Dec. 25, 2002

We don't usually do the Christmas letter bit, but this has been such an eventful year that this seemed the simplest way to bring everyone up to date on what has been going on.

In January, Clay celebrated his 35th year with Boeing and McDonnell. A week later, he took a lay off. Effective February he retired. Then my sister announced she was going to move closer to one of her daughters and some of her grandchildren, which meant our mother would have to move also. Clay and I went house hunting in March up in Oregon, where we had been looking for a couple of years, and found a possible house. In May, we flew to Portland, rented a car and drove to Denver. There we rented a U Haul truck, loaded up Mother's things, and went to Hood River, Oregon, with Clay driving the truck and my sister and I trading off driving our mother in the car. We moved Mother into an assisted living facility, My sister stayed with her daughter for a few days, then went back to Denver to get ready to move herself. Both her house and our mother's house sold within days of listing. We turned the truck back in, took the car and went back down to Cottage Grove to house hunt some more.

We decided on the house we had looked at before, made an offer, and went back home to sell our house in Huntington Beach. In due time, our offer was accepted and our house sold. Then it was back to U Haul for a truck and car trailer, this time to move us. By now it was July. After throwing out several dumpsters of stuff and several trips to Salvation Army and selling three cars, the movers came and it was time for us to say goodbye to Huntington Beach after some 29 years. It was hard, but we took off with truck, trailer and Mustang, two cats in the truck cab with us and headed north.

We spent the night in Kettleman City, not too far from Sacramento. warning: the water tastes terrible. The cats traveled pretty well, though they meowed a lot the first day, in spite of the tranquilizers. The next day they did well and slept most of the time. It was hot, but the truck had air conditioning, so that was all right. We intended to spend the second night in Yreka, but there was a big forest fire near the state border and when we got into town, the motels were full of fire fighters, so we had to go on to Medford. When we called from Medford the next morning, the funds hadn't come in from the escrow company in California. Fortunately the money came in that morning, so when we got to Cottage Grove late in the morning we were able to get the keys and get into the house, which was a relief.

The movers didn't get there until Monday, so we lived with a bed, a freezer, and an ice chest from Wednesday until the following Monday. We had some pans, the bed, linens and clothes, but the lawn chairs we had intended to bring up to sit in wound up on the moving van, so we sat on the steps and looked down the hill or out at the trees. We have a three-bedroom house on 6 acres, mostly wooded with big Douglas fir, maple, and oak trees. Some evenings we would see a deer or two come by when we were sitting outside.

We had some really hot weather for July and some of August, getting up into the high 90's or even up to 100, but some of the nights it got down into the low 40'. Talk about a temperature swing. Anyway, everything arrived, with very little damage, mostly a lamp and a shade. We went down to the local Sears and bought a refrigerator. A few days after that, we went down to Ford and bought a Ranger pickup truck, dark red, 4 door, extended cab 4x4, brand new. We've spent money like we had it all summer.

We live about four miles from town, up on the hillside. Cottage Grove is a small town, about 8500 people, and about 18 miles south of Eugene. We have the necessities: Wal-Mart, Safeway, Taco Bell, Subway, a small Sears, church, a couple of nice family restaurants, a small department store, and so on. For major shopping, we can go the malls and stores in Eugene.

It is certainly a change of pace. I often walk our loop at some time in the day. It is about a mile. I really enjoy looking at the trees and ferns. In July and August I picked blackberries and froze them. I have about nine gallon bags in the freezer. It was dry in October, but the trees were beautiful. There was a lot of color in town, and big golden patches on the hills. Then we got about a week of hard frost at night and leaves began to fall all over the place. I planted some iris and several batches of bulbs in the two garden areas I have, so it should be pretty next spring. Our soil is mostly rocks, so we'll probably make some raised beds to plant in next year. We got about 6" of rain in November, still below normal, but a start. The moss on the trees is as much as 2-3" thick on some. It is weird to see ferns growing out of the moss on the tree trunks or branches. There is a small stream that goes through the lot that has a lot more water in it since the last rain. We've had about 4" in the last week.

So, here it is Christmas time already. Hope the season finds you all well and happy. If you get up here, we have a spare bed and would always love to see old friends. Have a very happy, safe Christmas. We're thinking of you all.

Lyn and Clay Esgar

Dec. 08, 2002

Now some brief news from Arizona.

All is fine here. We are getting ready for the holidays. We will have three of our grand children here tomorrow to help put up the Christmas tree and every thing else that goes along with that activity. It will be a big day for all and tiring for the grand parents.

I don't know if you know that Jody, Randy and Max are now in Rifle, Colorado. They just recently purchased Joyce's sister's business which is called Micro Plastics. They are in the business of making name tags, vinyl signs, trophies and anything else that requires engraving or graphic designing. Randy, if you remember, is a professional sign designer (large signs and some are exotic) and constructs and installs them. He was doing this in Phoenix for a company he was working for and now brings that talent to Colorado. He still has some of his Arizona clients, such as, U Haul. They seem to be enjoying the change and love the area around Rifle. As of know, they plan to be here for Christmas, that is, if their newly acquired business will let them get away.

Jeff, Jeanie and Ryan will be going to Camden, Maine to visit Jeff's parents for the holidays. Their are looking forward to that.

Dwight, Shermette, Brooke and Annie will be home for the holidays. They live in Queen Creek, Arizona which is about 50 miles southeast of Scottsdale.

Joyce and I are doing fine, Joyce stays busy with her practice and I stay busy with some work now and then for the Arizona Power Authority, the State agency I used to work for. I also stay busy in my shop and we tour Arizona when we get the urge.

That seems to be all for now, have a Happy Christmas and a New Year.

Don and Joyce

Dec. 05, 2002

This is written at Jack's prompting and with the purpose of improving communication among the Esgars.

On Oct. 29th I will be 70. I can remember back when I was in high school. I missed the freshman year due to rheumatic fever. Doctors suggested that I should undergo heart surgery when more was known. Thanks to Jayne's good care I am going to pass 70 still going strong and without any operation.

I have been at the bank in Wiley since 1958 and I can not recall ever being this dry. Our farmers were accustomed to 70 or 80 runs of water and this year had only 6 runs which did not get the planted crops out of the ground. The only crop harvested was the 1st cutting of alfalfa hay. The outlook for next year can not be encouraging as all of the storage water is gone. Without storage to supplement the river flow we can anticipate the coming year with similar problems. The metropolitan cities on the Front Range are trying to purchase our water rights and the farmers are very seriously considering a sale. At the present time 36% of the ft Lyon canal is said to have been sold. Obviously this will have a very serious effect on merchants, bankers, etc. the water may never leave during my lifetime but it certainly brings economic expansion to a real standstill. The talk on the street is not will I sell but can I hold on for several more years when the price offered will be even better.

Enough of that.....

All 12 of our family took a trip to Alaska via cruise ship the first part of august. It was a good choice as there was something for rose (3) and shea and Leah to enjoy. Zack took up with a gentlemen who was part of the entertainment as a magician. Jeff reports excellent fishing, Dave's family hired a helicopter and went inland engaging a dog sled team. All went white water rafting. The ship had 2100 passengers and a crew of 900.

Shea and Leah are on the varsity volleyball team and are going to be disappointed if they do not get to go to the state tournaments. Jan and Jeff are busy with the development of their amusement park in Ft Collins. Ruthie owns Arthur's home and has been remodeling it; she stays busy.

I see where a number of the Esgars are responding to jack with news. I would suggest that those who write receive something special when we have our next reunion.

Frederick

Nov. 11, 2002

Nov. 10, 2002