English Retirees Newsletter

34th Edition, October 2024

Paul Brians (WSU 1968–2008)

I have enjoyed doing this over the years, and it is good to hear how you are all doing, but maybe it is time to give it a rest.

Only three people sent submissions for this issue. This will be the final newsletter from me. If someone else wants to take over, just be in touch with me and I will pass on the mailing list.

I post pictures daily on Facebook along with other tidbits. You can always reach me at paulbrians@gmail.com. My WSU website, which continues to get heavy use, is at brians.wsu.edu.

Paula’s health is better and our house completely restored. We continue to enjoy living here on Bainbridge.

We are in the process of switching our supplementary health insurance from the very expensive Regence Uniform plan we retained from our days at WSU to a much cheaper and superior plan from Kaiser Permanente.

We enjoyed a visit recently from Jana Argersinger on her way to Italy, and yesterday a friend now living in Ireland arrived for a Bainbridge visit and celebrated Paula’s birthday with us at a nearby restaurant.

Paul

Diane Gillespie (WSU 1975–2001)

Looking at what I wrote last year, I see that little has changed. We still are not doing a lot of traveling. Unpredictable weather, delays, understaffing, mechanical problems, and crowded airports make plane travel increasingly unappealing. As for car trips, we wish those gigantic trucks on highways would put their double and triple loads on trains. We do still make short car trips regionally and to visit Dick’s son Dan and wife Lynne in Baker City, OR. After having travelled a lot in our younger years (I am 80, Dick is 87), we are enjoying life in our home and garden with our little indoor cat.

With the Leonard and Virginia Woolf Library and Collection in Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections here at WSU, I am still researching, writing, and publishing. I am trying, however, on the advice of my eyes, back, and Dick, to spend less time at the computer. Recently I have said “no” to contributing a chapter to yet another book. I already have three such essays moving, in various stages, towards publication.

Yearly International Virginia Woolf Conferences resumed in-person in 2023, but I have participated on Zoom when it was an option. A lot of us, especially international scholars, like attending without expensive and difficult long-distance travel. Academic Woolf Salons and social drop- ins have continued on Zoom.

My Pleiades Investment Club (founded in 1997) is now meeting face-to-face again after the COVID/ Zoom years. We are small in number, but we still enjoy socializing and even coping with recurrent market volatility. Dick continues to play golf and to create unusual decorative items, most recently out of wood.

Together we fund, through the Innovia Foundation, the Washington Idaho Symphony’s yearly Young Artists’ Competition. We have fewer hopes now for the Gladish Performing Arts Center project given vastly increased expenses and lowered priority for remodeling the auditorium as a home for the Symphony and other performance groups. Our Palouse Dance Club, founded in 1947, was dissolved because of increasing costs and because almost everyone in the dwindling membership had already been an officer, sometimes more than once. The photo below was taken at the good-bye dance in December 2023, but a few of us will fund a holiday dance in 2024.

As always, I look forward to hearing how other Department retirees are doing in these increasingly “interesting times.” Thanks again, Paul, for organizing this newsletter.

Diane

945 SE Glen Echo Rd.
Pullman, WA 99163
Email: gillespie@pullman.com

Susan H. McLeod (WSU 1986–2001)

Dear friends,

Thanks, Paul, as always, for doing this newsletter. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

Doug and I recently celebrated our 60th anniversary very quietly (a good way to celebrate at this age) by going out to dinner with friends. We continue to enjoy life in our retirement community here in La Jolla. Days are full of concerts, classes, good local theater, long walks by the seashore, reading, various volunteer activities, and most recently, cheering on the Padres.

We have also enjoyed visits from old friends from the Peace Corps and college days, some of whom we have not seen in a very long time; it has been satisfying to catch up.

I am no longer active professionally, but I was touched and honored when my Writing Across the Curriculum colleagues recently named a new scholar fellowship after me. It was a lovely surprise.

Our kids are fine, daughter Alison nearby in San Diego and son Jon in Portland, OR. Our granddaughter, now 12, continues to both mystify and impress us with her devotion to dance. Her dance troupe is scheduled to entertain the crowd at halftime during a Portland Blazers game, but the big excitement for her is the group’s appearance in a Disneyland parade sometime this fall. All this is out of our ken, but we try to be enthusiastic supporters of her bunhead activities.

Happy fall to all!

Sue

Nelly C. Zamora (WSU 1976–2003)

Cesar and I were in the Philippines earlier this year (February-March) to visit families and friends. We will visit them again In October-November.

We still meet via Zoom with our daughters every Sunday but in May of this year, we reunited in- person with my oldest daughter Pauline and her husband Andreas whom we have not seen since 2020 (the pandemic severely delayed our in-person get together).

We flew to San Francisco, were met by a niece who drove us to Sausalito, California, and joined by our youngest daughter Jen and her partner Nari. Because our son-in-law is immunocompromised, we wore masks during our short visit.

While in the Bay Area with Jen and Nari, we also visited Muir Woods and enjoyed a few short hikes, beautiful scenery, and amazing weather.

We hope you are all staying happy and healthy. Wishing you all the best in 2025.

Nelly Zamora

1710 NW Deane Street
Pullman, WA 99163-3508
Email: nellyczamora@hotmail.com