Dear Mike,

At my age (84) I address everyone by first name. I am writing because in the issue of Sept. 27th, on page 21 you used an article written for the Philadelphia Inquirer by Trudy Rubin.

Trudy is the daughter of my wife Frances and me-and both of us have ties to UMass. Boston. We both have Frank Manning certificates in Gerontology, mine in 1986, Frances’ in 1987. Frances was advised to continue her studies, since the credits earned in the Certificate program were the equal of a Freshmen year. She did continue, and got her Bachelor’s degree in 1991, at age 74, good enough for a story, with photo, in the Sunday Globe that year. We both took other classes, and received advanced certificates in the Manning classes.

Trudy grew up in Dorchester, attended Girls’ Latin School, went on to Smith, with a full scholarship, earned Phi Beta Kappa in her Junior year, and after graduation at Smith was given a scholarship at London School of Economics for her Master’s degree. She wrote for the London Economist for a year, then was a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor for a number of years, living in Israel and Egypt.

About 15 years ago she went to work for the Philadelphia Inquirer, traveling extensively reporting and analyzing news. She has been to Russia and China several times, as well as Japan and Indonesia. She has spent time in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and was in Iraq until just one day before the war in 1991.

I thought the relationship with U Mass through myself and my wife might be of interest to you. And this is a good occasion to compliment your entire staff for putting out a good newspaper.

Sincerely,

Ted Rubin,

Randolph, MA