The Grand Tour Day 8       The blog today is mostly about the Seattle and Portland gatherings.  It is not about out amazing day of travel on Sunday when we saw the most beautiful scenic site anywhere.  You will have to tune in Tuesday night for the next edition to find out what it is.  We are presently in the redwoods in Crescent City, California.

Have travelled many miles and met many friends, new and old since we blogged you last in Bozeman, Montana on Tuesday, July  3.

That night we camped in a national forest campground on the Clarke Fork River about 40 miles from the Idaho/Montana border.   Beautiful campground right on the river for $10 and hardly anyone was in it.

Here is a photo of Hindstrum trying to get warm as the temps got down in the low 40’s (much better than cooking in Michigan’s ridiculous flirtation with the 100 degree mark.

After driving across the panhandle of Idaho, we journeyed to eastern Washington and turned north along the Columbia River gorge and then west in the Cascades.  There is still snow in this country and in the photo you see the roaring water of Deception Falls near Stevens Pass with Hindstrum  being a dare-devil squirrel.  He talked  about wanting to be Evil Knievel but we reminded him he didn’t have a motorcycle and that he was a stuffed squirrel.

                                                                     Wednesday night we camped about 30 miles east of Seattle  in a beautiful rainforest campground with a few too many firecrackers and fireworks going off.

The next day  we found the cute little town on Enumclaw northwest of Mt. Rainer.   Side note:  Mt. Rainer is the coolest mountain anywhere.  When the clouds clear (happens in summer which starts after the Fourth of July in these parts) this massive volcanic peak dominates the area.  We were constantly surprised to look up to see its snow-capped visage staring at us and it was about 50 miles away.

We spent the day walking around the town and using the town library to get WiFi to facebook and email people to come to upcoming gatherings. Here is a picture of Hindstrum catching a ride around town.

Unfortunately, Hindstrum found a place called the Pie Goddess and ran up a $2000 bill and a $1000 vet bill for pumping his stomach.

That night we camped right on Puget Sound at the Saltwater State Park.  Beautiful campground in an old growth forest which had the small problem on being right on the flight path of Sea Tac airport.  We are pleased to report that not a single plane landed on us Thursday or Friday night. Hindstrum didn't sleep well because of worrying about tsunamis.

 In the evening on Thursday, we drove to Nina Edgerton’s ('83) charming home to meet her and her father Bob Edgerton (Physics teacher, '70s) for a walk in the Washington Park Arboretum.  Amazing place with amazing mosquitoes.

Nina took some time to give us some great ideas for the alumni office and then she, Linda and I played around with Facebook to try to figure out better ways to use it to find and communicate with alums. She passed on names of Roeper people on the West Coast that we didn’t know about. Lots of thanks to Nina for all her help. Unfortunately, none of the Edgertons, including her mom Elizabeth and brother Eric ('81) could make the gathering on Friday.

Note on Bob: This guy is amazing. At 77, he rows three days a week in addition to doing yoga and riding his bike all over Seattle. He has inspired me to get more active.

In some ways, the Alki Park Beach in West Seattle was a great place for Friday’s  reunion.  The Olympic Mountains across Puget Sound, the blue water, the perfect warm winds off the Sound (until they turned freezing) and the cute beach town atmosphere made for an enjoyable afternoon and evening.   The problem was it was the first nice day all “summer” and all of Seattle decided to come there (by car).  But our Roeperians all found lucky parking places or rode a bus or whatever and it wasn’t a problem.

Before the gathering started we had a problem with a hungry, Godzilla-inspired squirrel trying to eat the Space Needle.

Our turn-out was small especially compared to the gathering we had in Seattle in March.  Many were out of town and a few freaky coincidences of bad luck (people had to work, people were in Michigan, etc) and the fact we just had a reunion in March meant our turn-out was not huge.   But quality not quantity was one key to this successful event.  The other key was the food.  I know most of you will not have the occasion to need food from Seattle but if you do, I can’t recommend enough Mediterranean Express.  The food is unbelievably delicious and cheap and Nick, the owner, is a flexible sweetheart.   I told him I would give him a plug for how he has helped us out with the food for the last two gatherings.  There was more than enough of it to take to the Portland Reunion the next day  even after sending some home with people.

Who was there, you ask?  Nathan Jhaveri, ’02, (right in photo) came first and told us about his (and his tech partner’s) bold move of quitting Microsoft to build on their successful winning of a Dept. of Energy competition  for an app to monitor energy use and environment impact.   They also have a very successful game called “Wordy Findy” for I-Phones.  Warning:  Go ahead and try it but it’s addictive.

Up next was Ry Sosin,’03, (center in photo) who is working for MSNBC this summer doing digital sales strategy work for them. He will be returning to Boston University Graduate School in Business in the fall.

Jim Adams, ’74 (black shirt), a born bon vivant, entertained us with stories of his eventful life and his current work managing all the National Parks, National Forest, National Monument and Army Corps of Engineer gift shops in the northwest.  Apparently, gov’t agencies can’t by law run these  establishments and so instead of turning them over to private businesses, a non-profit was formed and Jim manages it  and the profits go back to the gov’t.   Jim’s lovely wife Patti (next to Jim) was there and Jim explained her varied career  which now consists of photography, doing make-up for the Seattle Opera and massage therapy.  They also sail a lot on Puget Sound.

Lastly, Louise Lakier (facing), ’87, came which was great because Linda and I had never meet her.  Born in South Africa, having lived all over the U.S., she came to Roeper in 9^th grade.  After graduating from RISD, she pursued a career in architecture and construction management but recently decided to develop in career in photography.

Our  conversation about Roeper jumped all over the place from Jim’s stories of hijinks and worse in the mid 70’s to community involvement and how it important it is for Roeper to have people be involved in something bigger than themselves and in making the world a better place. All of the alums really stressed the latter point but Ry seemed to feel it especially.  Jim and Louise thanked the Roeper Upper School for giving them a place of safety and acceptance and how they had success that they wouldn’t have had any other place. 

We talked about how Roeper is doing now and how excited the community is about the arrival of David and Elaine Feldman.   An edited video version will be posted online when we get back.  Hours flew by as we laughed and traded contact info.  One goal of these reunions is to network Roeperians and a good example occurred when Louise and Patti talked about getting to know each other better and possibly work together in the future. Ryan brought up how he thought Roeper should be doing even more to teach kids to work collaboratively.

After Friday’s camping among the ferns, firs and 767’s, we headed down to Portland.  We stayed at the home of Gregg, Emily, Benjamin and Samuel Goldberg.  Gregg is a former director of the Upper School and the boys attending the Lower School.  They currently go to The Arbor School which coincidentally is where alum Ben Stutz  has had his kids.

Gregg and Emily have started a promising business, Best Fit Schools, in educational opportunity consulting which means they help people find primary and secondary schools and colleges that match them best.  Please check out their website at gregg@bestfitschools.com

Emery and Gregg

Benjamin and Samuel Goldberg, former

Roeper students.

Then it was on to the cool neighborhood of Jenny Ohno, ‘87.  Portland is such a Roeper town.  With its emphasis on food, arts, strong community, education and the environment,  I can’t understand why we don’t have even more Roeperians here.  (note:  This is not an encouragement  for you to move to Portland as much as it is for you to move to Detroit to continue building cool neighborhoods there like some of our young alums are doing)

Jenny, her husband Oliver and daughter Evelyn relocated to Portland a few years ago. Jenny had spent  10 years working as a psychotherapist in CA and just finished getting re-licensed here in OR and is ready to start building a practice.
Oliver works for a consortium sponsored by the main  four Oregon utility companies to help energy users, residential and commercial better use energy.  I’m  going to have Nathan in Seattle talk with him.

(Jenny and Emily Goldberg)

Jenny’s parents, Charlie and Donna, came with their perspectives as parents who believed in Roeper enough to have their daughter there from ages 3 to 18.  They  currently are living in Detroit but are trying to get a house in Portland.  They are  taking a tai chi class at the Birminghan Unitarian Church with alumni aunt  Carol Yamasaki which I have been saying I’m going to take for over a year.  With their encouragement, I’m joining when I get back. 

Here they are with granddaughter Evelyn.

Jay Bodsin, ’98, biked over (a very Portland thing to do).  Jay is an attorney who has organized a group of young, starting private practice lawyers to band together to share expenses and to support each other in these tough economic times.

Katja(seated), Oliver(standing), Jeni's husband and Jay(seated)

Katja  Biesanz,’71, built on her dance work to become a movement therapist and then branched out (with professional training) to help people with emotional problems.  She is considering a relocation to Santa Fe to better continue her spiritual work in martial arts.   The biggest obstacle to such a move is the difficulty with building up a new client base.

     Hinstrum makes new friends.

Our discussion centered on many things.  Jay brought up how important Roeper was in the development of his ability to question and critically analyze.  He said that in college and law school he was amazed by how most students didn’t know how to question or  didn’t want to.  Jay also stressed how Roeper became his home and a safe place to be who he was.

Gregg talked about the Roeper model of gifted education being fundamentally different from others as the Philosophy came first and molded our gifted ed into becoming non-competitive and focusing on growth not on achievement compared to others.

Donna (Jenny’s mom) answered my question of why they kept Jenny in Roeper for all those years by saying they brought her there and sacrificed to keep her there because the values of the school matched those of the family.

This got everybody talking about how  Roeper stood for something.  As Gregg reminded us, “The school was started to help prevent future Holocausts.”  Everybody at this gathering understood and spoke about how we nurture the individuality of each student to allow them to grow and find themselves  so they can help make the world a better place. 

Everybody agreed that Roeper was a place that needed to continue teaching the importance of responsibility for community.   The role of community duty and physically taking care of the school were given as examples.

Jenny said that even in the days of Annemarie and George, there was a need for a more formalized discussion and explanation of the Philosophy.  Even with AMR’s  convening of mini-sessions to talk about our values and our history and to pose thought-provoking scenarios, Jenny said although the Philosophy was all around, she and others couldn’t articulate it.   I explained that folks feel that today also and although we have tried to remedy the situation we need to do more.

Jenny remembered  loving the discussions with Annemarie especially the stories of Germany and why they left.  Here is Jenny herself to explain: “

 In my memory, the details are unclear, but the power of her stories stuck with me. As I got older and Annemarie was gone, I missed that context and feeling of meaning. I remember Frank Blondale helping put together an assembly to talk about the philosophy.  After, I talked with him about it (how cool and inspiring that he made that happen). Sadly, the assembly itself fell flat. I don't think people had enough of a foundation articulated as a starting point. I always thought  that the history and context were crucial.  I would suggest 4-6 times a year having a presentation of Annemarie/ Georges writings or stories about them and then break into small groups to discuss. For kids to understand the thoughtfulness that went into the community they are part of creates an invaluable context of meaning that I believe is irreplaceable. Their story is inspirational, about taking pain and darkness and turning it into love and rich soil for children to thrive in. How amazing is that? I remember Annemarie also had a lot to say about relationships and love between people as a healing force.

Katja’s reminded us that students learn as much if not more from other students than other teachers.   There were days she came to school sick because she didn’t want to miss playing in impromptu student run music ensembles with cello and woodwinds held on a flat roof of the Hill House (a.k.a. the Main Building).  Or, how she and other students had a book club on the bus home to Detroit and they read and discussed FINNEGAN’S WAKE (she was 14).

Someone brought up how important diversity was (and hopefully still is) at Roeper and how it hinged on  true respect for and by everybody .   Another person pointed out people like Jimmy and Vi (Jimmy was a maintenance guy and Vi ran the kitchen and they lived in the Hill House) were true leaders in the school and that could only happen at a place like Roeper.  I pointed out that George set the tone and he could have deep and respectful conversations with folks very different from himself.  He was an “anti-imperial” kind of guy.

There was much more but you will have to wait for the video to come out.

Upcoming events:  We heading south to enjoy the beauty of Oregon and Northern California.  Please join us for gatherings at

Bay Area:  6:00-9:00 PM on Wednesday, July 11 at the Park Chalet Restaurant on the far west end of Golden Gate Park (1000 Great Highway, San Francisco)

Los Angeles:  3:00-7:00 PM on Saturday, July 14 at Tortilla Jo’s, Disneyland Way

San Diego:  1:00-3:00 on Sunday, July 15 at Dick Morrow’s home, 62 Aruba Bnd,  Cornado, CA 92118