. Only good times, and best wishes for a long, happy life together for Kimberly and Kevin.

Ironically, this was followed in November when all 4 Chen siblings, Zilan, Elise, Stanley and Dana. plus their spouses AND their parents, were together in Campbell, CA! I guess 2022 was the Year of the Family Reunion!

Another trip this year was to the Grand Canyon, via Death Valley, in May. Again, with good friends, we hiked halfway down into the canyon. Stunning views were our reward for lots of huffing & puffing. We timed the trip to take advantage of a new moon in Death Valley and were hoping to see the Milky Way and billions of stars, but Mother Nature did not cooperate, covering the valley in high, thick clouds.

Good news and bad news about our pets. Back in March, as Pete was taking the garbage out, Tenny snuck out the back door and went out to see what the rest of the world has to offer. We searched high and low, peppered the neighborhood with hundreds of fliers and posters, to no avail. We taught him to say “Merry Christmas”, and he combined that with his “Gimme a kiss” to say “Gimme Christmas”! We hope that Tenny found a new home and is safe and healthy entertaining a new adopted family for this Christmas. Meanwhile, Cali turned 2 this month. She is even more fun now than she was as a puppy. She swims in the river almost every day, even in winter, loves to play catch, has mastered playing dead (when we say BANG!) and flipping treats from the tip of her nose into her mouth. (I’ll have to post these on Facebook.) In 2023, we hope to get her to the agility park for some doggie diving.

But the highlight of this year has to be helping our new Ukrainian friends. As we were watching the war unfold in March, we wondered what we could do to help. After seeing a story on local TV, we signed up with a Ukrainian church to host refugees. About 3 weeks later we got the call, could we host a couple that night? With only a picture to identify them, we picked them up at a local church after their 2 week expedition. Yurii and Yuliia stayed with us about 3 weeks before they found a studio apartment. Thank God for Google Translator! It ain’t perfect but it got us through. Since then we have been able to sponsor Yullia’s mother Oksana and Yurii’s friend Slavich.  All 4 of them, plus their dog Marsha, stayed with us around Thanksgiving when the house they rented sprung a leak in the bathroom wall and they all had to relocate.

They all work their butts off! Within 4 days of arriving, Yurii had rented a car and was driving for Door Dash. He has been “Door Dasher of the Month” several times! Yuliia does permanent make-up and has several clients. Oksana does hair extensions. And Slavich will be driving for Door Dash too. Yurii is working to establish a vehicle transport business like the one he had in Ukraine, and we have applied to sponsor his business partner to come to the US as well. We hope we are doing our part to tell Putin to stuff it you know where, and to help the Ukrainian people.

You know, too much goes on in a year in all our lives. Why limit ourselves to hand-writing “Merry Christmas” in a card? We know that a lot happened in all your lives as well. Feel free to drop us a note, a text, an email, whenever you want. Or, if you want to get really crazy, CALL! I can remember many times when my Dad would call all his old Army Air Corp buddies and bullshit for a while. We thought he was crazy. Now I get it!

RPI Update Oct 2017

Just spent a great couple of days hosting Steve Norton, who stopped in Sacramento while completing a world-wind tour of northern CA to attend graduations and visit relatives and friends. Steve is one of the few ’73 alums I have been able to stay in communication with over the years. Still hoping to land a gig as a roadie for his band, Juniper Row.

I promised Steve I would get off my butt and provide an update to anyone who cares. Life has been pretty damn good. Last April I retired, after 42 years of non-stop working. My last tenure with the State of California’s Energy Commission and Dept. of Transportation left me a good retirement, as well as a wonderful wife!! Zilan and I were married in May of 2015. So now I’m a house-husband, gardener, general contractor (readying Zilan’s midtown condo to rent), ski and tennis bum. I think I have finally found my true calling in life! To me, the biggest challenge in retirement is avoiding injury. Retirement can be dangerous to your health, from tennis elbow, banging up my shoulder in a bike crash, to pinched nerves and stiff necks from over-doing the workouts. Guess I still need to learn moderation.

Steve’s visit prompted me to reconnect with a great Hall 2 alum, Bob Eckart. I called Bob a few days after Steve left. We had a great chat! Another word of retirement advice – if you get a sudden urge to reconnect, do it right away! Don’t delay! And a phone call is way better than an email or text message.

With that in mind, I just got back from visiting a friend in Port Charlotte, Florida. So before the trip, I got in touch with another Hall2/Class of ’73 Alum, Rick Rosser. Had not seen Rick since 2000. Luckily our schedule coincided and Rick and I and Zilan were able to have lunch together at the Beach House Restaurant on Anna Marie Island in Sarasota. After a long stint in Saudi Arabia, Rick has been settled outside of Tampa for several years. He is still working in microbiology.

And if anyone has a hankering to come to northern CA, let me know. It’s a very underrated area. Lots to do all year round. Little traffic, compared to LA and SF. You are most welcome to our cozy guest room.

Definitely planning to come back to Troy for our 45^th reunion in October of 2018. I hope a lot of civil engineers and Hall Hall alums will make a special effort to make it. C U there!

Quick update on one Robert C. Eckart ’73:

Bob was recently ‘honored” by the RPI Fraternity Association. After winning the annual Chapter Adviser Award so many times, RPI has decided to rename the award the Robert C. Eckart Chapter Adviser Award! Way to go Bob. Over the years, Bob has donated thousands of hours to his beloved Sigma Chi. Bob “Justa” Eckart’s second stint as the Delta Psi chapter adviser has lasted since 2010. He was Delta Psi’s assistant chapter adviser, as well as chapter co-advisor, for 13 years with Arch Love ’42 during the ’70s and ’80s. He was also chapter adviser for Albany State for 12 years, and has been an active member of the Phi Epsilon Phi House Corporation for more than 20 years. Bob was so well known by the brotherhood from an extra year of pledging, many of the new pledges and visitors mistook Bob for a brother, but Bob’s response was always “I’m just a pledge,” and the moniker “Justa” had stuck. Bob has been “just” a pledge, a brother, a magister, a chapter adviser, and now has been recognized as “just” an Order of Constantine brother. But to those of us from Hall Hall, he will always be affectionately known as “F*&%$n’ Eckart”!

Update 9/22/10:  OK, here's some news: