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Bill Butz
3906 Dresden St.
Kensington MD 20895
240-205-0964
william.butz@icloud.com
Bill, Jim and Tore at Purdue Game November 2010 |
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2021
In a way, I hate to replace what I wrote in this space ten years ago. Living in Vienna, I worked side-by-side with colleagues from around the world, rode my bike frequently around town and through the Vienna Woods, enjoyed operas and symphonies, and hosted many visitors as they discovered the local wonders. And now? I’m back in my house in Maryland just outside DC, nursing complaining knees instead of riding the bike, adding physicians and specialties to my list, experiencing music only on line, and being with friends mostly virtually.
Still, my life is good and I’m grateful. My eight children and children-in-law in Chicago and New Zealand are healthy and well employed. My six grandchildren are healthy and resilient through this weird school year. We zoom frequently. Friends and former colleagues are zooming now much more often than we met before in person, and my volunteer activities--with homeless people, children in foster care, my fraternity, and in church--have picked up in the ease of doing them from home.
Mary Keller Enos has gathered a few of us to plan our 60th reunion, Sept 9 and 10 in WL. So two things, please: First, update your life on the web page Jim Dammon designed and his brother-in-law Neil along with Lance Croxall have brought back to life (http://wlhsclassof61.org). And second, do come to the reunion! It’s going to be a leisurely time—certainly a banquet and perhaps a special activity, but mainly time to be together by twos and threes. I'm looking forward to being with each of you.
2011
Hi All, wie
gehts? ("The gate's all right but the fence needs painting": Thank you,
Mr. Eddy)
As of February, I'm living in Vienna. The first six weeks were immersion
German, I guess partly to make up for Mr. Eddy's German class! Then to
work at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
in Laxenburg, a village about 10 miles outside Vienna. We're in a castle
built in the 13th century and remodeled and extended in the 1700s by
Empress Maria Teresia for use as a summer get-away. She bore most of her
22 children here, including Marie Antoinette (who would have been better
off staying at home).
I'm here to help establish a new international research center, the
Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital. Here's a
blurb: "Our goal is to better understand the role of human capital—the
human resource base in terms of the number of people and their changing
structure by age, gender, place of residence, level of education, health
status, cognitive skills, and participation in the “production” of human
wellbeing in developing countries. In particular, as we strive for
sustainable development, we seek to improve our understanding of human
capital, vis-à-vis financial and natural capital, through improvements to
the analytical toolbox and our empirical database."
My apartment is in the heart of the old city, where I'm enjoying concerts,
deep fried foods with maybe a vegetable or two hiding underneath, good
beer, and the countryside around. Most of my four kids, three
kids-in-law, and 4 grandchildren have already been to visit, and I'll be
seeing some of them in Chicago on the way to the reunion.
See you soon!
Bill
2007
I'm REALLY looking forward to
the reunion. It looks like there is enough time in the schedule for us to
talk in pairs and threes as much as we want, to catch up. That will be
the best part.
With a heart attack and prostate cancer in my past, and diabetes, atrial
fibrillation, so-so knees, and baldness in my present, it seems like life
should be worrisome or at least somber. It isn't. I like my job and
volunteer work very much (ok, not every hour), and enjoy plays, concerts,
bike jaunts, and dinners with friends here and visiting.
My dad lives at Westminster Village on N. Salisbury. At 97, he has little
short-term memory but is remarkably healthy and quite satisfied with his
life. I get out to see him every several months. My four kids, three
kids-in-law, and two grandchildren are all wonderful. Although scattered
around, we see each other at various times in the year.
See you before long. Bill
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