June 6th Dave Wrote

Time to write this letter before I begin another work week. Things have certainly changed around here since I wrote the last time: We've gone from being "empty nesters" to having three college boys living here. Plus Jordan is spending a long week-end with us while Sara and Terence are off with friends in Atlanta to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary and Terence's birthday (I won't say which one :).

Matt and Nathan are both working in the dining room at Mohonk Mountain House this summer. Derek is working for the entomologists at the Hudson Valley Lab and has taken up residence in our basement. His room is a bit like a cave, with no windows and no bathroom facilities (except upstairs), but he seems to be surviving!

About two weeks ago, we had several minutes of hail in our research orchard, so our apples will be pretty dinged up this fall. Other than that, my spring season was relatively smooth until last week-end.

Last thing on Friday afternoon before Memorial Day, my computer crashed. I had everything backed up, but I decided to upgrade to the next Mac operating system (10.3) rather than re-install the older system (10.2) that had crashed. I must have spent at least 25 hr in the process, largely because I really didn't (and still don't) understand how the Mac OSX system works. It took a lot of time to get my files and software back to normal operation. In the process, I said a lot of really nasty things about computer programers and IT specialists (you better duck, Jeff), ascribing to them epithets usually reserved for shyster lawyers, obfuscating government officials, blackmail artists, and other parasitic life forms!

My great weekend continued when I got home last Friday and found that our water treatment system in the basement was malfunctioning. I had to turn it off, and that left us with sulfur water for a week until I got the parts to repair it yesterday. Then I went to mow the church lawn as usual on Saturday morning and the gear on the starter motor shredded, so I had to haul in my riding mower from home. Later in the weekend, we found that our ATM card no longer worked, and I spent all Memorial Day (Monday) restoring files on my computer. So what a memorable Memorial Day week-end! But we were able to get most things operating again within a week, so I guess it wasn't all that bad.

I'm attempting to teach an adult Sunday School class through the summer titled "Social Issues in Biblical Perspective", with potential subjects as follows:

1. Background: The Bible and how we should use it
2. Creation, creationism, and Christian responsibilities for environmental protection
3. Sexuality as God intended it
4. Sexuality with the devil's twist
5. Abortion and birth control
6. Cloning and stem cell research
7. Personal value systems: honesty, work ethic, life objectives
8. Money management
9. Time management
10. Body management: obesity, alcohol & drug abuse
11. Choosing entertainment
12. Dying with dignity
13. War and capital punishment
I've already decided that I'm an idiot for volunteering to organize this class, but our church really needs more thoughtful evaluation and discussion of social issues. It should be interesting, but it will require a lot of time since we don't have a prepared lesson guide, and I'll therefore need to dig up materials for each lesson.

Carol has two more weeks of nursery school, then a week of vacation Bible School before her summer break begins. She finally has a nice herb garden established (something that she's wanted for years. She also started tomato plants really early, and they are now nearly 3-ft tall on the posts in our garden. They have little tomatoes that should ripen soon after July 4. The blueberry crop in the garden also looks good this year.

Carol and I hope to make it to the Geissinger reunion this year, so perhaps we will see some of you there. We plan to drive down after I finish teaching Sunday School here, so we may be a bit late.