Lee Note 27 Martha Jones April 23, 2001

Kay,

Just wanted to let you and the other emailers from the Class of 1960 know about the recent trip to Europe which I took with my 32-yr-old son. Greg - a.k.a. John G. Trautwein, MD - went to school for so many years that he had time only to attend a summer session at Oxford and never made it to the continent during his 20s.

He currently works as a transport pediatrician for Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, so he has money and can take time. In January, he called me and asked if I would go as his travel guide and make the necessary arrangements-order Eurail passes, make hotel/apartment reservations, do advanced trouble-shooting, etc.; I was his guide of choice because I had traveled to Europe 3 times strictly on my own without tour and doing my own planning and itinerary, so I had the experience he lacked.

To make a long story short, we left LA on March 25^th and returned April 11th. We took the trains of Europe-which, as those of you who have traveled them know, are reliable and outstanding in comparison to Amtrack-and had a wonderful time. I am one of these perennial budget travelers who prefers to spend money on sights or good food rather than on a luxury mattress. So our accommodations included modest hotels (but all with bath-I DO have SOME standards!) and a wonderful apartment on the outskirts of Rome which was part of the family home of a sweet young couple and their 2 older dogs.

We saw the sights and experienced the culture of many places. One was Schiltach, the town in the Black Forest of Germany where my husband's great grandfather was born (with LOTS of Trautweins there!). Another was Florence, Italy, with its art, beauty, wonderful veal and pasta, and the nicest of people. Also Rome, where there is no equal to the Roman ruins (yes, Sherman Childress, I think of you whenever I go there!). Also the Vatican Museum, and Saint Peters. And finally Paris, where we experienced Dicken's "best of times" and "worst of times." The best: the Louvre, Armee Museum, Eiffel Tower, a walk on the Sein during a crisp, clear day and night. The worst: the D'Orsay (closed because of a strike), raining cats and dogs one afternoon while walking back to our hotel, and a 30-minute delay of the DeGaulle airport train from Gar du Nord while being packed into the train like sardines.

It was a wonderful bonding experience as well as a great trip, and now, I am praying to newly-beatified St. John XXIII that Greg will find some great girl (yes, he does prefer girls-we had a long talk about this and other items during the trip!), marry, and settle down after he completes his Pediatric ER Fellowship in Houston beginning July.

Hope I didn't bore all of you with this, but it was a great experience for me, and I wanted to share it with the Lee people who are so dear.

Fondly,

Martha Jones Trautwein

PS I recently read Judy Bower's note on the outstanding teachers that we all had while growing up in Baytown. When I was teaching in South Carolina, I learned that although math was never one of my strongest subjects, I had an incredibly good math background which I could use to explain various points in social studies which related to math. I have often reflected that this was possible only because of the excellence of math teaching from elementary through high school.

Therefore, I completely agree with Judy: we were truly blessed with an educational background, which was a firm foundation for all endeavors in years to come. Thank you, Judy, for writing what I've been saying for years!