From: Margaret L. Shafer
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 1:42 PM
Subject: Woodstock Visit

October 23, 2010

Dear Friends with a Woodstock connection:

Today has been named world-wide Woodstock Day.  It seems an auspicious day to send you all a brief report on our recent visit to the dear old school.  It is such a privilege to have actually been on site.  I know many of you have not had the opportunity to go back, so those who have been more recently will indulge me if I offer a few descriptions. 

First,, the hillside is as steep as ever, but we were ferried back and forth by car from the Rokeby Guest House which is almost on the Upper Chakkar..  Can you believe cars on those paths only slightly widened? Or the leechless monsoon? For which I never heard an explanation. While we were there the monsoon surpassed the record monsoon rainfall. But no one has seen any leeches.   Although it rained most of the time we were there, the clouds broke one evening for a magnificent sunset and on our last morning  enough breaks in the clouds allowed us to see the snows at sunrise from the Upper Chakkar.

The school, itself, seems to be fully built, at last.  We were duly impressed with the newly renovated Hostel with its lovely new swimming pool (on the other side of the playing field from where it was before.)  The boys’ rooms vary among double, triples, quads, and are nicely furnished, where we could see the furniture under the piles of student-strewn junk .  Modern high school boys do not seem to put much value on neatness. I expect that is as eternal as the snows.   We also were able to oh-and-ah over the new gym up on what used to be the Parker Hall playground.  It has a walkway/balcony on two sides, with spectacular views of the Doon Valley and the Tehri Hills.  I was delighted to see how careful the builders had been to preserve as many trees as possible. The balcony has been laid around them. 

As you might imagine, the best part of Woodstock is the people.  The faculty are from many backgrounds and the students are even more diverse, and fascinating!  I had a long discussion with a 10^th grade boy, a Tibetan, who is trying to figure out how to accomplish his dream of building community centers for under-served Tibetan refugee groups who are not in the few major centers like Dharmsala. The atmosphere of service-oriented lives seems to be appealing to the students.  A group of girls had organized a soccer competition in order to raise funds for books for village schools they had visited. 

I want to thank all of you who sent me the treasure trove of congratulatory notes concerning the Distinguished Alumna Award.  It was, indeed, a tremendous honor and it is surely an august company I have joined. I was especially happy to share the day with Ashoke Chatterji, who is truly distinguished, and a good friend.   The ceremony was handled beautifully from the garlanding and enshawling to the power point documentary on our lives and work. One of my favorite moments will not be recorded in history, but I loved getting to watch the carpenter screwing the brass plates bearing our names onto the plaque of Distinguished Alumni near the door into Parker Hall…he was a bit behind schedule, so the ladder and measuring, drilling and screwing were happening as we all gathered ready to process down the aisle.

I think most of you can say with me, Woodstock School had a lot to do with making me the person I am. Since I cannot live my life over and do it again, I‘d like to try to open the possibility for some other youngsters to attend Woodstock.    There are many ways of giving to Woodstock.  If you are an occasional giver may I suggest this might be an occasion to send a check to the appropriate address below.  If you’d like it to be part of the scholarship fund, mark “Loehlin Scholarship Fund” on your memo. I’d be honored to have you join me in expanding to more students the opportunity to attend Woodstock. We were particularly pleased to be able to meet at Woodstock the first Loehlin Scholar, Anna Masih, a bright young 10^th grader from Batala, Punjab.  

Stay in touch and let me know if you can’t open the pictures.

 Namaste!   “Midge”     Margaret  Loehlin Shafer

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