As I sit here at my window, I am looking out onto a panorama of huge trees emerging from a bed of white snow. Within those woods runs the Appalachian Trail on which, should I be able, which I am not, I could hike right up to Hanover. It is quiet. The inhabitants of that wood are silent; some are happily hibernating; others amble through the woods making nary a sound. It rekindles my memories of another time in Hanover in the evening when the snow is upon the ground, the Christmas tree is lighted in the center of the Green, and all is serene. And that is a very good feeling in this time of the pandemic.

I received a lovely letter from John Kennedy.In it he included an article which appeared in the Westerly Sun, his local newspaper. The subject of this newspaper article was his daughter, Linda, who, having morphed from a dance career on Broadway to a physical trainer, has added a certificate for massage therapy to her job description and has taken it all back to Mystic, Connecticut, so she can be of help to John and Barbara. Lucky Kennedys.

Once again, I have the pleasure of reporting of a new book written by Peter Bridges. This one, Woods, Waters, Peaks: A Diplomat Outdoors, is a beautifully written memoir. In it Peter relates a lifetime of adventures he and Jane have enjoyed as they traversed the various mountains and trails of each of the places in which he was stationed as a diplomat. They have hiked from the endangered forest in Somalia to the Corsican maquis to the Caucasus to the highest peaks in Italy’s Apennines to the Dolomites, through the Czech woods. In addition, they have canoed through the wilderness in Panama and met a wolf on a ridge in Mongolia. This firsthand account of his adventures is inspiring and seductive as you are taken on the trails with him.

I am saddened to report the loss of another dear classmate, Arthur Frank Amick. I offer our condolences to his family.

—Mark H. Smoller, 401 Lake Shore Road, Putnam Valley, NY 10579; (845) 603-5066; dartmark@gmail.com