1993

Thank you for your prayers and concern. I really appreciate it.

Tom, given his delayed language development, is now in a special preschool class offered by the Evanston school district. The school district staff, familiar to us from our discussions about Jamie, moved quickly to place him. We had to transfer him to an Evanston day care center since to the schools will not bus him outside of the district boundaries. We knew about this from Jamie's case, and I am not complaining; finding they would bus kids to day care anywhere was a pleasant surprise. It is good to see our tax dollars at work, and we sure are glad we left Chicago. But having to do all of this again is really depressing.

As for the daily routine, it is much better now. Except for the underlying anxiety about how Tom will turn out it is really quite pleasant. No more separate 11 mile drives to/from a day care home deep in Chicago, followed by a sardine-like elevated train ride from Belmont station (Still 4 miles out from downtown). Instead we drop both boys off at their respective Evanston sites, then have a very civilized ride together on the C&NW (Cheap and Nothing Wasted) train both ways.

Mia is back to a 3 day work week, and on her days off I have an even simpler commute. If the weather is good, or even barely tolerable, I will ride my bike to and from the train station (I have revived my Stanford interest in cycling). Rain is the most serious problem. A normal winter day, after the streets have been plowed, does not bother me. I wouldn't try riding in an active snowstorm, but driving is no fun either, especially in a '79 Aspen. Mia, having charge of the boys, gets the Toyota when she is home.

Jamie is doing OK. He loves school, and the teachers say good things about him. Our main concern about him is the development of his fine motor control. The practical issue is whether he will be able to use his hands to write by the fall, when he is scheduled to enter 1^st grade. His ADD and upper body strength are also issues, but they are manageable. He is starting to read now, and that is really exciting.

My mother has been much better since her hip replacement last summer. That is really good to see. Since my sister Ann got married she has been living in the Indiana Dunes, which makes for a great weekend getaway trip for us, especially in the summer.

My job seems to go well, but I am very busy with a hot new project using trendy technology. I am waiting for my salary review now. I wrote a spectacularly successful system last year, but it was largely complete by June. I seem to be hearing "what have you done for me lately?" from my bosses. Mia completed a major system over at First National and did very well -- a 6.8% raise.

We have acquired a new musical interest: a subscription to the Lyric Opera. We have been doing this for two years now. Juggling work schedules and babysitters is not easy, but we have managed. Last week we were wondering if we could keep this up. Then we went to Rheingold, and realized that we were hooked. Next year they are doing Die Walküre, the year after ....

An even newer musical interest is that Mia is learning how to play the piano. She got the Miracle computer piano teacher system for Christmas, and has been working steadily at it ever since. Unfortunately, she has now started her indoor planting for the garden, and has to choose between her hobbies in our limited spare time. I am not going to tell her what to do.

For myself I have found my interest in scientific issues is greater than at any time since I left Stanford. I am unlikely to ever go back for a degree, but I read a lot, and spend most of my commuter train rides working problems out of some physics or math text (The C & NW is much better for this than the CTA).

Your will not be surprised to learn that I am particularly interested in issues of science and religion. Freeman Dyson's Disturbing the Universe and Infinity in all have especially influenced my thinking, while John Polkinghorne's books are very good on the specifically Christian issues.

Last summer [1992] we took a trip to Minnesota, and one thing we did was go to Carleton for my 20 year class reunion. It was great! I wondered about what it would be like to see people from my distant past, but it turned out to be extraordinarily pleasant and extremely meaningful. It was one of the few pleasant parts of what, in retrospect, was a really ghastly year, the worst I have had since at least '75.

Your phone call last fall was another bright spot. After a great weekend with my Carleton connections it was good to hear from Stanford as well.

[Our church] is doing very well. The parish seems to be overcoming the budget problems of the last few years, and is coping with its greatly increased membership. Among several new institutions is a church bookstore, where I work on the first Sunday of every month.

I still like a well done liturgy (or a rare one), but I have lost the concern about liturgical minutiae I had at Stanford. This was brought home to me when I heard Mia talking about various changes to the beginning of the service, and I realized I had not noticed what was going on. The details are fun, and I still enjoy talking about them, but I do not worry about them.

Q: What is the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?

A: You can negotiate with a terrorist.

Give my regards to any of my old connections you see, and especially your father.

Sincerely,

Glenn

We have had a rough year because of the boys' problems, which I alluded to last December, but I think we are doing better now. We are able to manage Jamie's Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and he is doing very well in 1st grade. He has read all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books and is the best reader in his class.

We are far more concerned about Thomas, who suffers from Pervasive Developmental Delay (PDD). He is nearly 4 and only now beginning to talk. Yet even there we are more hopeful. He is responding to therapy from the specialists we are consulting. However, the cost, both psychic and financial, is enormous.

Problem: We have been told for at least a year that we needed to find a support group for these concerns. However, our schedules are so tight that we could not get to any normal group's meetings. Solution: Compuserve has an ADD forum, which includes a section on PDD and related disorders. Our support group is in our family room whenever we log on.

Our bank computing jobs continue to go well, although we are constantly juggling our schedules because of the boys. I am now working on a client server application using Omnis 7 for the local clients (both Macs and MS-Windows machines) and a Sybase SQL database server running on a Sun Sparcstation. Mia continues to work with TI's IEF code generator on IBM mainframes.

I still enjoy reading about physics and astronomy, when time permit. I have started taking Jamie to Chicago's Adler Planetarium, which he likes a lot.

Glenn McDavid, class of 1972.

December 23

Hello! I am yet another new member of the list. My name is Glenn McDavid. I am married with two sons, ages 7 & 4. I am a computer programmer for a Chicago Bank. Mia, my wife, is a systems analyst for another bank.

I was raised an Episcopalian, but dropped out as a teenager. I rediscovered the faith in grad school at Stanford in the early 1970's. Mia was raised a Baptist, in reaction to which she ascribes her Anglo-Catholicism. [...] We have both been through the EFM (Education For Ministry) program.

The past two years have been very hard for us. Jamie, our older boy, suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). He is now doing very well in 1st grade, but we are currently far more concerned about his younger brother Thomas. Tom suffers from Pervasive Developmental Delay (PDD). He is only now beginning to talk. He is responding to therapy, but the costs—financial, chronological, & psychic--are enormous. We could not cope with this ordeal without our Christian faith and our parish community.

The above sounds quite grim, and I apologize for burdening you with our troubles at this time of year. However, I would not have been really introducing myself w/o mentioning the main concern of our lives. Finally, Tom is getting better. He is responding much more to those around him and his therapists are quite positive about his prospects.

I am delighted to have found this list! A blessed Christmas to all!

Go to index of letters.

©1993, 2000 by Glenn T. McDavid.