1979

"Oh, it's her again . . . sigh." I know I promised that you would not hear from me any more, but as I write this with the necessary lead time for the October issue, the ballots are still rolling in. But this is it! Fini! Kaput! Amen! The end!

What is the date as you read this? Pre- or post-October 21? If post, skip down to the next paragraph. If pre, skip up to Hanover for Dartmouth Night Weekend. The ever-charming, ever-loving, ever-joking, never-ending Louisa Guthrie (yes, indeed, that Big. Apple banker) has planned a mini-reunion for all of us beginning Friday at the Higbea Motel, moving to the Cornell game on Saturday, and then heading out to Moosilauke for fun and games (ooh la la, just like 'shmen trips!). This will be great practice for our fifth reunion (could it possibly be!?) which is next June 15-17. Save those dates.

They tell me that the first year of a medical internship is brutal, with eyery minute of your time devoted to fighting death and disease. Tim Higgins must have been convinced he would be on call during our fifth when he called me up last April to find out the exact dates. Fortunately Sherie Holmes, though she has the same time constraints, is close enough so she-can join us to tie one on after she sews one up in the OR at Mary Hitchcock. As an occasional patient, it is comforting to know that '79s are doing their part to save lives at the Hitch. Steve Tower joined the ranks as a work-your-tush-off intern there with the only comfort being that he outranks med students like John West, who just moved to town. Jeff Cross and Line Cleveland headed south to Providence as members of the first class on the two-here, two-there plan with Brown.

Even if you get sick somewhere other than Hanover, you can still get '79 attention. Walter O'Brien was graduated from Jefferson Med in Philly and as a Georgetown intern is anxiously awaiting your aches and pains. Carol Kurtz Bates is living in Lake Oswego, OR, and if she could ever find the time would probably tell you that she is loving it. Carol was graduated from Johns Hopkins with Tom Sullebarger and John Sotos last June. John wrote last spring to say that Peter McDonnell did a pathology internship last year and began his ophthalmology residency at Hopkins this summer. John also started a residency at Hopkins this summer, in internal medicine. But as you can tell from the accompanying photo, his last summer's experience was not quite so mundane. He explained that he was an aerospace intern at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, assigned to the neurophysiology lab, where they studied space motion sickness by using several fiendish, computer-controlled sleds and spinning chairs that induce nausea in all but those with the Right Stuff. Naturally, John volunteered for every conceivable test, which meant devoting one day a week to becoming motion sick, although he quickly added that he never "lost it." He said that he must have a fairly high tolerance because if you do not get sick they just spin the chair faster. Unfortunately for John, they never let him in the KC-135, known as the "Weightless Wonder" or the "Vomit Comet," so he headed back down on his spring break to take it on. What do you do for fun, John? Finally, Matthew Gibb also joined the ranks of M.D.'s after graduating from St. Louis. University Med last May.

Three guesses who would say this? "I still manage to play a little soccer (in fact, we're ending our honeymoon at the alumni soccer game in Hanover)." This same '79 is affiliated with a law firm that has a ten-syllable name. But of course, who else but TR Ryan. TR is a married man now, having convinced Cynthia Bird that he is the man of her dreams. Cynthia is getting her master's in speech pathology and just landed a terrific job in Kansas City, where she will be working in a hospital with stroke victims and learning-disabled children.

The latest marriage report is a fat one: Michael Curlis married Wendy Stephenson last May and they are living in rainy Seattle. Michael and Wendy met while he was doing graduate work on Long Island. May was the designated month for Kellen Haak, who married Diane Grollman. Kellen is working at the Smithsonian and they are living in Maryland. Rob Meadow united granite with Sue Shaw '80 injune and headed from San Fran to Minneapolis, where Rob will start law school at the U. of Minnesota and Sue will be a paralegal. Very brief notes were scrawled on telethon note pads to the effect that William White is married and is a proud dad of Ryan, and that Laura Hardwick Apyan's little girl was six months old at the time of the telethon. Laura is in Chattanooga, where her husband is doing his residency.

And justice for all Michael Boldt is going into his second year at Rutgers Law, where he made law review. Peter Volgenau is in his final year in law school at Case Western in Cleveland. Peter is also marrying Karen Reininga once diploma is in hand. Edward Gaffney will beat them both to the courts, since he got his J.D. from Northeastern last spring.

Class secretaries can be bought, or so thought Steven Talsness when he sent me a green satin Christmas tree ball with the Dartmouth seal on it. His ad was in last month's ALUMNI MAC; if you need a few stocking stuffers. Steven, his wife Pat, and their two daughters are still in Florida, where Steven is with Smith Barney and Pat is taking your orders. Stephen Munger is also stockbroking and is with Merrill Lynch after graduating from Wharton B.

Around the girdled earth Carl Gehring sends ships. Carl is living in Cos Cob, where he is a ship broker, and if you want it shipped, he can make the connection. Missy Pemberton finally wandered back from China after two years and will be marrying her English beau in Omaha in October. Bruce Nickelson is considering heading back to Antarctica after getting his master's in geology in Binghamton, NY. Bruce was in Greenland with the National Science Foundation and was working as a heavy equipment operator on the DEW line radar base. Susan Carter is currently teaching and hoping to enter the Foreign Service. Her chances seem good, since she spent the summer in northern Africa studying Arabic. I joined Sue on that continent this summer and actually made it to the top of Kilimanjaro (one of my proudest moments!) and followed that climb with a fabulous two-week safari.

Hope to see you all in June! I'll be there with bells on!

John Sotos '79 explains his exuberance in this photograph of himself, taken last spring, at zerogravity in a NASA plane, by noting that "childhood dreams of standing on the ceiling and selfpropelled flight became real." He had spent the previous summer as a NASA intern and returnedforhis spring break from medical school to participate in further studies in weightlessness. He explainedthat a 20- to 30-second period of zero-gravity is reached at the top of the plane s parabolic course,and that he flew 133 parabolas during his spring break week in Houston, for a total of about 45weightless minutes. Sotos called the experience "a blast," saying, "Someday weightlessness will be arecreational fad." More on his NASA and med school experiences is in the '79 class notes.

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