Dear Hal-
Bronwen teaches 6th grade (11 year-olds) at an intermediate school (grades 6-7-8) in Orinda, an affluent East Bay suburb. She teaches a "core" class (a combination of language skills, social studies, and history) about ancient civilizations. When she started, over ten years ago, she instigated raising money for UNICEF in her class. Now all the 6th grade classes join in and the school has one of the largest UNICEF fund-raising programs among California's schools and, one year, it ranked among the ten top in the US. The total amounts raised actually are rather modest, but these otherwise sheltered kids learn something about the needs of children from other cultures and how they actually can make a difference. Today a UNICEF representative from Los Angeles showed an assembly of all 6th graders a video on the UNICEF program in Afghanistan.
Following the 1964 camp, I joined a small law firm in Oakland, California. I am still there. It remains a small law firm and now I am its most senior member. After 1964 I remained active with the AFSC (American Friends Service Committee), becoming chair of its Northern California executive committee. But after I spent our two-year-old daughter's birthday attending an AFSC meeting, I realized that I had to cut back or I would miss our children's lives. I did become active with the ACLUNC (American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California), handling cases for it as a volunteer, serving on its legal panel & board of directors. In the 1970's I was one of many attorneys who represented indigent young men whom the US prosecuted for refusing to serve in the US army. Starting in the 1980's my practice began to focus on trusts and estates. I both plan estates and litigate disputes over estates. The work is challenging and interesting. In some ways, the perceptions among warring family members are even more opposed than those at Nalchik and Barrington. Because most litigated matters end by settlement, my job is to educate my client to accept a form of reconciliation.
Looking at the photos from 1963 and 1964 is like looking at someone else's life. Were we ever so young? Even the "old" Russians look young. I remain grateful for having had the opportunity to attend those camps. The most obvious reason is that I met Bronwen (our children and grandchildren should be grateful, too!). It broadened my life in more ways than I ever could have anticipated. I am also grateful because the Tripartite program and many others like it helped to prevent a Cold War from turning hot. Now that our country is newly engaged in another "war," this time against an ill-defined enemy, we need to think afresh about how best to foster understanding, and even friendship, where enmity and fear rule.
Please give our regards to our old friends from the US, UK, and the former USSR. We hope that you post photos, old and new. We would love to hear from the reunion participants and about those who will not be there.
(signed)
Neil and Bronwen