GHS
1964 LetterFrom Joan Blassberg Mach
770 Stelton St.
Teaneck, N.J. 07666
December 15, 2004
Dear Class,
The enclosed picture shows you what we look like when we're happy and relaxed. I'm wearing a caftan from the Souk in Morocco, and Joe's smile reflects the effects of two weeks of casual elegance and pampering from the staff of the Windsurf. For the first time in 38 years, we took a 2+ week vacation. We started in Nice, where the golden sunlight and the Kir chased our jet lag. We toured the Matisse and Chagall Museums, of course, but the Archaeological Museum let you go close enough to the Roman ruins to touch them. The Museum of Prehistory took us even further back in time, just in time to board the Windsurf. Our little sailing ship looked like the "Windsmurf" compared to the bigger lines, but proved its worth in the next two weeks. Blown off course from Corsica, we toured St. Paul de Vence, a 12th-century restoration of a walled village. The drinking water was exquisite, the golden light made us feel relaxed and alive, and we placed a stone on Chagall's grave. The artist and his two children lie bathed in that golden sunlight, sadly in an Italian cemetery between two six-foot high marble crosses. Villefranche boasts "Rue Obscura" - a totally covered street, and a church decorated by Jean Cocteau. Sete, Porquerolles, and Montpellier offered more views, wine tasting, and and history. We didn't dance on the bridge at Avignon, but we did catch their Armistice Day celebration and Roman ruins. The wine tasting at Chateauneuf du Pape included some of the region's diverse offerings, a side trip from Marseille. Chateau D'Yf still guards the harbor.
Barcelona boasts an excellent subway system, which we used to tour the "Sacra Familia", Gaudi's gaudiest and most garish. We rambled the Rambla , explored a humorous exhibition at their pre-columbian museum, and made it back to the ship in time for lunch. Catalans danced the Sardana in the square in front of the cathedral, and we even found our first three-euro tshirts to give to Jeff and Louis. Valdemossa's fame rests on George Sand's book "A Winter in Majorca", and we certainly fell under the spell of that island. We walked off our breakfast beluga caviar in Ibiza by climbing ALL the way up to the museum and cathedral. The museum boasts the oldest excavation we've ever seen, back to the Bronze Age. The Cathedral houses the Orpheon Society, dedicated to the preservation of period instruments. The music wafting through the Cathedral was from a video of the Society's musicians performing on their ancient instruments, one of Joe's favorite genres. We skipped the nine-hour tour from Malaga, of the Alhambra, taking the three-bar tapas tour instead. After the third glass of local vintage, everybody was in love with the City. Tangiers's tour took us to Tetuan, where Joan purchased two caftans. After nearly two weeks of five-star cuisine on the ship, they were all that fit! Our guide was informative and helpful, but the vendors were most aggressive. If you made eye contact, they followed you onto the bus. Portugal offered the low-key Porto Mao with its own charm and easy walking, and our final stop in Lisbon, where we stayed overnight. We certainly enjoyed the trolley to the upper town, and even found several Christmas concerts in progress on the streets and in churches. We opted out of any Fado, substituting an entire bottle of wine at a special "2 six-course dinners with wine for 25 euros". Floating back to the hotel, the entire city seemed lit up for Christmas.
This vacation marks the end of many years of struggle, and a reward for decades of effort on our part. After graduation from GHS, I attended and graduated from Wheaton College for Women. Joe and I were married two weeks later, and he proved himself one of the most intelligent, compassionate, moral and hard-working people on the planet. At a recent wedding, we were the couple married the longest (a mere 38 years!). When asked our secret, Joe replied "MARRY A SAINT!", while I could only stammer out "low expectations". I guess I forgot to mention Joe's wonderful sense of humor - always clever, never cruel. After Joe graduated from Harvard Law School, we moved to Brooklyn, just off the Bridge. Joe's accounting background served him well at both law firms and accounting firms, and I was able to graduate from Pratt Institute Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Joe also took an additional LLM in Taxation from New York University, a pioneer program for elite practitioners. He took honors there, too.
I promised Joe I wouldn't have a child until we bought a house. We conceived Jeffrey on the day we signed the contract for this house, another of Joe's little jokes. Jeffrey graduated from Rutgers College demanding Theater program, and now works nearby designing websites and marketing them. Our second son, Louis was born severely brain-damaged. Joe's patience and moral fiber held us together during this crisis, helped by New Jersey's superb programs. We developed a family "chant". I held up my fingers and cried "I work my fingers to the bone and what do I get?" The family choruses "BONY FINGERS!". Louis was able to enter a fine Group Home right after his graduation from school at age 21, and we've been empty-nesters since.
I'll gloss over Joe's one period of unemployment, except to say that it gave me a chance to use my Masters' degree in Library Science, and I loved the work. My father helped us. Quite honestly, between Louis' handicap and Joe's brief period of unemployment we gained an appreciation of who our real friends were. We're very happy now, and live quietly. Joe enjoys a fine position with a generic pharmaceutical company, and I enter my fifth year as a part-time librarian at nearby St. Peter's College in Englewood Cliffs. This is a very quiet library, with highly motivated students and fabulous views. We're located on the grounds of the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, in Englewood Cliffs, overlooking the Palisades. It is VERY close to approaches to the George Washington Bridge, but serene in spite of that..
We hope your holidays are filled with HOPE. Good health, of course, is our primary concern. We hope all of our friends enjoy good health and happiness. We wish all of you the best this holiday season. ..