1974

Season's Greetings AND THE VERY BEST WISHES FOR A Happy New Year

December 1974

Once upon a time we vowed never to write a universal Christmas letter again. But that was indeed " once upon a time ",and time is not any more what it used to be. Either there is a time shortage or it has become so inflated that it simply engulfs us. These days when we look for the darned thing it somehow manages to elude us. We have long ceased to measure it with the watch, but now even the calendar looks impractical. There was a time when a calendar lasted a whole year - but this is no longer so. It seems that perhaps eight or ten weeks have gone by since last Christmas and not the fifty-two that the calendar alleges. You can see that we have a real hassle with time, and really not much has happened in 'the past year(?) - and this is what made us break our promise not to send canned letters.

Now to some facts in our lives: This is our third year in Richmond, and we still feel somewhat isolated. This town has little social life outside institutions like clubs, churches etc. The University is too young to have its own identity, and even the well established Health Sciences Campus lacks atmosphere. So we live quietly by ourselves with an occasional movie, play or rare gettogether to break the monotony. Of coursen, we are both very busy in our jobs. Janine is in her second year as librarian and information officer for the Virginia Water Control Board. Henry continues to run the psychiatric outpatient clinic for the Medical College of Virginia and teaches medical and other health sciences students as well as psychiatric residents. Working for the Commonwealth presents many' problems. Virginia is very conservative, and change is slow to come. Ralph is in his second year at the University of Virginia Law School. Shirley is in her junior year as a biology major at Macalester College in St. Paul. She has set her sights for medical school. Eleanor tries to find and transfer to a college with a major program in recreation administration. She is currently a sophomore at the U. of Virginia which unfortunately does not offer the appropriate courses.

This past summer J. and H. joined a group tour to the Far East with five days each in Tokyo, Bangkok and Hongkong. We were much taken in by the latter and the lovely China Sea islands nearby. If things work out allright we hope to get to Europe next year. - Well, this about sums up the lives of the Silberman family, perhaps not very exciting but reasonably stable and gratifying. We hope that you had a good year and that you enjoy the festive season in spite of the gloom settling over the country and the world.