Citgo

Joe,

I stopped you after gassing up on February 23rd. I told you you're the happiest gas station owner I have ever met. I told you my name was Chris and that I was from Martha's Vineyard. I told you that you and my best friend from prep school shared the same heritage. His name was Phil. I found the information below about his mother.

Angela Jurdak Khoury was Lebanon's first woman diplomat . . . Dr. Khoury was born in Choueir, Lebanon on September 24, 1915. She began her career as an instructor of sociology and administrator at the American University of Beirut in 1938. During World War II, she was also assistant director of the Allied Powers Radio Poll for Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.

In 1945, the newly independent government of Lebanon appointed her as a delegate to the opening General Assembly of the United Nations in San Francisco and assigned her to the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. She was to represent Lebanon in the United States for the next 21 years . . . A long-time resident of Washington, Dr. Khoury was a prominent figure among Arab diplomats and in the local Arab-American community.

Her son, Philip, my classmate, is the Dean of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut.

I'll see you on Thursday, March 23rd, as I pass through on my way to Long Island for one of my nephews' weddings.

Chris