1963

We're running a little late this month, folks, so we'll get right to the headlines.

"Stephen Macht: Living the American Dream" was the way the Los Angeles Times headlined a recent review by the paper's television critic, Cecil Smith, dealing with Macht's new series called American Dream. (The series began a trial run in May, and is likely to continue next fall.) Smith described the series as "that rare commodity for television a concept that is not a carbon copy of some other show." He also called it A.B.C.'s "best new series since Family."

Steve portrays Danny Novak, who in some ways might be seen as a paradigm for our class. "He spends two frustrating hours each day to get on the freeway to get to the house that is too small for his family in a suburb that is too rich for them to get a bigger house," Smith writes. "He sees the suburbs for what they are 'crab grass and shopping malls.' He cries, 'l'm choking on fresh air!' He's at the point in life where you make your move or, as Macht puts it, you take your shot or forget it."

Macht's move is not as major as that of, say, Paul Gauguin, but it changes his life. He moves to a big house in the city neighborhood where he grew up. The neighborhood is not, however, what it once was, and the move is regarded with apprehension by his wife and loathing by Danny's three children (who, by the way, are portrayed as "insolent, selfish, inconsiderate in other words, normal," according to Smith).

Steve told Smith that he hadn't been interested in doing a series "until I read this one. When I saw this, I saw myself in it. I could have been Danny Novak . . . Look, I came out of those same years as Danny between wars, the Eisenhower presidency. Nothing ever happened while I was a kid except the Cuban Missile Crisis. I graduated from college in 1963. We still believed in haircuts and families and the work ethic. Like Danny, I got married right out of college; I opted for a middle-class life, raising kids, working hard, the American Dream. ..."

For the record, writer Smith concludes that "one of the strongest things the show has going for it, in my book, is Macht."

Speaking of getting married, and headlines, both of the class' former White House staffers were recently married. Tim Kraft, according to a brief account in The Washington Star's "Ear" column, married Molly Manuppelli. "The duo slipped off to sunny Baja (California) for the deed," the Ear claimed to have learned from its occasionally reliable sources. (The investigation of Kraft in connection with alleged cocaine use, it might also be mentioned, has been dropped.)

Mike Cardozo was wed in early May to Harolyn Sue Landow at a large wedding followed by a trip abroad. Dave Dawley was a member of the wedding. Both brides had also been members of the Carter White House staff.

In other developments, Bill Subin reports the arrival of a son, Zachary Marc, this past April. Bill and Petie have two other boys, Jeremy, who is 14, and Daniel, ten.

John Bailey reports on having a "wonderful and nostalgic time perfect, in fact, to get me to help out in the current Alumni Fund drive" when he and his wife Darlene recently returned to Hanover to visit daughter Kim, a freshman. Darlene, incidentally, recently received her R.N. degree.

Jim Shafer reports from Lexington, Ky., that he recently "escaped from fitting contact lenses on 16-year-olds" and is now teaching residents at the University of Kentucky medical school. Dr. Jim is also in charge of the eye program at a nearby Veterans Administration Hospital. "Still have original wife," he writes, "and two kids growing well."

And so there we are back at the American Dream.

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