P J Rail Sales, Inc.

2011 Greetings

	A quick romp through 2011 for us begins as we end the year of 2010 in a grand flurry of travel about the countryside to see our friends on the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, and CSX Railroads as well as the Eastern Signal Engineers in Philadelphia.
	A quick stop in NYC to see a show and make our annual pilgrimage to the baroque tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art completed the trip. Home for Christmas where we had a dinner here for our friends the McCraws with their son Neal, Flo Sylvia and Jane Sharpe. New Year's Eve came and went; but we didn’t pay much attention because on Jan 1st it was time to head for our condo on the beach for 2 weeks where we just veg.  Ahhh!
	Many local activities like the February Dance Club event and Hope Ball kept us occupied in February, but the most winter fun was had at Patti’s 75th birthday celebration held at a hotel that had an indoor water park in NJ.

Most all of the family was present and it helped get us through the winter blahs.

	We trekked on through into spring with trips to Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and New Orleans on business and ended up in Miami for a 2 week cruise of the Caribbean. We had been to many of the locales; but never on a ship where we were not sailing ourselves. We were the winners of “The Newlywed Game” and it got us a lot of notoriety on board, and of course could not resist having our photo taken with "Rebecca at the well" (Rebecca is our youngest grandchild, you know). We also attended a Royal Tea during the Brits' wedding while we were on board.

The excitement in May was attending the exercises where granddaughter Mary was conferred with her Masters from NYU. We felt privileged to be sitting in Yankee Stadium with Bill Clinton as the speaker. Mainly we were just very proud of our Mary.

We left the Boston - APTA meeting in time to be present at Payden’s graduation from Willingboro HS where his theatrical skills produced a pratfall as he received his diploma. Then we drove on to CT for Ian's and Shamus's graduation from New Milford HS -- What a great day for the whole family!

l-r: Lillian Rhoades, Jim, Alexis with brother Payden, Patti	l-r: Jim, Patti, Shamus, Ian, Jim and Gail

July is filled with Children’s Theater Workshop daily activities that keep the entire household jumping. This year Payden alone came to help with the youth and participate for the last time. It was a very successful project!

We were once again privileged to visit the beautiful Greenbrier Resort in West VA in August where we were honored as one of three couples who had attended this meeting consecutively for more than forty years.

We got home in time to see a massive hurricane named Irene bearing straight for Oriental and we made a wise decision to evacuate. We headed for Ashville, NC and holed up in a hotel there. Leaving the NC mountains behind, we headed for Boston; we learned of a tree planting project being held in Worcester, MA by the CSX Railroad so decided to swing by and participate in their Trees for Tracks program.

Our plans for the Higginbottom/Rietz/Grout reunion was to take us on a cruise out of Boston for a week so we slowly edged in that direction feeling relieved that we were not in the midst of the disaster and very sad for our friends who suffered real losses. Our house is at a higher elevation than the rest of Oriental, NC so the record breaking surge from the storm did not affect us. Our dock however is another matter. The Boston to Bermuda cruise with our dear friends was a delight. We had a great time together.

l-r: Bob Reitz, Irving and Jean Grout, Patti and Jim, Nancy Reitz

The annual meeting of RSSI was departure from what we have been accustomed to because it incorporated all of the major supply groups in one place, Minneapolis. It all went well and we both enjoyed the entire event. We had the bonus of a lovely visit with our friends Lynne & Denny Boll after the meeting when we went to see their lovely lakeside home in Spicer; just a few miles out of Minneapolis. Before we headed home, we went directly to Kansas City to attend the wedding of Bret Ryan, the son of Rose and Bob Ryan -- our long time Okonite buddies. What a joy to see this couple during this time. The institution of marriage is still alive!

Most of our family journeyed to Oriental to attend Jim’s brother’s 90^th birthday celebration and our highlight was a wonderful family steak dinner at our house the following day.

We set off for Boston once more to attend Kaitlin Smith’s wedding. Kaitlin is Henry’s (Jim’s nephew) middle daughter and Abbie & Ray along with Nancy and her friend Jim attended as well. It was a lovely outdoor ceremony in the late afternoon. Whenever the cousins get together a good time is had by all.

At 56 years, Patti and Jim were the "longest married couple" so were eligible to offer advice to the newlyweds		Cousins Henry Smith and Abbie Slaman
Mrs. Kate Scorzella dances the "Party Rock Anthem" with her wedding party as her parents Henry and Kathy Smith look on . . .

Thanksgiving was in Oriental with some of our local pals for dinner and then off to our December travels ending in a family gathering for Jim’s 80^th birthday in Jersey City with “just the family.” The baroque tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the visits on the agenda; but we can’t wait to see Lexi in the off-Broadway show Sistas: the Musical. If we are lucky maybe we will get to another show or two in NYC before we head for Gail & Jim’s house for Christmas. Then home to begin it all again (we hope).

Our hearts are full of love for all our friends and family at this time of the year and all year through. We don’t get to see you often; but you are in our thoughts and prayers. Our year end wishes are for all your dreams to come true in 2012.

Love,

Patti and Jim Higginbottom

Copyright P J Rail Sales, Inc. 2001-2011
Last updated 11/27/2011 by Abbie