Yes, folks, it's that long awaited yearly Grimm Christmas letter - prized by all. I imagine years from now collections of these letters will be auctioned off at one of the world's great auction houses. On the other hand, you may find them so boring that you don't bother to read them. Oh well, I'm only doing as instructed - "Yes dear, I'm writing the Christmas letter."
It hasn't been all that exciting a year and most of you will have received other Grimm tales this year, so I won't go into great detail. Other than our trip home last Christmas, our only other vacation was one week in Adelaide in April. I enjoyed seeing an old friend and his family who moved from Alice two years ago. We also saw a friend of Toby's who moved to Adelaide~ visited a poet whom we had met here in Alice, did some shopping and went to Kangaroo Island where we saw some Australian wildlife. It was a nice break, but too short. As I have said before, Alice is nice, but when you are 1000 miles from anywhere you need to get away occasionally.
Dwight came home for his summer break and found a lot of work her. He worked a good many hours at the newspaper, managed a clothing store for quite a few weeks and also worked on call for a photographer in town. One week he spent a lot of time on assignment at the Sheraton photographing some of the senior Sheraton VIPs from al over the country. He even got a fully paid trip to Ayers Rock’s down, plane back) accommodations and incredible meals down there to photograph this group. He grumbled a bit about how many hours he was working (and there were a number of weeks when he had some work all seven days), but he had a few weeks of no work before he left and he soon got bored. He did get to play some golf with a friend and I even went out with them once. It was good he found all of that work and since Australia pays well for part time work, he was able to make quite a bit of money (and saved most of it). He's about finished the first term of the sophomore year and I think was suffering the sophomore slump (if there is such a thing). But he says he's found ways to break out of it (including looking into getting back into ice hockey - which he hasn't played for 10 years). He went to the home of the grandparents of a friend for Thanksgiving and is going with his roommate to Mexico when he visits his aunts at Christmas. Dorothy asked him to fly home, but he declined saying it was too far and too expensive for only three weeks.
Dorothy grumbles about the mob at the newspaper - and most of her complaints appear to be justified (from what I can tell). However, she continues to put a lot of hours in and is appreciated by all of the arts and crafts and musically oriented people in town and the people connected with the schools. Much to my dismay at times (especially when she'S late for a meal or when people call at all times of the day or night) she doesn't say no to any request to cover an event. Even though the Advocate has two photographers, Dorothy takes many pictures to go with the stories she is covering. Once in three consecutive issues of the newspaper, she had 50 photos. A number of her pictures have been on the front page of the paper. Not bad for a non-professional.
Dorothy was also contacted by a national crafts magazine to do an article on crafts in Alice Springs. She not only wrote an article but took her own color photos as well and the article and pictures appeared in the magazine in September. The Arts and Crafts people both here and in Darwin were delighted.
Toby's interests haven't changed this year. He's still very much interested in table tennis, tenpin bowling, and of course comics. I don't even want to know how many comics he currently has, but it must be over 4000. They are organized and even catalogued to a certain extent. He has a list of those issues he's missing and has sent the list to his grandparents. Since there are over 3500 he's looking for (though not completely realistically since Batman *1 and other issues worth thousands of dollars are listed) - I would have liked to have heard the reaction on receiving the lists. I can't criticize too much since I collect books, although I'm very particular about buying any now - there's too many in the house.
Toby is currently involved in practices for a school play that will finally be performed the end of November (the practices have been going of for months.) Speaking of the play, Dorothy and I recently took the 45-minute nurse in how to usher at the Araluen Arts Center. So now that we are on their roster, we can usher for shows and we will each usher one night for the school play. The usher system is that any group who uses the theatre at Araluen either has to pay $30 per usher or supply their own. Those people who do usher don't get paid but can work for a group or give their credits to one of the music or art groups so they aren't charged.
The ushering - whenever I do it - is really the only thing I am currently involved in. Our local Australian-American Association decided to call it quits. Since the pilots' strike last year, there has only been one of the American tour groups come though which we used to host. Since that was our principal pastime, people began to lose interest. Also, quite a few left town and we couldn't recruit any new members so we folded our tents. I also decided for a number of reasons to drop out of the writer's group (Fellowship of Australian writers). So I guess other than the occasion ushering job, I'll play hermit.
We had some visitors from the U.S. a month ago. I believe they liked Central Australia, although I'm always curious how people will react to the isolation. Anyway, their visit prompted one funny incident and one rather amazing act on the part of Dorothy, the city girl. The morning after they arrived Jim and Martha got up before us and went out for a walk, according to Martha's son, Mike, who was also here. Well, they were gone a long time and I asked Dorothy if I should go to look for them. She asked me which direction I would go and since I really didn't know I gave up that idea. As I was sitting at the dining room table looking out of the window I saw a police van pull up in front of our house. Guess who got out. They had walked a long ways and finally had no idea how to get back to our house so when a police van drove past, Martha flagged it down. In her very southern accent she explained to the officers that they were tourists. "No kidding, lady," was the reply. She asked if they could give them a ride to their friends' house. It turned out they were only three blocks away but the police complied - probably to give them a new "tourist story."
Now to Dorothy's amazing act. We had originally bought a 4-wheel drive van with the idea of going back (and taking visitors) to a spot we really liked our first tour, called Palm valley - about 85 miles from Alice. However it soon became evident that my van was not a true bush vehicle because it rides fairly low. So, we never went back and I would have been apprehensive about trying. However, Dorothy had been there recently during one of her trips to a nearby Aboriginal community and found that the road was improved. So this lady, who screams at me as soon as the van's wheels touch a dirt road when I'm driving, took her friends over the dirt, rock-strewn 13-mile road from the main road to Palm valley. I was concerned about my van. But I'm glad to say, people and vehicle all survived. Martha though it was truly the end of the world, but I assured her that 85 miles from Alice, at a tourist attraction is not the end of the world.
The one interesting event that occurred recently in town was a visit by the Darwin Symphony Orchestra. The group itself was not the best, but they chose to perform on a specially constructed stage in the dry Todd riverbed on the grounds of the Old Telegraph Station, a national park. It was held at night (a necessity at this time of the year when daytime temperatures are usually over 100 degrees F). The audience sat on the river bank with the orchestra sitting on the stage in front of a large hill containing many of the red rocks which mark this area. The lighting lit the orchestra and enough of the hill to create a rather spectacular scene.
Dorothy and Toby are going to the U.S. for a visit in January. I declined since I figure one way or the other I'll be returning in the June-August time period next year and two trips a year are too many). They'll stop and visit Dwight at Stanford and then reach the east coast in time for the big 3-day comic convention in New York City. Dorothy took Toby to it last year (only one day) and got hooked. She is looking forward to it as much as Toby. Incidentally they'll visit relatives and friends on the east coast.
My current tour runs out in August next year. I formally applied for a new tour and hope to hear in the next month whether I will be granted another 2-year tour. We all hope so. Wish us luck.
Well, I guess that brings me to the end of the 1990 Christmas letter. We hope that everyone has a great Christmas and wonderful New Year.
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