Stories
UN Declaration and Programme of Action for a Culture of Peace
Personalities in the "culture of peace bed"
Projects I never did with UNESCO
Mom and Dad
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Mom and Dad each lived to the age of 90. They retired in their 60's and moved from Neosho to Florence, Massachusetts, to take care of Annie and Stephen when Connie was in a mental hospital. A bit later, when Connie was back in good health and Jim and I had come in from our respective homes in Connecticut and Minnesota, they called a family reunion to discuss their finances. You have a choice, they said. Either we save our money so you can get a good inheritance, or we spend it all in travels.
Of course, the three of us agreed that they should spend the money on their travels. And so they did. Sometimes in the USA with their canoe atop the car so they could paddle the Erie Canal or in the Everglades. Sometimes in Europe (Switzerland, France, etc) and sometimes further, as far as New Zealand. They sent us postcards and kept scrapbooks.
While at home they were busy with their hobbies, my father recording variable stars from his telescope in the backyard, my mother making beautiful stained glass creations in her basement workshop.
Here they are at their 50th wedding anniversary, a big celebration at the church in Northampton where they were deacons -
their photo on the cover of the invitation that Lindsay designed.
Dad, being the older, was the first to die. It was in the spring of 1997 and I was fully engaged with the culture of peace at UNESCO, so I had to fly in from Paris. At the funeral, my brother Jim played the piano and I read poems from Dylan Thomas.
Three years later, still at UNESCO, I received an urgent message from Jim to come to Minnesota. Our mother was visiting him for Christmas in snowy Minnesota. On Christmas Day she scored 500 in scrabble (they were both champion scrabble players) and later she complained that she was not well. A stroke paralyzed one side of her body, and she said, "My time has come to die. I've seen the 20th Century and I don't need to see another one."
My sister Connie and I joined them for the last week of her life. Hospice was engaged to care for her at my brother's house. Jim played the piano for us. We asked if she had any final wishes. "Yes," she said, "please contact the family of Burt Hurn to make sure they are OK, since I didn't get a Christmas Card from them this year." She was relieved when we were able to reach them and know they were OK.
My mother died peacefully in her sleep 15 minutes before the end of the 20th Century, December 31, 2000 at 11:45 at night.
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Stages
1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme