1981

Sometime during the early. 17th century, which, if you'll recall, was roughly coincidental with Great Britain's continuing game of monarchical musical chairs, the playwright John Fletcher penned a couplet that still rings true today:

For he that will go to bed sober Falls with the leaf in October.

Now I'll grant you that I'm ill-equipped to provide my readers with an adequate interpretive critique of this adage, but allow me the following observation: This man ought to have received greater acclaim. Am I right? Knew you'd agree. We've never been at loggerheads before, have we? There you go.

Now, before I plunge brain-first into my usual assortment of reprehensible libel, let's catch up on the world events that have transpired since you and I last got together in the upstairs shower. Debategate. AIDS. Soviet target practice. The return of John Travolta.

That wasn't so tough was it? Marv. Now, on to the lies.

We'll begin this month's excursion to inanity with the geographic area of the country that should matter the most to all of you. Mine. The women of '81 have been inundating this, the nation's capital, but I report with chagrin and regret that they're not pounding down my door. They've probably been reading the column. Joan Danziger has arrived fresh from a Brandeis master's in management of human services. Joan is working, appropriately enough, in the Department of Health and Human Services, but all Reagan-baiters can relax - she's helping analyze and hand out block grants through the Welfare Budget Office. Joan abandoned her former Boston roommate Julie Koeninger, who is on her way back to Hanover, where she will learn enlightened capitalism at the hands of Amos Tuck.

Marji Grant is also down here, they tell me (like I said, she hasn't rapped on my front door yet), and has taken up residence in Maryland while working for a public relations firm near Georgetown. And speaking of public relations . . . oh, never mind, you'd just think I'm cheap and shoddy.

Patsy Fisher, meanwhile, has shifted gears from paralegalities in the DC-based firm of Covington and Burling to begin a master's program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Likewise, Jill Martin, she of the knee-buckling smile, has finished up her summer stint of paralegal peccadillos (my belief being that all paralegaling is slightly offensive) to return to Lansing and the University of Michigan.

Finally, the latest in the crew of love-it-thenleave-it District of Columbians is Mark Brown, who will follow this summer's highpowered legal machinations with a Rotaryfunded sabbatical from Hahhvahhd. Brown will head off to the University of Stockholm, where he plans to study economics and international relations.

Meanwhile, in another distant foreign land called California, Deborah Caswell is combining a full-time job at Hewlett Packard with the part-time pursuit of a master's in computer sciences at Stanford. Jim Pearson has just finished his study abroad in San Diego, where he was doubling as a civic newsletter writer and a financial wizard for a local bank. Jim is on his way to the Kennedy School of Government, where he'll learn to win friends or influence them socio-politically.

Excuse me, I am now in search of hops. Thank-you for your indulgence.

Since coming back upstairs from the kitchen, I've forgotten what I was talking about, so now I'm going to discuss anything I want to in an utterly haphazard and arbitrary fashion. Just try to stop me.

Chris Mullery is down in Dixon, IL, selling cars. Yes, that's Pesident Ronald's hometown, but I would buy a used car from Chris.

Mark Frawley has been maintaining his fleet-footed, flim-flamming, fiddle-faddling fixations: After an extremely successful run at Caesar's Palace, Mark will be leaving the traveling troupe of 42nd Street to join the Broadway contingent. None too shabby.

Polly Duncan, on the other hand, is more interested in the fine art of organizational politics. Polly has been fertilizing the grassroots in Ohio as the director of the Greater Cleveland (don't even ask) Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Say what you will, that woman is going places. Like Cleveland, for example. Honestly, Polly has been lobbying up a storm, both in DC and out in the hinterlands, though I wouldn't hold my breath for the Senate to follow the House of Representatives in supporting the freeze. Besides, how can you freeze armaments when you're trying to thaw the Cold War? I just don't get this politiks stuph.

Which brings us back to a subject we never should have left. Me. I'm depressed. Sitting here in this, the you-know-what, underneath multiple stories, breathing in the same air inhaled by jimmy "Sell-Now-Strafe-Later" Watt and wishing I were back among the flora and the fauna and the pastoralia and the Arcadia and all that oh-wow-everything's-green-ahd-alive- and-not-made-of-pavement-and-plastic. But that's me all over.

Unlike me, a few folks have successfully hung on to the folds of nature. Bruce Swomiey is paddling some serious white wa-wa these days. Word has it that he just returned from Merano, Italy, where he competed in the World Whitewater and Wildwater Championships, but I'm still awaiting the results. Send 'em if 'ya got 'em.

You've been reading a while now, and perhaps you've noticed a distinct absence of matrimonial mayhem. Said dearth will continue for the time being, but I'll serve up a bunch of engagements and wedding details next issue. For now, turn to the class newsletter to learn about those goings-on, and pay careful attention to how the remedial therapy has helped turn Jenny Toolin from a knuckle-dragging Australopithecus into a pederastic pundit. Fourteen will still get you twenty, Jen.

Finally, I have the sad and unenviable task of reporting our first death since graduation. Not having known Tom Gaudet, I was reminded when I received his obituary and some phone calls from those who knew him that there are so many with whom we attended classes, ate meals, and cheered teams, and yet never fully appreciated. Tom was a class agent and counselor and very active in the life of the College the kind of classmate whose passing leaves me feeling cheated and poorer for having failed to seek him out, shake his hand, talk about the world. Feel free to send any letters or condolences to me, and I'll make sure they're passed on to the family.

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