Following my February 2010 retirement, I was pulled back into USAID part-time for about a year as a consultant to my old office to assist with proposal development. In addition, I immediately was swept up in various volunteer activities/committees/boards here at Asbury, a CCRC. I continue to serve on various committees both in and out of Asbury while also battling weeds to produce some vegetables in my garden. More recently, I've been "mentoring" elementary school kids in an after-school program, and recently was shifted to be a teacher-aide for the middle school's ESOL program. I also stay active in various roles with Friends of Tanzania.
Fortunately, my health has been pretty good, with daily exercise classes or workouts at Asbury. I did have a major left ankle operation in 2010 to no ill effect except for needing to continue to work on balance. Last year a torn ligament in my right wrist meant eliminating my burgeoning return to tennis, sigh... Travel has kept up, with annual trips to the West Coast to see various branches of family and annual trips abroad, both on our own and occasionally with groups.
We started a monthly "ethnic lunch" group that meets at various ethnic restaurants that the area is filled with, and attend a monthly ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) lunch group with a core membership of former AED employees and others with both Peace Corps and international development backgrounds. USAID alumnae/I have coalesced as an NGO and I have recently taken on trying to be helpful to a mentee FSO.
Recently John revisited Nantucket and old times:
For Thanksgiving 2023, we visited my daughter who bought land and built a year-around house on Nantucket a few years back. On this visit, she took us and the dogs for an "easy walk" to a place she thought we had never been before – the UMass-Boston Nantucket Field Station. But surprise! - this was the same place that Dwight Allen reserved for several fall retreats for the School of Education. Even more interesting for those in the early generations of CIE folks, this was also where CIE held several of its earliest fall retreats.
A number of new – at least I don’t recall them – buildings were up as one-story labs, and one or two houses for researchers, along with one year-round house for an on-site caretaker. Though we didn't go inside, the main building is still there with the large meeting/dining area. In addition, there are now outdoor relaxing areas on the bluff and in sheltered nooks.
However, I am sure they do not have resident cooks now, which was also true for a memorable CIE retreat there, when Peter Higginson and Steve Guild were the cooks. (DRE says he remembers a notable breakfast of curried eggs at that CIE retreat - where the curry overwhelmed the eggs as well as those trying to eat them!) The visit was a nice reminder of "the good ole days."
When management of the facility transferred to UMass Boston, CIE no longer had access and began its annual search to find other locations for its retreats.
The property was sold to the Nantucket Conservation Foundation to protect the associated land from development. However, UMass Boston retains access to the buildings for programs while the foundation protects and manages the rest of acreage. [2-24]