1999

The "big guns" are in more than one place.  The one in this photo is at Fort Knox Maine
near the mouth of the Penobscot River, it was built right after the War of 1812.

  Those "big guns" were coming out of the woodwork, so to speak.  Hollie had become aggressive, and if we weren't on the road we were spending a lot of time downstairs in the cellar.  I'm guess the hormones were raging, or, Hollie was a "normal" teen age girl - they all go a little "nuts".
  There was also a tension building at work.  The City had gone from a "homegrown" finance guy to a person "from away" who worked for the City of San Francisco, and a graduate of the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  In my opinion a little over qualified, but she was a nice person.  The trouble was her surroundings weren't adequate, what with offices in remade closets and 1937 wiring that seemed to be "jury rigged" with cables in the ceiling.  Anyway there was a lot of shifting and moving and talk of this, and talk of that.  It was a poor atmosphere for me, I just wanted to get the job done, and I was satisfied with what I had.
  Jon came up to visit for a week or so, that was an immense help.  Hollie and Jon had always, still do, get along exceptionally well.  It's fun just to sit and watch.  At lease there was one week with a number of smiles.  Rhonda and her family had moved to Florida for year-round work, construction of bridges isn't to good in Maine winters, and the layoffs were too long.  Jeff was in Indianapolis, he was working in the arboretum at Butler University.  So the family is quite dispersed.
  So, another year of good times and bad times - typical American family.

Jon looks out at the world from Fort Knox

They really do get along well, that's as close as Hollie will get to anyone.

Hollie at the top of Mount Battie, Camden Hills State Park in Camden Maine