Annette Woodhams Gorey

I hope you '69ers have a good time without me!

So sorry to miss this. Doesn't work out this year.

G.W. Hospital, Washington, DC

After being married to fellow classmate Tom Gorey since 1973, I've discovered that time goes pretty fast after the first 20 or 30 years. Germantown has been our hometown since 1981 and we have watched it grow from under 20,000 to approximately 100,000 and still growing. All of our three daughters live in Germantown and we see them, and our six grandchildren, very frequently. Tom and I are hands-on grandparents (I don't mean we practice corporal punishment) and are involved in every aspect of their lives. Bliss and stress all wrapped up in one bundle.

My life outside the home includes working as a public relations specialist at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) in Rockville, MD. Over the years I have worked in medicine, law, education, accounting, and probably a few other fields I've forgotten about, but my PR job is by far the best. I would love to hear from any Whitmanites who are ASHA members (there are over 180,000 members who are speech language pathologists, audiologists and communication scientists). If you want to find out more about ASHA go to www.asha.org and also take a look at the press room to see what we're working on.

I'd like to add that the Washington Post ran a Health Section feature on September 30, 2008, about photographers who have formed a volunteer nonprofit group - Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep - to take memorial photos of stillborn babies for parents who otherwise would have nothing to remember their child by. Because Tom and I lost our son at birth it was particularly meaningful to me so I thought I would share the information in case there are any photographers among our classmates who might like to take part in this program. The web address is noted in the web pages section above.

Update: At the urging of the mighty webmaster, I am adding this update in December 2013.

Still living in the same house in Germantown, MD, and Tom and I are still working the same jobs. We have talked about retirement but at this point will keep on working as long as possible. We are committed to our three children and six grandchildren and give them help whenever it's needed so having money coming in is crucial.

Our oldest granddaughter is turning 18 in February 2014 and will be in college next year. I have taken her on college trips to a number of areas including North Carolina and Pittsburgh. Although she was early admitted to Pitt, she is waiting to hear from Duke, UNC (her favored school, much to the regret of her Dukie grandparents!), U of FL, and several others. It will boil down to the one offering the most money which is pretty said but necessary.

Our youngest daughter is 28 and getting married to a wonderful man in August. We couldn't be happier for them as they are a really special couple.

Other than college and a wedding, 2014 will surely be full of the usual surprises. Hopefully these won't be health-related downers - I had enough of those this year and would like to rise above all of that next year.

Here's hoping 2014 is a golden year for all '69ers. Best wishes to all for a wonderful holiday season!

2018 Update:


Tom and I retired to Leesburg, FL, last year and don't miss the DC area one bit. Love the slower pace, the friendly people and the fact that Florida is so flat. Now I can take daily 2-3 mile walks without getting stuck at the bottom of a hill I can't walk up. We now have 8 grandchildren - 3 in Orlando and 5 in Maryland. They all have very busy lives but we manage to see them on occasion. Our oldest granddaughter, Devinn, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh this year and is pursuing graduate studies to ultimately become a physicians assistant.

This quote from the movie As Good As It Gets, seems to sum up an average day in the Gorey household:

"Go sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here."

Radnor

Pyle (for four miserable years)

Still married - going for a record (I guess that would be a record for the number of years married to Tom Gorey which I think I already hold)

reeldove@aol.com (it's an Irish dance thing); agorey@asha.org

My dad died of pancreatic cancer in 1988, at age 80. The house my dad had built in Bethesda in 1951 was sold and my mom passed away on August 18, 2019.

Finally got a career going after working in virtually every field out there (law, medicine, education, wedding floral, and some other pretty bizarre ones that will remain unmentioned).

Innocent. Insecure. Inhibited. (I got over it - people who've only known me as an adult cannot believe the aforementioned description.)

Just had a flashback to lunch time at WWHS in 1969. Sat at the table with a bunch of crazy guys who always made me laugh hysterically (it didn't take much - I was always pretty giddy). The crazy guys included the infamous Tom Gorey (now my infamous spouse), Charlie Vance, and Scott Weaver.

I haven't thought about this in years, but I recall repeated after school trips to the 7-11 on River Road in Karen Lewis' mustang. It wouldn't be a big deal except it was January and very, very cold. We bought slurpees and were frozen by the time we finished them but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I have no memories of EFFE week, which has been mentioned by several classmates, because I had surgery on my arm and missed the entire week. It's definitely left a hole in my soul...

Speaking of which - John's Home Page retrospective on Woodstock reminded me that, although the Woodstock festival began on my 18th birthday, I was totally clueless about it. Was I the only "nice girl" from Bethesda who had no idea what was going on? And do I really want to know the answer to that?

Captain Nicewaner. He scared me to death but he had a heart of gold underneath the gruffness. He was always willing to give extra help to me even though I was hopelessly dysnumeric. In my yearbook he wrote, "Keep off the rocks and shoals of life." Good advice I've tried to stick to through the years. And, by the way, I should have known he was a Duke man - they put out some quality people and he was one of them.

Junior year. Yes, the entire year.

The dome.

I've given this a lot of thought - well, a little bit of thought - it was probably one of those fake fire drills where we had to stand out in the pouring rain waiting for the all clear. If you're the one who kept pulling that alarm, don't bother to come to the reunion...

The breezeway. They should have called it the "freezeway."

Siblings: Robin ('66), Charlene ('68), Debbi ('71), Keith ('74), Janice ('75), Bruce ('80), Pam ('82).

Sadly, my brother Keith took his own life in 2018.

History, especially WWI and WWII, music, travel in the U.S. (not much on international travel at this point except another trip to Ireland some day), gardening and landscaping, reading good fiction and nonfiction, and learning as much as I can about all sorts of things I don't know. Also love the world of Irish stepdance. When my youngest daughter was dancing and competing it brought endless new experiences into our lives. New people, places and life long friendships.

California chardonnay

Tex-Mex (I have to eat gluten-free and that fills the bill in most cases)

Morning walks through my community with my friend, Lorraine.

As a child: Clara Barton

"Mrs. Mike" - by Nancy and Benedict Freeman. Have read and reread it since I was a teen.

Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, As Good As It Gets, Napoleon Dynamite, Dodgeball, Starsky & Hutch, Silver Linings Playbook, The Yearling (can't watch it without crying).

Fiddler on the Roof and just about everything Rodgers and Hammerstein ever wrote.

'Skins and Duke basketball

A clean litter box

Taking a licking but still kicking

Are you kidding? What does this even mean?

ASPCA

Learn as much as I can about everything before I kick off. There is SO much information out there.

Refer back to Favorite "My Time" above

Covid.

Je parle un peu de français mais je le parle mal.

Four cats who run our household with an iron paw. Our kids claim that we treat the cats better than we ever treated them. Tom acknowledges the truth in that.

Lost our cat Weesie on Christmas morning 2018. It was time for the big shot.

Then after losing two more cats we were down to one but inherited two young kitties from granddaughter whose roommate is allergic.

Lost the last of the four cats we brought down from MD and now have two young and crazy female felines who bring us a lot of joy.

No

No

"Go sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here." - Jack Nicholson's character in the movie "As Good As it Gets."

Life isn't fair. Get over it. And the advice I give to my grandkids is: Keep your edges sharp.

Technology kills.

Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet, dedicated to my crazy but loveable husband. That was "our" song (we shared it with many other people) back in the day.

Thelma or Louise - depends on the day.

Some new joints - not the kind you smoke but that might be okay, too. (One knee replacement on 1/1/20 - hoping to keep it to just one.)

Those who know Tom are aware that there is no one like him. He is definitely one of a kind (that's usually a good thing).

We, like all parents, are so very proud of our children and their children. They may be grown but they're always going to be our kids.