Winter Solstice Letter -- December 2014 -- Thomas G.
West and Family
Greetings
to old friends and new friends. Looking back at 2014, we see that the West family
has much to be grateful for. Over the holidays, son Jonathan will be visiting
from Los Angeles for ten days – and son Benjamin with Susannah are already here
visiting from New York City for the holidays. We will be having Christmas
dinner at our house with cousins as well as seeing other family members and
many old friends at gatherings over the holidays. Tom is especially grateful
for the many good things that have happened over the year in connection with
his work -- so many years in the making -- since his first book was published
in April of 1991. In late November, Margaret and Tom returned from a week in
Singapore where Tom had been invited to give five talks as part of their new
effort to highlight and take advantage of the distinctive talents of dyslexic
children and adults. A senior minister of the Singapore government was among
those successful dyslexics who told their stories. Long a leader in so many commercial
and technical fields, Singapore appears to be at the leading edge once again.
Early
in the year, Tom’s article giving an overview of recent developments was published
in the first issue of a new journal, the Asia
Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences, “ ‘Amazing Shortcomings,
Amazing Strengths’ – Beginning to Understand the Hidden Talents of Dyslexics.” In
March, Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide hosted the second Dyslexic Advantage
conference, this time in San Francisco. Here the distinctive advantages of
dyslexia came through in the stories told by individuals from Silicon Valley
and the venture capital world -- along with stories from a NASA engineer, a CDC
physician and a prize-winning pediatric surgeon and a young computer science
graduate and new entrepreneur. Partly as a result of the San Francisco
conference, Tom spent three days in July with dinosaur researcher Jack Horner
in Montana. Together they are planning a very short book about dyslexic ways of
thinking and dyslexic ways of making discoveries -- perspectives generally
misunderstood even by professionals in the field.
In
August, Tom gave a talk at the international computer graphics conference (ACM-SIGGRAPH)
in Vancouver, BC, Canada – attending with Ben and Susannah. Amazingly, several old
friends also attended -- Donna Cox, Jim Blinn and Alvy Ray Smith – all of whom had
kindly provided blurbs for Tom’s second book, Thinking Like Einstein. Tom was interested to hear from them the
backstory of the Science magazine top
prize-winning NASA visualization, “Dynamic Earth” (excerpt with “Coronal Mass Ejection
and Ocean/Wind Circulation”). Clearly, the best scientific visualization for
many years (easily available for download on the web). Tom has been showing the
4-minute video at every talk this year – as an excellent example of the power
of visual thinking and visual technologies.
In
October, Margaret helped to arrange a gathering at a friend’s house in memory
of Irma Aandahl with WAMU-FM friends from the early days in the 1970s. Irma,
who had been a mentor to so many of them, would have loved the amazing and
funny stories of the growing pains of public radio at the very beginning. Also
in October, Margaret’s cousins travelled from Britain with the Choir of
Liverpool Cathedral (including one young son) as they sang in the Washington
National Cathedral and in Christ Church, the church of George Washington in
Alexandria, Virginia.
In
addition, October included the celebration dinner for the grand opening of the
Wye River Upper School in the renovated 1926 Armory in Centreville, Maryland
(Tom’s home town). Tom remembers 12 years previously when two mothers told him
they wanted to start a school for bright dyslexic students. Fortunately, they
received the help of those who knew how to raise $5 million in historic
preservation and private funds. Everyone in Centreville seems especially proud
and excited about the arrival of WRUS. With
a public library talk in October and an Open House for the West Gallery in
December, the art of Charles and Anne West is gaining greater visibility and
recognition. Old friends recall local scenes from former days -- and young
local artists discover a hidden treasure in their midst.
The
Wests send their love and best wishes for Christmas and the Winter Holidays.
May the New Year of 2015 grow ever brighter as the days slowly grow longer once
again. -- Tom, Margaret, Jon, Ben and Susannah
