From about 7000 miles away I sit thinking about and writing about the day my last Grade 12 class of 2013 arrived at the front door at SACS to recieve the results that would pave the way to university or whatever else awaits each of my last boys. I was happy with the 100% pass rate, almost expected, but for one or two who we thought may falter at the final hurdle, but really thinking they would not. Happy with over 96% university acceptance and I trust the remaining guys have their futures mapped out without university ahead. All this happiness spoiled by the fact that two of my History boys who are 88-92% candidates end up with 76% and 70% in spite of around 90% for their year marks and I calculate that they must have burned and sunk in the examinations in spite of both being very happy on completing each paper. I don't believe that is possible!
I expected 5 A's, wanted 7 and hoped for 9! We got 5, and that was disappointing when one takes my 2nd and 3rd best candidates out with inexplicable marks, and then add one at 79% who is a mid-80% candidate and another on 76% who can get an A on remark and then again I look at a mid 70% candidate with 62% and wonder what happened to his year mark and how he must have crashed and burned in his exam and he was not unhappy coming out of the Hofmeyr Memorial Hall!
So what happened. They knew their work thoroughly. They could answer any question. They were very capable of tackling any source based question. I am dumbfounded and feel devastated that I am so far away, and apart from themselves, who is there to go in to bat for them apart from a re-mark!
That has sullied my stay here. Thank goodness for Facebook and being able to at least talk to them on the airwaves and give some solace. If I was there, I would investigate. I trust it will be done!
The temperature is 7.7 degrees F (about -14 degrees C according to the dual thermometer). Thank goodness for the little wood stove in Lee and Mary Rohdes sun room where I sit typing at 06.40 this morning. Of course I still awaken at around 04.15 as I also do at home. And next to me a steaming cup of Twinings Earl Grey in a large mug with Doug and Christine Rohdes twin boys Nahtanial and Sebastian imprinted on the side.
So who are these amazing families? In 1986 at my first Summer Camp for the Westchester Putnam Council of the Boy Scouts of America right up in the far North of the state of New York, lies the Curtis S. Read Scout reservation straddling around 6.3 million acres of the Adirondacks. I was appointed Field Sports Director for the 6 weeks of that Summer by Bob Towne and worked under Terry Bennett from Portsmouth in England. As the Shooting Instructor, amongst other things, I had passed my NRA Instructors licence in Plattsburg, NY and was out on the Range with Howard Rakov, a Scoutmaster, when my first group of would-be shottists arrived. One of the 11-year-old boys, small of stature with long hair and round spectacles and a huge and engaging smile, was first to greet me and be ready to learn. Douglas Rohde. what an amazing young man. Always smiling, a really good shottist as it turned out and also hugely intelligent and enquiring. He is also totally unusual in the way he sees things that we take for granted.
We got on well and he invited me to come and stay with his family after Summer Camp ended and cemented that by introducing me to his mom, Mary, when she arrived to collect him at the end of his two weeks at Camp Waubeeka. The rest, as is said in the classics, was history. The Rohdes and I became very good friends and each time I went back - 1987/88/93/96/2004/2010, I stayed with them. In 2010 and now I have stayed with Doug and Christine as well. and when I went over for their wedding, I stayed with Doug's elder brother Gilbert.
I saw Doug through school and he worked in IBM during Summer vacation. Then took him back to Princeton one Fall for the new year at university. He then went on to Carnegie Mellon and MIT where he obtained his Doctorate in Computer Science and then was snapped up by Google who he had done work with while studying. Now he is in the New York Head Office as one of the senior developers and an executive. Amongst other things, he plays the piano and trumpet and was a top player in the university team.
Doug is a big honcho at Google in development as well as being high up in the executive stakes and Christine is a pioneering doctor in corrective surgery who has appeared on national television speaking on her pioneering works. They have three children, daughter Madeline and identical twin boys Nathanial and Sebastian. The only way I know the difference is that their voices are different. They live in a magnificent home in Briarcliff Manor North of NYC. The house is solar powered to keep costs down, but also to charge up the TESLA which is Doug's pride and joy as well as to sell power back to the grid when they have excess. That means, no storage batteries, simply generate the electricity and sell excess. 42 panels provide the power. In the huge yard is an 1800's Red Barn, equipped with a half sized Basket Ball Court as well as a pub and storage for sleds, bicycles, Hobie, a number of other innovations of Dougs and a place to chill or the children to have parties with many Doug invented games.
Outside a 100m zipline (Foofie slide) and a swing from a platform that gives a good 20m radius arc out over the slope down which the zipline stretches. Next door is the State forest which has a great historical significance, but is a place for hiking and Crossbow hunting too.
While out hiking on Thursday, just before the arrival of the Polar Vortex cold snap, Doug turned to me and said; "Don't you want to take the Camry on your trip around the States?". Well, knock me over with a slouch hat! I was dumbfounded and said that I really could not do that. Needless to say, Doug and Christine have given me their Camry (see photo in my previous blog) and my whole trip changes as I can now move about with no waiting for buses and trains and not reliant on all the friends I am staying with across the USA and Canada for transport. Just so generous and kind. I am still totally overwhelmed by their generosity. They are simply amazing friends.
Lee and Mary Rohde live in Chappaqua, NY, quite near to the Clintons! Nice bit of name dropping. They live in a magnificent converted Apple Cider Barn. Lee has done amazing work on the reconstruction. He is an incredible carpenter and amazing wood turner as his dad is recognized as one of the top industrial designers in the USA with works in major galleries and in the Smithsonian as well as having one of his works emblazoned on an american postage stamp. Lee has inherited his dad's design capability as well as having added to it with his own inventiveness. He turns the most beautiful bowls out of a variety of hardwoods. Lee worked for IBM for decades. This is what sparked Doug's interest in computer science.
Mary, Doug's mom, is a researcher at the local library and even at her advanced age, still works 4/5 days a week and sometimes on Sundays at the town Library which is a sparkling example of what a library should be. Tens of thousands of books, thousands of DVD's, CD's, Video's including educational examples for every single school and teaching subject one can think of, a bank of PC's for research. an enormous collection of periodicals (magazines to us) on every single topic one van imagine, as well as connections to libraries across the County to access even more of everything.
Both Lee and Mary are the most generous people one could meet and our conversations are always filled with an amazing array of topics and subjects which is hugely stimulating. They are also, and so is Doug, amazingly inventive chefs. Their food is always well thought out and made exclusively with healthy, Fresh vegetables, herbs, spices and fresh fruit as well as good meat and fish. Every meal is amazing. Only problem is to curtail the inevitable "You want some cookies?" from Lee after every meal. He has to be one of the fittest (he plays tennis winter and summer) most alert and intelligent 80+ year-old's I know. He also heads a Men's Forum Discussion Group on anything from politics to religion, social issues, consumerism and economics. He researches every single appliance, automobile, machine, shoes, car part or piece of timber that he needs to purchase through the consumer watchdog to be sure that he has the right thing, so he knows what he is talking about. As I have said so often, "find your own truth. Research, question, find out about what it is until you can be satisfied with what it is you ed and want to know." He does that as does Doug and also Gilbert.
I also need to tell about Tim, Ben and Barbara Haag. That is for another blog.
It is 07.30 and the news is on the radio. Blue skies, pretty darned cold and goodbye for now. Love you all. BIG hugs. Remember, you need 4 a day to be content. Hug, just hug. :)
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