1981
Holidaze. It is amazing how the nation's capital deals with a respite from the day-to-day world of bureaucratic gridlock. Imagine, if you will, or even if you won't, D.C.'s three-piece clones trying to let loose for fun and frolicsome foolery on a Friday night. Like Kafka kicking up his heels on the Fourth of July. Or Ron and Nancy deciding on a Halloween costume. Too much hilarity for words.
Columbus Day. Our second-grade teachers taught us that this was the day Columbus discovered America. Of course, you and I know that he simply mistook the West Indies for Cleveland, but that's beside the point. The real point is that I was one of perhaps six people who had to go to work. So I did my best to escape the world of vocational bondage by flipping through some '81 notes. And while I was trapped at a small, neon-lit typing table, I had the comfort of knowing that a slew of'B Is were actually exploring internationalism without the aid of L.S.A.! Hard to believe, but true.
The inseparable Waheed and Tariq Zaman are, surprisingly, in the same branch of the same firm as systems analysts. Working willfully as is their wont, they sound as if they are enjoying the wealth and wonders (don't you just hate cheap writing?) of Saudi Arabia. If they're lucky, Andropov won't drive down the gulf and-drop-in.
Meanwhile Kent Van Voorhis has set sail for Japan, compliments of the Navy. Kent requested a posting in the Northeast, according to last reports, but it appears that the boys in blue decided that "Northeast" meant northeastern Asia. Ah well, you lose some and you lose some.
In our hemisphere, Jack Krusche (that's right the only guy with enough chutzpah/ guts/intestinal fortitude/oxygen deprivation to put a photo of a deer in the freshman book) is back in the wilds of Alberta. I'm told that after jaunts from Georgia to Juneau, he's returned to Canada to clear forests for a log cabin. So much for materialism and pretense.
I must be sure to mention that the selfless messenger who conveyed all this information, which saved an otherwise gray and dreary working holiday on the Potomac, was John Watson, a lad who is beginning his second year at the University of Ottawa Medical School.
Other international sophisticates include Etienne Boillot, back from a year in Turino, Italy, and flailing through his accounting at First Boston, and Ted Hibben (who made the snide remark about Etienne; you'd never expect that of me, would you?), who is making rapid advances at Gordon International, a multimillion-dollar furniture importer and manufacturer.
Halloween. When I awoke on the morning after All Hallow's Eve, it took a moment for the blurry images of mummies, DeLoreans, giant Tylenol bottles, and uncounted E.T.s to clear away from my badly addled brain. You know what I mean going to a Halloween party in the real world is tantamount to a Tuesday night on Frat Row. Basic boredom, occasionally violated by an entertaining absurdity.
Anyway, it was in that frazzled, morningafter state of mind that I began to paw through my latest collection of 'Bl letters.
The first pile included news from the usual array of logical-cum-maniacal law students. Matt Joyner, in his own inimitable, occasionally human scrawl, writes that he has achieved law review status at U. Penn, no doubt by submitting copies of those unforgettable D editorials on waterpiks and nasal sprays. Mark Zehner is also stomping around the wilds of the City of Brotherly Love in pursuit of law and other corporate tools. Mark is planning an arms control seminar and engaging in some light opera on the side, in an effort to meet up with bemused first-year law students.
Likewise among the future J.D.'s and LL.B.'s is Betsy Slotnick, who has established three-year residence in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan School of "Listen to what I say, not what I mean." Don Rosenthal is romping and stomping somewhere in Cam- bridge, wrapped up in similar pursuits, and doubtless intimidating the local bums. And Willy Hill writes that his real world debut has also been postponed as he detours through Northeastern's Law School.
So that was the first pile. The second pile included all the people in New York and San Francisco. 0.K.?
But the third pile, a select stack that I sequestered in a locked drawer, held the most unusual entry in this month's class notes sweepstakes. Sam Dixon has decided to take an intermission from Northwestern's Business School and grab a fellowship with the American Symphony Orchestra's management program. Having traded in the Peter Principle for "Peer Gynt," Sam's name was seen "en video" after P.B.S.'s September broadcast of "Tonight Scandinavia."
Election Night. Referendum on Ron-hairtonics.
As the returns came in, and it became evident that the G.O.P. was going to soak in a 10.1 per cent bubblebath, I decided to ignore Dan Rather's teeth, Roger Mudd's smirk, and Frank Reynolds's confusion. So, once again, I seized upon my folded, dog-eared collection of '81 stuff. A return to random access:
Annette Taylor is busy cutting and cloning genes for her graduate research in immune deficiency at U.C.L.A. (All right, no more designer gene jokes.) Annette appears to be breaking up the intensity with an appropriate attention to the finer things in life like windsurfing.
Gary Nolin is also in the L. A. region, working for the General Cinema Corporation. Gary, too, has evidently kept things in perspective: "Big change from small-town Massachusestts," he writes, "but I arrived equipped with my own 'Hollywood, Here I Come' mirror!" No comment.
Helen Bonnar is yet another '81 trapped in the land of whatever it is California is the land of. Helen is doing marketing and fashion shows for the Olga Company, a lingerie concern (are you concerned with lingerie?). According to Helen, "a great fringe benefit is that I get to 'wear test' the merchandise." Again, no comment.
Meanwhile, on this side of the continent, Liz Krahmer has just started at N.Y.U.B School, majoring in international finance. And David Bartlett is in Pittsburgh (ahem), convincing Carnegie-Mellon's American History Department that "Rock Music in American Society" is a reasonable dissertation topic.
Veteran's Day. Remember when you were little, and you thought this holiday was to honor all the dog doctors of America? Well, no more. Washington does this one big time: The White House takes credit for the space shuttle, the Vietnam memorial, the release of Lech Walesa, and the death of Leonid Eyebrow all in one day. Not too shabby. Now why can't they make a rich-tasting coffee without caffeine?
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