Picking up from our previous post, this album starts with our September 1991 trip to Disney World and cruise on the Big Red Boat. More photos and details from the trip on separate Travel post.
In October, we went with Betsy and Joe to Williamsburg, VA, renting a condo at Ford’s Colony through a deal where we had to sit through a real estate pitch. The property has since become a Marriott Vacation Club but at that point it was a standalone company. The condo was very nice — Joe took about a dozen pictures of it, but the only one with people in it was this one. Joe and I played golf at Ford’s Colony, Golden Horseshoe, an I think this is when we also played the River Course at Kingsmill. Barb and Betsy did some shopping at the outlets and I don’t know what else. It was a little bit tempting to consider the long term benefits of having a vacation home to come to year after year, but as it turned out, one weekend was pretty much enough and though we came back to Williamsburg a number of times, we never stayed at Ford’s Colony again.
Later in the Fall, Barb’s office participated in a soccer league and we both played on the team. The league was for different divisions of the Social Security complexes at Woodlawn, more than 7,000 employees plus families. Barb’s Office of General Counsel’s soccer effort was a short-lived effort; I played in two games, both played at Woodlawn High School, both losses. More pictures at OGC Sports post.
For Halloween 1991, Hugo was the center of festivities.
One way or another, the following photos turned up in this album. The birthday party is from November 1967 at the Kestenbaums, featuring Betsy, Barb, Julie K, Terry K, Marge K in background and various friends. The mugshot of Barb is not one of her favorites, probably from a passport session.
We got some photos from my Mom of a visit to their house in Florida by Taco Proper, a friend (though not a real close one) from Hong Kong. He was the Kodak guy in HK and I remember we got a good class tour of the Kodak processing plant there at one point. He also had a son named Taco who was in our school, a year or two older. I have no idea where the name Taco came from, I think they were of Dutch heritage. Is it a Dutch thing? As far as I know, this was his only visit. Mom also sent the Shoe cartoon reflecting her dental experiences (with her note at the top, “I love this”), which I would come to more greatly appreciate myself 20 years later.
Betsy supplied us with a couple of photo collages, one focused on Barb, the other on Betsy. The ones in the album are quite small and don’t enlarge very well. I’m not sure if there are originals somewhere, possibly with Betsy.
Some other ephemera that found its way onto adjacent pages in this album, so generally from late 1991: Aunt Leona and Uncle Larry’s 50th anniversary photo, a wedding invitation from Martha Goudey in Hong Kong that we would have liked to have attended but couldn’t, a Playbill from a Ford’s Theatre performance of “Five Guys Named Moe” about Louis Jordan that I quite liked, and postcards from San Antonio where I went on a business trip. Finally, I saved this envelope of something I received from Kiev, USSR — I don’t remember what was in it, but I guess I thought it was cool to have something from the Soviet Union, which was in the process of collapsing. It is kind of cool, but I wish I could remember what was in it.
Thanksgiving 1991 was an excellent gathering of the clan at our Davidge house. My Mom and Dad (from Florida), Laurie (from Philly at that point?), Fred, Betsy, Joe and (relatively) new baby Sara (all from Virginia) all came. It was great to have everyone and we prepared a proper turkey with all the trimmings. Sara was a big hit! These are our first album photos of Sara, though we celebrated her arrival with Betsy and Joe in May.
For Christmas Eve, we went down to Betsy and Joe’s in Virginia. I haven’t talked about it yet so let me say that for years, pretty much since they were married in 1982, they had a townhouse in the Sterling community of Countryside. I think it was at 81 Southall Court, near the Potomac River, not far from the Dulles Town Center which would not be built until 1999, more or less when they left for Denver. Betsy and Joe were pioneers in the area when they first moved to Countryside; since then, the area has grown into a much denser suburb, spurred by development in Reston and the Dulles corridor.
With Sara’s arrival, and various comings and goings to the O’Neills on Christmas Eve and to either Fred’s or the Babcocks for Christmas Day, we began a tradition of opening presents in stages, some at our house and some on the evening of Christmas Eve at Betsy’s. These first few photos are from our house.
This set of photos is from the celebration at Betsy and Joe’s…Sara’s first Christmas.
Boxing Day took us to Patti and Lee’s house in DC where we met baby Jimmy for the first time.
At some point after Christmas, Gerard helped stash our Christmas tree up the hill behind our back yard, under the cover of darkness as was his way.
The rest of winter and spring of 1992 proceeded with a surplus of cat pictures on our part. Each of us was busy with our careers: I was doing more and more traveling, Barb was settling in as an attorney and learning the ropes from folks like Henry Goldberg and Tom Hoyer, and avoiding bad habits from friends like Leila Carp. We started exploring Columbia and Baltimore restaurants with the Hoyers, Leila and the Harders, never at the same time. Home life seemed to center on Hugo and Walt.
Barb took a trip to Idaho Falls to see Frances Marshall and her family and got in some skiing. For years, Frances was a nuclear scientist at the Idaho National Laboratories before she moved to Vienna, Austria with the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. I think Barb made this trip alone because I was tied up with other travels. I regret Barb and I never made another trip together to Idaho Falls, despite a standing invitation from Frances.
In the Spring, we took a freshly walking Sara for a play day with Mary Salhus and her daughter Catherine.
We attended a man yue celebration for Andrew Ireland at Mrs. Ireland’s home. Barb’s “Chinese aunties” were great ones for this very worthwhile celebration of a baby’s first month. We attended several, most often at Auntie Mary’s barn. She threw nice ones for Sara (but where are the photos?) and later Kristen and Allie.
As spring tuned to summer 1992, we attended a baseball game with the Bowmans at the newly opened Orioles Park at Camden Yards. This gives us a chance to include a couple of other miscellaneous pictures of Jimmy. While it’s great to see Jimmy, I wish I’d take a few more pictures of the ballpark which would become an integral part of Baltimore and have an ongoing role in my life. Camden Yards was a revolution in ballpark design and it was a treat to have it nearby, even if the Orioles didn’t always have the greatest team on the field.
Barb participated in the 1992 Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk with some folks from work (I think). I didn’t do it and I can’t remember if I just didn’t want to or had something else going on. Probably I was just lazy. In any case, Barb and I are both proud that she did it, especially as now she is barely able to get over the bridge due to her (growing?) fear of heights. She’s got the certificate to prove it, even if we never put her name on it.
Joe and I participated in a golf tournament at the Goose Creek course near his home in Leesburg, VA, and we won! This gives me the opportunity to say that Joe and I used to play golf together quite a lot — for many years often several times a month when the weather allowed, and sometimes when it didn’t — and we had a great time. We would most often play at the Algonkian Regional Park course near his house or later at Shenandoah Valley or Raspberry Falls when we could afford it. We were very compatible golfers, not overly competitive with each other but closely matched. I enjoyed playing with him more than with anyone.
On a few occasions we tried to get Fred interested in the game. He was never more than half-hearted but at one point he got a bit of a bug and bought a gimmicky adjustable golf club that meant he didn’t have to carry a whole bag of clubs. We took him out to Shenandoah Valley and set off as a threesome, Joe and I riding in a cart with our bags and Fred walking with his single stick. The course marshall, seeing only the two bags of clubs, came steaming up, telling Fred he couldn’t share our clubs (a breach of golf club rules — it slows down play) and had to rent a set of his own. Fred wheeled on him, shaking his goofy adjustable stick and shouted, “I am not a pack mule! I have my own club!!” They let him play, but I don’t remember him ever coming back.
Though I golfed for many years after Joe left for Colorado, my affection for the game dwindled. I finally quit altogether in the mid-2000s, but more about that later, I suppose.
Our anniversary came in May 1992 and I thoughtfully sent Barb flowers. Such a romantic! Meanwhile, life with the cats and occasionally Sara steamed on.
After Louise passed away in 1989, Fred set about life on his own. For several years he volunteered regularly with Hospice, largely in admiration of the work they’d done easing Louise’s final few months. For a time, he delivered phone books around Fairfax County to gain some post-retirement income and give himself something to do. He also became an active cyclist, pedaling around the neighborhood and taking trips in the area with a cycling club.
It must have been in Spring 1992 that he took an Elderhostel (now Road Scholar) trip cycling around the Netherlands. He came home with a new friend, Fran Davis, soon to become his new wife. Fran was a family therapist based in San Francisco. She came for a visit and Fred was eager to introduce her to all of us. We were happy that Fred was happy, but we didn’t know quite what to make of all this.
Barb had these two pictures of Fred and Fran squirreled away. I’m not sure where or when they were taken, possibly around the time they met, but for the record here they are.
Fred and Fran’s attachment grew quickly. For a few months they tried a bi-coastal arrangement, arranging trips back and forth. During the summer, Fred pulled up stakes, sold his townhouse and moved to San Francisco — San Mateo, actually — to live with Fran. Wasting no further time, they got married in September, as we shall see.
Meanwhile, spring turned to summer and life moved on in Maryland and Virginia. Barb’s office softball team got going, and before long Barb took a softball in the eye while practicing a popup catch. I wasn’t there for the injury but she came home with an eyepatch and a pirate’s attitude. A while later, on the softball field again, she sustained a knee injury (torn meniscus running the bases) and needed arthroscopic surgery. It was not a good summer, but she did get some nice get well cards from her office and admirers. I got some clarification from Barb that her other knee injury stems from a touch football game in Spokane, when she was a teenager on her way to Hong Kong. She never had an operation on it, the knee has just bothered her ever since.
But injuries didn’t stop us from going to the beach! Barb arranged to use a friend’s (Lloyd?) condo at Sea Colony Resort at Bethany Beach, Delaware. We went with Betsy and Sara. It might have been Sara’s first trip to the beach.
The Bowmans joined us for a day or so.
Summertime brought another man yue, this time for Luke Walters, held at the Ireland’s house.
Barb’s Flagstaff cousins, the Aitchisons, came east and stayed with us for a few days in Columbia. The Embreys came up for the occasion. Stewart, Ann and Kate took in a few sights, and they haven’t been back. It was nice having them while they were here.
We’ve not really given Stewart his due in our family. He’s a longtime author, photographer, zoologist, geologist, and tour guide for prestigious outfits like National Geographic, Lindblad and the Museum of Northern Arizona. He specializes in the American Southwest, but has led tours all around the world. I’ve only met him a couple of times, including a later trip of ours to Arizona. I imagine he has some stories to tell, but I’m not sure we’ll get to (or make the effort to) hear them.
Also around this time, we were invited to a special 70th birthday party for Sha Ching Wu, who had been Barb’s amah when she was a baby in Hong Kong. Fred and Louise helped Sha Ching and her husband emigrate to the US, and the party was thrown by her two boys, Jeremy and David Wu who had each become successful and started families of their own. Jeremy has stayed in touch periodically with Barb and has been very nice to us over the years. This party was, coincidentally, at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Arlington, whose name I’ve lost track of and it’s not there anymore anyway. Jeremy and David rented most if not all of the restaurant for a very proper and fantastic Chinese feast. Betsy, Joe and Sara were there as well. Joe and I were most impressed with the array of liquor bottles arrayed on every table, including top-notch Johnny Walker Black and Remy Martin XO cognac. We killed at least one bottle of the $100+ cognac, maybe two. Ah, the good old days!
Not content with one beach, in August we tried out another Caribbean island. I was looking for somewhere to play golf while Barb hit the pool and beach. We did some research with our travel agent, Rita Tyroler (ah, the good old days) and chose the Jack Tar Village resort in St. Kitts. It is now the Royal St. Kitts Hotel, evidently. We had a decent enough time, I played a lot of golf and Barb got her sun, but once again were not compelled to return. We evidently didn’t take any pictures there, and I’m not going to make a separate page for this trip. We were still searching for the right Caribbean vacation spot.
Fred and Fran decided to tie the knot on September 6, Labor Day weekend, at Fran’s home in San Mateo. We and the Embreys trekked out for the occasion. We took part of a day (Friday?) to sightsee in San Francisco, with stops at Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge. I think it was the first time Betsy and Joe had been to the Bay Area.
Many years later, in 2020, Betsy and Joe called one night to confirm whether we had done any sightseeing on this trip. Betsy didn’t think so but Joe was convinced we had seen Lombard Street and Fisherman’s Wharf together. I was happy to point to this page to confirm we had been there together.
Joe remembered that we woke up early on the Saturday (I’m guessing) to drive down to Monterey to play golf at the Links at Spanish Bay. [Joe is the one that remembered we played golf. I had forgotten. I imagine we might have wanted to play Pebble Beach but couldn’t get a tee time nor could we afford it. The Links at Spanish Bay was the next best course.] We evidently drove around at least a little of the 17-Mile Drive (did the girls come with us?). Joe remembers we made it back to San Mateo just in time for the rehearsal dinner.
The evening before the wedding, we met Fran’s family of five kids and grandkids from her two previous marriages (she was a two-time widow, which did not escape our notice). There was a rehearsal dinner of sorts at a Chinese restaurant near her home.
The wedding was held in Fran’s home, limited essentially to her family and ours. One of her daughters, a minister, officiated. The whole deal was pretty awkward. We didn’t know their family, they didn’t know us. Everyone was a little suspicious about how quickly Fred and Fran’s whole relationship developed, but we wished them well.
We made noises about becoming one big happily family, but that never happened. We only saw the other Davis kids/families a few more times. Living in California and later Montana, Fred became part of the Davis family and much less involved with us on the east coast.
Being honest about it, with Barb and I an hour away from his home in Oakton and involved in our own lives, we were already somewhat distanced from Fred. I think it’s fair to say that Betsy, being much closer and having Sara, hoped that Fred would be more a part of their lives, but I don’t think Fred was ready to be a “stay at home grandpa,” so to speak. We’ll have more to say about Fred and Fran in subsequent encounters.
A few weeks later, September 21, Fred and Fran returned east to have a celebration for Fisher friends and family. We gathered at Fen and Haya’s Shadow Ridge cabin with a bunch of old family friends, the Babcocks, Deans, Irelands, Strikers, Jessie O’Neill, Norm Getsinger, Ann and Harry Walters, and even Aunt Leona and Uncle Larry from Arizona. Fred introduced Fran to everyone. Fen read a benediction of sorts in a poem.
It seemed like a good occasion to get some family photos.
Aunt Leona and Uncle Larry stayed with us at Davidge at least part of the time. I think it was the only time they came, but Leona made friends with Hugo while she was there.
Autumn of 1992 brought another pig roast at Patti and Lee’s mountain place. Fewer pictures from us this time, it looks like we spent a little more time inside the little cabin which they had made more habitable.
Barb had a one-night dabble in Maryland politics, attending a fundraiser for Senator Barbara Mikulski and honoring the Baltimore-based film, Diner.
October was also birthday time for Barb. We threw a fun party at home with Betsy, Joe, Leila and the Harders.
Christmas 1992 approached. We spent a weekend in St. Michael’s, MD, with the Hoyers, checking out the Christmas celebration and enjoying some good meals. Various friends sent Christmas cards with photo updates of kids. Tony joined us at Betsy’s for some occasion and spent a little time with Sara.
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