Good-bye and Amen (23 page)

Carla Lowen
. Currently a professor of medieval history at Vassar, she shares a cottage with Alice Dubey, head librarian at the college. She enjoys wearing the saris Alice has given her and taught her how to drape. Guilty secret: she still smokes, but only on the back porch overlooking the asparagus beds, as Alice won't let her do it in the house.

Rufus Maitland
was born in 1940 in New York City. After Yale he served in Southeast Asia, where he learned Vietnamese and a smattering of Mandarin. He has sailed all over the world and enjoys practicing his language skills via ham radio. Things his friends would be surprised to learn about him: he knows how to read palms, and can play the harp.

Selina Malecki
, wife of the bishop of New Hampshire. A wife, mother, and hostess. She enjoys researching her family tree online and that of her husband. She has a special-needs grandson with whom she spends a great deal of time so her daughter can run her business, a plant nursery and garden center. She enjoys figure skating in winter and works part-time as a reading specialist at the local public school. Her hobby is extreme knitting.

Bella McChesney
grew up in Buffalo. She was a dance instructor before her marriage, and still does a flashy tango. She has three grown stepchildren and a daughter just now applying to colleges. Hobbies: embroidery and cooking. She belongs to three book groups and enjoys choral singing. Proudest accomplishment: persuaded her husband to go to Couples Week at the Golden Door, where he finally tried yoga, and loved it.

Paul McChesney
is a sixth-generation New Yorker. He made his living in advertising. He belongs to the Knickerbocker Club, the Princeton Club, and the Coffee House, where he spends many daytime hours, as his wife made clear when he retired that she had married him for better or worse but not for lunch. He serves on the board of the New York City Opera, the Village Community School, the Kips Bay Boys Club, and the vestry of Holy Innocents.

Amelia Crane Morriset,
daughter of Gladdy and Neville Crane. She was a childhood summer friend of Eleanor and Monica Moss, and Sydney Moss's goddaughter. Married to Tommy Morriset, an architect, and lives in Los Gatos, California. She has three grown children, Barbara, Sarah, and Henry. No grandchildren yet. Her secret ambition is to join the Peace Corps.

Boedicia Moss (
BOE-di-SEE-a), daughter of Jimmy and Josslyn Moss, is currently seven years old. She used to love the
Teletubbies,
but doesn't any more. Posh is her favorite Spice Girl. She is the best in her class at spelling. She would like to be famous, either a movie star or a rock star. She would also like to be a teacher.

James Lee Moss
, known as Jimmy. Youngest child of Laurus and Sydney Moss. He is the chief creative officer of a computer game company that will go public next year, and is fond of quoting his brother-in-law Bobby, saying that he is the only person who could parlay a career out of years on psychedelic drugs. He regrets that he still cannot read music, but very little else.

Josslyn Berry Moss
grew up in Orinda, California, and just had her fortieth birthday. She met Jimmy in L.A. at a meditation intensive. She is a mother of three, plays championship tennis, and does either yoga or Pilates five times a week. She is also a triple Pisces, and has recently discovered Montana.

Regis Moss
, second son and middle child of Jimmy and Josslyn Moss, is eight and three-quarters. He enjoys soccer and kung fu and his best friend is named Omar. Favorite
Star Wars
character: Luke Skywalker. Pet peeve: his sister because she keeps playing with his Transformers and losing pieces. He doesn't like piano lessons. He would like to be a Jedi Knight.

Virgil Moss
, oldest son of Jimmy and Josslyn Moss, is ten years old and just got glasses. Plans to be a biologist. He has an aquarium with three turtles, and when he is twelve he will be allowed to get tropical fish. Pet peeve: his mom makes him let Regis play with him and his friends and Re
gis can't catch, and also he cries. He will also be a race car driver. His friend Jason has a trampoline.

Frannie Ober
, b. 1947. Daughter of Hannah Gray and Ralph Ober. Grew up in Boston, but spent summers in Dundee, at her parents' camp on Second Pond. She attended Smith College, where she was active in protesting the Vietnam War. She moved to Portland, Maine, after college, but continued to spend summers in Dundee. On a dare she ran for the state house of representatives when she was still in her twenties, and won. Currently serving her second term in Washington, D.C., as a U.S. congresswoman. She is married with two children, both in college.

Al Pease
. Longtime chief of Volunteer Fire Department and poker buddy of Laurus Moss. Married to Cressida Dodge. Still losing his battle to become retired from Dundee Plumbing and Heating, which he runs with his son Jeff.

Cressida Pease
has spent her whole life in Dundee, with the exception of two years at Husson College. Has recently retired from Ronnie's Hair Care, but she still keeps the books for the family plumbing and heating company. She wishes her grandchildren didn't live so far away, and she misses the days when the summer people left in September and didn't come back until June.

Jeff Pease
, b. in Dundee. Completed high school at the Academy in Dundee and would like you to know he escorted Congresswoman Frannie Ober to her first dance, at the Hanger over in Trenton, Maine. He joined the navy and spent two years in Vietnam. When allowed, he came straight home, married Patty Haskell, and joined his father in Plumbing and Heating.

Leonard Rashbaum
. A litigator and senior partner at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. He is a widower with four children, three in college and one to go, and therefore will not be able to retire until he is 102. He is most proud of having worked pro bono on the team under John Keker that prosecuted Oliver North.

Marta Rowland
is currently between husbands, and between her home in New York City and an apartment on the Île St. Louis in Paris, France. She has worked as development director at a private school, which she did very badly, having been brought up not to talk about money, and sold Manhattan real estate, which she did very well, having no objection to hearing other people talk about money if they were planning to give her a cut of it. Her proudest moment is having a bit part in the movie of Tom Wolfe's
Bonfire of the Vanities,
playing a Social X-ray. She did her own costumes and makeup.

Calvin Sector
. Grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He moved to Sweetwater when he went to work for Alcoa after Harvard. He rereads all of Shakespeare in rotation every three years, tragedies one year, comedies the next, then histories. He has promised his children he will give up foxhunting when his present horse is too old. So far he has bought his “last” hunter three times.

Margaret Sector
has lived all her life in Sweetwater except for four years at Smith College. She is descended from two Signers and one Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. She sits on the boards of Child Health and also of the Bellknap Home for Crippled Children and is proud that she volunteered her children to be among the first human guinea pigs for the Salk polio vaccine.

Cinder Smart
lives in Gates Mills, Ohio. She is a devoted subscriber to the Cleveland Symphony and the Playhouse, and a docent at the art museum. She has a rose garden which is at least locally famous, and you can tell by the state of her manicure that she is not the kind of gardener who points and watches while someone else does the yard work. Her children are trying to teach her how to do e-mail.

Bud Shatterman
. President of the Kenyon Alumni Association of Colorado. Ran a profitable GM dealership for many years, and served twice as head of the vestry at St. John's Episcopal Church. He recently lost his wife after her long battle with cancer. He still skis the double diamond slopes, and enjoys his Romeo lunch group (Retired Old Men Eating Out). He is considering signing up for a singles cruise if he can figure out what to wear.

Lindsay Tautsch
moved to Sweetwater when she was ten years old. She enjoys bowling and swears her cat Mame was a dog in a former life. She can't imagine more rewarding work than the priesthood. She looks forward to revamping the Inquirers' Classes at Good Shepherd, and hopes to institute a program of organ concerts to reach out to those in the valley who do not yet have a church home.

Clara Thiele
still serves on the altar guild at St. John's. She suffered a minor stroke two years ago, from which she fully recovered and is otherwise healthy and counting her blessings. She is planning to take her grandchildren on a trip to discover their Danish roots next summer, and will probably travel on to Moscow and St. Petersburg. She has always wanted to see the Hermitage.

Sandra Thiele
, daughter of Clara and George Thiele. Has fallen away from the church and is grateful she and her
mother have agreed not to talk about it. She has recently finished her master's in social work and is completing her supervised training; she hopes to open her own family counseling practice by next year.

Rebecca Voglesang
is “over forty but barely.” She has three children at Sweetwater Academy, the oldest due to graduate this year. She works part-time at the Sweetwater Arts Center, teaches Sunday school, and has taken up horseback riding to keep her youngest company.

Ted Wineapple
. Archdeacon of California in San Francisco. A seminary classmate of Norman Faithful, he has served several dioceses in his career. He enjoys the climate in the Bay Area, has twice completed the S.F.-to-L.A. bike ride to benefit HIV/AIDS research, and has sworn not to take up golf until he retires.