Jean Minerath:

Hi everyone! Here is a picture of me and two of my three sons.

At left is Will, who is a sophomore at UW Madison, (that's me in the middle) and Luke (right) is going off to the Navy this summer. My youngest, Jacob, (not pictured) is a sophomore in high school and lives with his father in Rhinelander, WI.

I lived a lot of my adult life in Minneapolis (15 years), after which I spent a year in Columbus, Wisconsin. Following that I decided to move to New England and have been here almost 2 years. Manchester, New Hampshire is an old textile mill town of about 100,000 people of mostly French/Canadian/Indian (generally a mix thereof) ancestry.

It sits right along the Merrimack River. Almost everyone here speaks French, or at least can swear using it, and kissing on both cheeks as part of your greeting is traditional. I love it here, living in proximity to the ocean, mountains, and big cities like Boston, New York City and Montreal.

My recent new experiences include my first trip to New York City, a Boston Red Socks game at Fenway, golf lessons and the opera "Hoffman" performed here in Manchester. At this turning point in my life (will have an empty nest after July), I have begun to reflect inward to choose which challenges I wish to pursue in part 2 of my life story. There is so much to do!

Jean