PEACE IN THE NEW YEAR
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December 31, 2016 |
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Telephone: (732) 881-1610 (cell Alan), (732) 881-1609 (cell Sher) |
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Alan:
Well, we’re in the Trumpocene now and I am still in shock. But there has
been some good news recently, too. First,
Bob Dylan got a Nobel Prize. It was
well-deserved. As I wrote in a 2005 article,
Tonight As
I Stand Inside The Rain; Bob Dylan and Weather Imagery, “As a
meteorologist, I love to see how Dylan describes the weather so poetically
and how weather imagery is connected to feelings, especially about love and
politics.” He’s a poet. I know it. And he certainly did not blow it.
Second, after a three-year international campaign on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, including conferences I attended and references to my work on the impacts on agriculture of nuclear war, on December 23 the United Nations General Assembly voted to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, with 113 UN member states voting in favor, 35 voting against, and 13 abstaining. Because this will proceed without the possibility of a veto by the Security Council, by next summer we will have an international ban on nuclear weapons. Of the nine nuclear nations, five voted against the negotiations in their desire to maintain the current crazy situation of “deterrence” based on suicide bombing, but China, India, and Pakistan abstained. This ban will provide leverage for pressure on the nuclear nations to reduce and eliminate their nuclear arsenal.
Nuclear winter continues to be the most important thing I work on. But President Obama, who has pledged to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons, has shown no signs of further reducing our arsenal or even taking our missiles of hair-trigger alert. I had hoped that in his final year, he would cement his legacy on this vital issue, but he did not. Maybe Trump and Putin, spurred on by the upcoming UN ban on nuclear weapons, will see their way to do what Reagan and Gorbachev did, and make deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals. As I recommended to President-Elect Trump, he is now in a position to win a Nobel Peace Prize by rapid reductions of our nuclear arsenals, even without an agreement with Russia.
At a reception in New York associated with the UN negotiations, I met Michael Douglas. In addition to discussing Dylan's and the Jagger's performances at Oldchella, which he attended, I tried to pitch a movie about nuclear winter to him, but I have had no response since then. He told me he has been an anti-nuclear activist since he filmed China Syndrome, and then the Three Mile Island accident happened 10 days after the film was released, exactly as they had portrayed it. As I am from Rutgers, he also told me the story of how he ended up being born in New Brunswick, NJ. He is a very nice guy.
My TEDx talk on nuclear winter now has 10,897 views so far, I have more than 1000 followers on Twitter, and now have 9 Huffington Post blogs. Let's see if social media can really change the world.
Things continue to go well at Rutgers. I taught two course this Fall, on climate change to seniors and on atmospheric thermodynamics to juniors. It was fun, except for the grading. The students were particularly good this year, and I enjoyed using new, better textbooks and more interactive experiences for the students. We got a new weather radar, installed by the WNBC station in New York. First they put up the radar dish, and then lifted the dome over the antenna and lowered it on top. Meteorologist Janice Huff was there to do a promo for the new radar, admire it with Dean Bob Goodman, and take a selfie with me. We look forward to letting our students have access to all the data and operate it when the station is not using it.
I am working on my National Science Foundation
(NSF) grant to study the impacts of volcanic eruptions on seasonal and
decadal climate, and as one of my two existing NSF grants on geoengineering
ended, I was able to get a new one for the next three years.
I now support a graduate
student, Corey Gabriel, and a postdoc, Lili Xia to work on
geoengineering and student Brian Zambri and postdoc Joanna Slawinska
to work on volcanic eruptions. Altogether in 2016, I
published
8 refereed journal articles and
3 other articles and have 2 more in review. It has been another productive year. If you are interested in more
information or want to read them, visit my home page and
click on
Publications.
This year was the 250th anniversary of Rutgers, and we were able to get President Obama to be the commencement speaker. The motto was "Revolutionary for 250 Years," and my group took advantage of the Revolutionary sculpture for a photo.
It’s been a year of loss for me of people I knew, four of whom died too young, and one whom I had the surreal experience to meet twice.
On May 2, Susan Soper Doddridge, wife of my good friend Bruce, died in
a horrendous car crash when a big truck slammed into the back of her car
in foggy weather in South Carolina as she was helping her father and mother drive back to Virginia from Florida. Tragically her father died in the crash, too.
She was only 53, and left three children, Bruce, and her mother. 26 years ago, when Sherri and I got married, Susan arranged for us to get custom-made wedding rings with peace signs on them. I think of her often when I look at my ring.
My first wife, Miffi Bedrick, died on August
5 from cancer at the age of 68. We have been divorced for 30 years, and had not been in
frequent touch, but she was a very giving person, and it is very sad for her sister Janie and the rest of her family.
Jón Egill Kristjánsson, age 55,
died on August 14 in a hiking accident. We had just organized a wonderful conference together
in Oslo on geoengineering in June and he was on his summer holiday. On his way down a mountain, he and his climbing partner used a cord and hooked
it to an anchor that had been screwed into a rock, but the anchor gave way, causing Jón Egill to fall 40 m (130 ft). He was a great person and excellent scientist.
He was so alive when I last saw him, and it was hard to believe that he was
gone.
Piers Sellers, my former colleague at the University of Maryland, who then became an astronaut, died on December 23 at the age of 61 of pancreatic cancer.
He was a pioneer in the modeling of soil moisture, which is crucial to understanding climate change. He and I became Fellows of the American Meteorological
Society at the same ceremony in 1998. But he had higher aspirations, and went on to fly three missions on the space shuttle to the international
space station, including six space walks. After stepping down from being an astronaut, he continued to worked hard on global warming science to the end.
Here are his obituaries in the
New York Times and
Washington Post.
And Fidel Castro died at age 90 on November 25. I had the surreal experience of meeting him twice,
in 2010 described here and
in 2011 described here.
We agreed on trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and I tried to get publicity for those efforts based on his fame.
Here is the thank you note from his son, Fidel, for my condolences on the death of his father.
I took lots of great trips this year. It started in January with a trip to Oslo for a meeting on our geoengineering project. I was able to see a Vigeland and Munch joint exhibition at the Munch Museum where Vigeland's sculpture was paired with Munch's paintings, along with Munch's great paintings of Angst and Madonna. I'm looking forward to the new Munch Museum they are building at the Oslo harbor. I then flew to Saudia Arabia, to give a talk at the Winter Enrichment Program of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, at the invitation of my friend Gera Stenchikov. It was a jump of 40 Celsius degrees (70 Fahenheit degrees) from -20°C (~0°F) to +20°C (~70°F) in a few hours. I liked the warmer temperatures better. I dined on great sushi with Gera and Tanya, admired the view from Gera's office with Joanna Haigh, another of the speakers, appreciated the monument to the founding of KAUST along the beach at sunset, and enjoyed a snorkeling trip that Gera arranged with Jean Paul Vernier, Gera's student Evgeniya Predybaylo. I flew down to Orlando for a day to learn about how to run our upcoming Gordon Research Conference on Climate Engineering, but all I saw was the lobby of the hotel at the airport.
In February, I took a quick trip to give a talk at the Univ. of Illinois, and then Sherri and I went to Santa Cruz, California, where I gave an invited talk at a conference on climate change. We first stayed in Salinas, where John Steinbeck lived, took a hike in Pinnacles National Monument, stopped at a winery, visited Monterey, where we went to the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary (with giant butterflies) in Pacific Grove, walked on Pebble Beach, with the golf course in the background, and hiked in Point Lobos. We saw Bob and Sureyya in San Francisco. The hotel we stayed at in Santa Cruz had a view of one of the best surfing locations in the world with waves that go on for almost a mile. The UC Santa Cruz campus has a spectacular view.
In March I visited Mexico City to give some lectures at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and stayed with Dave Adams and his wife Patty. Then Sherri went with me to England, where I gave invited talks at Imperial College and the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, and at the University of Cambridge. We stayed at a rental apartment in Mayfair, near Harrods, which had pretty snazzy cars parked everywhere. We started off with dinner at the Darwin Brasserie in the Sky Garden at the building locally known as the Walkie-Talkie. It afforded us views of The Shard, the Thames, the sky garden itself, and a wonderful dinner. We saw Monet paintings in the National Gallery of haystacks and the Japanese bridge in his gardens, which we were to visit later in August in Giverny. There was also the obligatory left-wing demonstration in Trafalgar Square. We dropped into the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone. In Cambridge we took a walking tour, with the spectacular cathedral in Trinity College, the cricket clock, and the monument in the church where George Washington's family worshipped. They say the stars and stripes on the family crest led to our flag. We visited the Fitzwilliam Museum, had dinner with Charlie Kennel, Lisa's former boss, and had a real English breakfast. And of course we saw them punting on the Cam.
In April I gave invited talks at MIT and Cal Tech. We then went to Vienna for the European Geosciences Union meeting and on to Potsdam for a meeting on stratospheric sulfur. In Vienna we had dinner with Gera, Tanya, and our friend Ulli, Tanya posed with matching flowers and Sherri posed with a matching statue. In Potsdam, we had a typical German meal, saw the old Soviet space mosaics, which even tempted Sherri to do a spacewalk, visited Frederick the Great's Sans Souci (the potatoes on his grave are because he introduced them as human food to Germany), saw the wolves attacking Sherri and guarding the Potsdam Museum, the Glienicke Bridge, and Cecilienhof, where the Postdam Agreement was signed. We heard performances by the Shanty Choir and an all-women's brass band. On the dinner cruise, we dined with Juan Carlos Antuña, Anja Schmidt, Ulrike Neimeier, and Mike Mills.
In May I went to short meetings at NASA in Greenbelt and as part of my Penn State project in State College. Then we went to New Orleans to visit the grandkids, as Sherri discusses below. We had a nice visit from Janet Bauer, who had served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines with me 45 years ago, and her husband Maurice. Long time, no see. I made several Filipino foods, including chicken adobo, which I must say was quite good.
In June, I attended a volcano meeting at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, and then we took a fabulous trip to Norway. After a meetings on geoengineering in Oslo, we drove to the Sognefjord and stayed at the Walaker Hotel in Solvorn, the oldest hotel in Norway. In Oslo, we visited Vigeland Park and the spectacular Opera House. We saw Graham Nash do a great show (barefoot) at the Konserthus, and tried to watch an opera in the Opera House, the Marriage of Figaro. Although it was spectacularly staged, we could not stand the "singing," and left at the first break. We are just not cultured. We did enjoy eating pork knuckle, and went for a fabulous conference cruise dinner on the Oslo Fjord, with my postdoc Lili Xia and my student Corey Gabriel, which afforded a nice view of the Opera House. Our drive to the Walaker included a ferry ride, and this was the view from our room. The food was spectacular in their beautiful dining room, with dessert on the terrace here and here. We visited the old (built in 1130) Urnes Stave Church across the fjord, with an old carved interior, with strawberries for sale on the honor system along the road, the Feigumfossen Waterfall and its river, and the Nigardsbreen Glacier. It was a great experience in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
In July, I accepted an offer from an IPCC co-author, Jianping Huang (on the left here), to visit Lanzhou University
and give some lectures. Then he arranged for me to visit Dunhuang, on the Silk Road north of Tibet, and I then spent several days in Beijing visiting John Moore at Beijing Normal University. The map shows these locations. Lanzhou has huge buildings along the Yellow River, and as seen from my hotel. One day we drove a couple hours to the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area, where we rode on traditional sheep-skin bladder floats down the river past spectacular cliffs, up a canyon, where they filmed some Jackie Chan "Westerns" on donkey cart, and then by gondola to the top, affording a great view of the river. The return was by speedboat. Back in Lanzhou, after touring the University campus, we dined in a private room in a restaurant, at a Mao-themed restaurant, complete with waitresses in Red Army uniforms, at 26-Inch Pizza, and at a beer garden on a barge along the Yellow River, full of young friends. Lanzhou had a reputation for being polluted, but not while I was there. They said there had been a concerted effort during the past decade to clean the air. Prof. Huang's postdoc, Yue Li, accompanied me to Dunhuang, seen here, with camels on the streets. I stayed in a very nice hotel, along a river with sand dunes in the distance. We went to the Mogao Caves, which consist of Buddhas in rooms carved into the loess hillside (star in lower right of map). We then went to this sand dunes amusement park where tourists rode camels, slid down the dunes as workers carried the slides back up, flew in powered hang-gliders, and took selfies. We also drove out along the Silk Road to a hydrology research station, with a lysimeter and the latest in flux instruments, under the dam (leftmost star on map), and stopped by the largest solar array I've ever seen. We dined on donkey, lamb, and goat. The bridge by the hotel was nicely decorated at night. Next, in Beijing, I gave a lecture at the College of Global Change and Earth System Science, attended a geoengineering workshop, said hi to Mao, went to a beer garden with John Moore and his wife, who had their second baby soon thereafter, rode the subway, and was taken to the Peking Opera by Zhiyan Zuo and her husband Dong Xiao, who were to come visit Rutgers for a year. The opera was spectacular, with clouds, although the sound of Peking Opera is not any better than regular opera. I also had dinner with my former postdoc Suxia Liu and her husband, who took me to see the spectacular Olympic Park. But the air in Beijing was so polluted, you could barely see a couple blocks, so I left a couple days early, having one last Peking Duck at the airport.In August Danny and Vivi visited us in NJ, as Sherri discusses below. Then we went for a quick vacation in Paris with our good friend Tony Snyder. On a very hot day, we had lunch at Le Chalet des Iles in the Bois de Boulogne, and then walked to the spectacular Fondation Louis Vuitton museum, covered in colorful panels by Daniel Buret. You could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and the yellow walkway in the basement. Our apartment in the 5th (at the top), with its beautiful sunset views, allowed us easy access to the Cluny Museum,, with its erotic tapestries. We visited the Musee D'Enery with its collections of netsukes, and the Vaux le Vicomte palace, with an inflated horse show at night. I rented a car in downtown Paris and successfully drove us to Giverny to see the actual hay stacks, Japanese bridge, and weeping willow and pond that Monet painted, his yellow kitchen, stopping to visit our friend Constance Konnold in her little town nearby, delayed by cows on our way back to Paris. We had lunch with our friends Laure and Paul, had dinner with my colleague Myriam Khodri, and had nice meals at a Spanish restaurant, in an air conditioned Greek restaurant and at the Institut de Monde Arabe, with its view of Paris.
I took my usual trips to NCAR in October and the Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco in December. And as usual on both occasions it was great to catch up with old friends and colleagues. I saw an amazing sight at Newark Airport on the way to San Francisco, and look forward to taking advantage of it next year. We took the ferry to Sausalito on our first day in San Francisco where we met Dan and Marylou (former nanny for Danny and Vivi) for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. What a great place. At the AGU, some of my current and former grad students and current postdocs took Sherri and me out to a delicious meal. Governor Jerry Brown gave a very inspiring talk, about how California will continue to lead the fight against global warming. I got an amazing view of the city from my Editor's dinner at the Fairmont Hotel, while Sherri got a picture of the clouds in front of the moon at the Ferry Building. Afterwards we visited my sister in Encinidas, who was celebrating the end of her four-year city council term. We got to visit with her whole family, my nephew Max Robock and his girlfriend Schuyler, my friends Gene and Ellen Sherman in Los Angeles, and Sherri's friend Emily. We then went to New Orleans for a week to visit Brian, Ginger, and the grandkids. Sherri and I went to the famous Antoine's Restaurant in the French Quarter, where I had the 4,071,834th Oysters Rockefeller served there, but who's counting? It was invented there. Among other things, Sherri had crayfish and I had soft-shell crabs almondine. All were delicious. We took Kit, Ginger's mother, out for her birthday, and the kids sort of behaved for pictures. Danny and Vivi played in their “hidden maze,” and enjoyed Sherri reading them a book. The kids are well-balanced, and when Vivi wants “up,” she gets it. On Christmas Day, Vivi did not appreciate her present, but Danny liked his Pokemon cards. They also ate much of the cookie houses Sherri helped them make.
We did not see Bob Dylan this year, but saw film clips and a talk by photographer Danny Clinch, with Grammy Museum executive director Bob Santelli moderating, who showed some amazing photos like this one and this one. We saw some other great music, including Peter Yarrow in February, Graham Nash in June (in Oslo), ELO in August, Joan Baez, Tom Rush and David Bromberg in October, and Arlo Guthrie in November.
Hermine, a wicked storm, brushed the coast in early September and produced high waves. But it did not prevent Sherri from taking advantage of the opportunity to have her annual pork roll sandwich. Later that month, on Sept. 20, there was open-cell Benard convection over us at sunset, producing dramatic patterns. We enjoyed getting together with our closest friends at the Jersey Shore many times, this one at Kathy and Tim's house. And we had a great Thanksgiving with my brother Jerry and his wife Stephie, my nephew Zach and his wife Jen.
Our solar panels (photovoltaic, shown here with our hybrids and a rainbow) continue to work well. Here is an updated graph of our electric bill for the past few years. It is still easy to see when we turned the solar panels on. SRECs are now $0.22 per kWh plus we get the electricity, worth another $0.12 per kWh. Not only have we not paid an electric bill in years, but we make money on the deal and emit no CO2 for our electricity generation. I know, all my flying cancels all this out, but at least I feel good about this.
We did not go to a Wisconsin football game this year, but they did very well and will be playing in the Cotton Bowl on January 2.
Sherri:
While I ain’t no Charles Dickens, I can say that 2016 has brought me some of the best of times, along with some of the worst.
Let’s get the worst out of the way first (no rhyming from here on out unless unintentional). As for many of you, this campaign season was not a pretty picture. As one who has taught the complexities of the world for many years, including in the Middle East, as well as its many cultural wonders, I was appalled at the blatant racism, xenophobia, gender bias, and plain stupidity during the presidential campaign. Most of it carried out (or should I use the present tense?) by the Republicans against each other and Hillary Clinton. If I used Twitter, I’d have been an avid poster—#@Gimmeeabreak, U ND 2 take a World Civ class. Then the shock of the election outcome and its continuing malaise (can you tell I’m taking a French class?) upsets me. This complaint isn’t just about sore losing, it’s about the attack on civility, common sense, truth, and basic decency that the winner of the popular vote (okay, maybe just a little sore-losing stuff here) displayed, but that the Electoral College (let’s get rid of it for good—two elections lost because of it in 20 years is two too many!) winner did not—so, now that we have Minority Trump for the next four years, unless he tires of actually having to work and decides to retire. I have decided to commit myself anew to doing good deeds, raising hell (making up for not doing it in my 20s), and continuing to educate folks in various ways.
Less worse has been a consistent sinus/cold/sore throat problem that I’ve had for several months, aggravated by climate change (so one of the doctors I saw suggested) and a torn muscle in my throat (thanks to my over-eager yoga moves recently!), but both are healing. Other than that, no real medical problems except for my sadness at national and global events. I’m taking a break from teaching the Modern Middle East this coming semester because we’ll be travelling at the end of the semester, but my class last semester went well.
Many more bests than worsts for me in 2016. My grandchildren, Danny, now 6, and Vivi, now 4, continue to delight and amaze me. I’ve been fortunate to see them several times this past year—last May, then several weeks in July where we celebrated Brian’s 40th birthday (along with one of Brian’s good friends from California, Mikey, and brother Dan), a quick trip in October where we visited the Tulane turtle, and saw scary Halloween decorations, including political ones, and Christmas again this year.
One highlight of the past year was Danny’s and Vivi’s visit to our house in August. We took them to the beach in Manasquan and Belmar, and spent a lot of time at the Atlantic Club pool and here, as well as eating yummy food at friends and Circus Drive-In and here, going to the Point Pleasant arcade and here, dressing in disguise and here and occasionally resting but at the end of a long, long day. We had such fun with them, even though it took their Grandpa a long, long time after I flew them home to clean up the house, but, to date, nothing broken or lost! A great success which we want to duplicate every summer!
Danny is now in kindergarten and gets “greens” every day as well as receiving a “kind” sticker for his behavior, says he’s going to be a scientist when he grows up but isn’t going to college. He’s quite personable, always explaining something with the preface, “Let me tell you something,” and has bundles of energy. He’s crazy about legos, really crazy, but really, really, enjoys everything Pokemon, including swiping the phone to play Pokemon Go as well as dressing as Pikachu for Halloween along with his father, and climbing all over everywhere. Vivi is adorable, a real princess with a tendency to play and do acrobatics with Granpa (as did Danny), and her favorite pose for pictures is this (which she also taught to me). She loves arts and crafts, so I was the recipient of her original art for my birthday, a picture of Brian, but rendered by an artist into a sterling silver necklace—I’ve had lots of conversations explaining what it is, so that’s been fun, too.
Brian and Ginger continue to settle into their new home in New Orleans, and, while it was quite warm there this past summer, their membership in the nearby JCC pool afforded us all a nice cooling off place, with the kids becoming better and better swimmers. In December we visited Dan in San Rafael, where he lives with dog Molly, and works at a nearby Nuggets, an upscale grocery store known for its good employee benefits and working conditions. Dan was honored by his Corte Madera store in November as “Employee of the Month,” which not only gave him a little more cash to spend, probably on baseball cards or golf, but also some recognition, and he continues to like the area and his job. He surprised us by taking us out to dinner recently, and we had a couple of good days hanging out in our old hangout of Sausalito, along with the kid's former babysitter, Marylou.
In addition to the online class I taught last spring, I also tutored for the GED program in Freehold, teaching civics and American history to very appreciative and motivated students, as well as taking a few non-credit classes on folk music. We would sing along in addition to listening to the songs and learning the background of the music and the artists. Along with continued work with the Monmouth County Human Relations Commission, volunteering with the Center for Holocaust Education at Brookdale, and delivering Meals on Wheels, I exercise (yoga, tai chi, water running) and walk with Al on the beach—so, all in all a busy and fulfilling life. And in October I did a fair share of voter registration in my area, along with challenging on Election Day—here’s a selfie of me that afternoon and the sentiment was correct, even if it wasn’t my desired outcome. And, hold on to your hats or whatever, I may become a TV star—my involvement and membership in the League of Women Voters has led to my appearing on a local access show, “Facts and Issues,” just yesterday, where I discussed the recent election and the role of the media, and there will be more shows to come—if any “go viral” I’ll be sure to let you know.
Among the best experiences of the past year was travel, which dear Al has already highlighted for you, and my former Japanese exchange student from the 1980s, Madoka Sato, visited me in November, and another TV experience—a short interview on the New Jersey television station airing on PBS during our visit to Allaire State Park’s Thanksgiving feast, a la 18th century, along with a visit to NYC to see “Kinky Boots,” with friend Tanya. I was also lucky to visit friends on the other coast in December, Camille, my traveling and dancing buddy at the AGU dinner, Marilyn, a high school friend who took the ferry from Vallejo into the city on a very rainy and windy day, but didn’t stop us from enjoying a good lunch and catching up, and Emily, one of my friends from my early days in NJ, who now lives in Mission Viejo. We spent a lovely Sunday yakking and sharing political horror stories (I’ll never forget her calling me at work when Spiro Agnew resigned, along with other Watergate-related issues), but also news of her new job and her son’s upcoming visit. We called one of our mutual friends, Anne Prudente, here with me at a Steely Dan concert, who lived with us at our apartment in Long Branch, will retire from Brookdale soon—fortunately, she still lives in the area and we are able to see each other from time to time.
And 2017 will see my 50th college reunion in late April at William and Mary, and the wedding of my niece, Heather, in June in Nags Head, where we will have a “huuge” family reunion of sisters, brother, kids, cousins and stay for a week in a ten-bedroom “cottage” at the beach. Along with other travel and treats, including being able to spend it with my best friend and hubby, Alan, I am really delighted with the “best” in my life, and will either have to seek out therapy (or, where is pot legal anyway?) to deal with the worst to come—but, not going down without speaking up, I will be one of the possibly frozen ones (no, not Elsa from the movie, but one of the “nasty women” from “pantsuit nation”) at the January 21st March on Washington—a friend suggested and I’ll be wearing an extra-big tee-shirt over my other layering on that day as we march to let everyone know that, in the words of the winner of the popular vote in 2016, “women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights.”
Have a healthy, happy, and “bestest” 2017 and do get in
touch if you’re in the area. Please come visit the Jersey Shore, and wishing you and yours health and happiness.
May your 2017 be a healthy and fulfilling one. Happy New Year!
Love,
Alan and Sherri