Across the top: Aunt L., with her favorite stressed-out mouse, smiles on camera! When in Lancaster, Pa., the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, doesn’t everyone go to an Asian fusion (Zagat-rated, no less!) restaurant? At The Cloisters, with the Palisades and Hudson River as a background. (Sadly, this might be the “last call” for this vista: LG Electronics has ignored concerns and is determined to build a corporate headquarters that would break the horizon, preserved for nearly a century.)
Second row: A whole bunch of cousins. Cousin B. (inset) took the picture behind her that contains her husband Mark, sitting next to Mr. Daddy Sir; niece S., next to Mrs. Mommy Ma’am; nephew P. (4th from left), cousin M. (obscured, behind her husband) and in the background, cousin R. and wife M.; Inner Harbor, Baltimore, where Mr. Daddy Sir and his coauthors presented a session at a conference.
Second row center: Aunt and niece (Mr. Daddy Sir’s sister J.), not mother and daughter.
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Third row: Somebody likes her scarves! Hard to believe that they let an A’s fan into the ministry, but P. (pictured below his mom) proves otherwise! Carly the hedgehog listens intensively to Straus discussing his future plans as Mrs. Mommy Ma’am, Tomoko and Taylor are sound sleep; M., January 2013, in his apartment.
Bottom row: In the year of the “selfie,” Mr. Daddy Sir’s first (and last) selfie taken during a Mets game at Citifield; M. and an angry bird, January 2014, celebrating Christmas late (and still drinking Pepsi products); Our 2013 tree; A slightly out-of-focused Mrs. Mommy Ma’am trying to recreate a picture taken in February 1998 (inset) as the sun sets and the rain begins at the former location of the Willow Valley Motor Lodge and Bakery (smorgasbord) Restaurant, the site of many fond eating memories for three generations of Mr. Daddy Sir’s family. The complex was demolished in December 2012 but, some things remain, such as the duck pond (and the high tension wires that run along the perimeter of the property); “Leaving a light on” to remember all those we lost this year, including Mrs. Mommy Ma’am’s cousin C. and Mr. Daddy Sir’s Uncle A., beloved husband of L. for 65 years. In their separate ways, C. and A. by their example, instructed the rest of us how to face one of life’s inevitables.
Lastly, family discussions led Mr. Daddy Sir and Mrs. Mommy Ma’am to locate Mr. Daddy Sir’s Great Uncle Frank’s tombstone, which revealed his surprising role in WW I and solved a family mystery, too. If you want to know more, you will, as they say, have to buy the book when it gets published!