Richard Bloom:  

Hi. I'm sorry that I won't be able to make it to the reunion but I will be in North Carolina doing one of my favorite things, hanging out with my son Eric and his family. I have two grandkids, Joaquin, 4 (April) and Lucy 2 (January). What a delight! Eric is from my first marriage that ended about the time that he was born. That period was very difficult for me. I was living in the East, Boston and Connecticut, and returned to the Bay Area after being away for 11 years, the final 2 in Idaho Falls where I worked as a drug and alcohol counselor. My wife Bridget and I met in 1984 and forged our relationship with a nine month journey to Asia in 1986 & 7. We spent months in Nepal and India, visited Bali for a month, wandered through Java, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Tibet where I came down with hepatitis. We flew to Chengdu where I spent 6 weeks in an infectious disease hospital, a fascinating experience of being immersed in Chinese culture for a brief time, only the third foreigner who had ever been in the hospital. When we returned, we settled in Sonom...Expand for more