Just as the Bellos family drove in bringing two pizzas and a cake, another car came in the drive, and it turned out to be John Bright, Tom’s 1949 Princeton classmate, come to say hello to his old friend. John is a member of the men’s group Tom started, and says he can still barely hear anything in spite of a cochlear implant, so conversation and interchange with friends is difficult. But even the brief minutes he was here got us this nice portrait.

The evening was sunny and warm. Some of us sat on the porch, and Tom elected to stay inside, out of the confusion, listening to the end of the Messiah, which just happened to be on our beloved AllClassical KOAC-FM. (You can get it anywhere in the world, by the way.) We came indoors to join him and cut the cake, anticipating by just a few hours our sixty-third wedding anniversary.

During the evening, we had a flag-raising on the newly placed flagpole out by the Tree House. It’s always had a prayer flag on it. The last one was brought from Nepal by our friend Kami Tenzing Sherpa, but it met its shredded end during the windy ice storm last winter. This new one will reach two ways, to the tree and the Tree House, and it will be a backdrop for Soren and Hannah’s wedding ceremony on the 22nd.

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