1981

It's over, praise Allah. The yahoos have finally stopped vying for the right to pay the mortgage on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And despite all the accusations and counteraccusations

put forth by both parties, the most distressing element of this year's presidential campaign went largely unnoticed: Ron Reagan quoted Bruce Springsteen.

Now I know that Sammy Davis hugged Nixon, and Jimmy quoted Dylan; but I'm sorry, the hologramic Gipper citing the Boss was a bit much for this buckaroo. The remnants of my television are spread across the livingroom. I got a bit overexcited.

I can see it now in '88 when Ronzo announces for a third, if illegal, term: "Well, mommie, tramps like us, baby, we were born to run."

I swear I'll smack the nearest person with a pompadour.

But perhaps you'd rather have some news about people you know. Happy to oblige.

A couple of those random street encounters happened to me recently. In a cab on my way across town last week, I happened to glance out the window at the new National Geographic building. Sauntering out the front door was someone who looked very much like Paul Dunn (yes, the reason for that resemblance will become obvious momentarily, so keep your socks on). Anyway, when I got back to the office, I decided to ride the phone for a while and see if I could dig up a Dunn at NGS.

"He used to work here but not any more," said the receptionist. "But his fiancee still does." And before I could stammer a reply, the line was ringing.

Sure enough, the woman on the other end turned out to be engaged to Paul who was, in fact, in town for the week and sitting right next to her.

"Dirk? How the hell'd you get this number?" he asked. "Connections," I lied. "Oh."

I never like to explain stuff like that, so we moved right into updating each other on life in this, the year 3 A.D. (anno Dartmouth). Paul is finishing up his master's in geology at the University of Michigan after having spent the summer in Europe. He's planning the wedding for next summer.

With Paul in Ann Arbor are a couple of other '81s, Carl Henderson, who has already added a wedding to his list of accomplish- ments, and Mike Gardner, who has not pulled off that double major in rocks and rings.

In any event, the happenstancial phone call with Paul came to a close. There was no time to think about the oddity of the encounter, however; I was late for an after-work Softball game. Rushing over to the field, I arrived just in time to find out that the game had been cancelled. Super. More than a tad miffed and a bit irked and a little put out, I began to depart. But looking up, I could have sworn that I was face-to-face with Tom Booher. Impossible, I thought. "Quite possible," said Tom.

My neurons began to short-circuit.

"Hey there, whatcha doing at my softball game?" I asked him, ignoring a sense of growing conspiratorial dread.

In town looking for a law office to hire me," he said. "Just finished a stint in San Fran, and I decided it was about time to come back to the East Coast."

I don't remember much of the rest of the conversation. I just tried to get home without being accosted by some former second grade playmate.

Then, that weekend, I decided to get out of town to visit some old buddies whom I worked with during summers off from school. So I headed up to Manhattan. Surprisingly enough, our first movement was toward a bar.

You guessed it not two steps into the pub was Dan Gilroy. By this point, I just figured that some of you had gotten fed up with my monthly palaver and were having me trailed until you found the right moment to have me knocked off. I swore then and there that I would never lie in this space again and I acted as civily as I could. Dan's doing well in Kochland, he said, dancing the freelance and having a blast.

Now, my friends, by this point, were pulling on me to go, so I turned to take off: there was Pat King. Now Pat is writing children's books and wasting all non-Chicagoans on the Central Park frisbee fields. But he expressly asked me not to mention him in this month's notes, so I'd better not.

Anyway, much to my amazement, I made it back alive from the weekend, only to find a hefty stack of class wedding announcements in a mangled manila envelope that had been squished through my mailslot. Allow, therefore, a quick digression to pass on all the facts, rumours, innuendos, and outright falsehoods about '81 nuptials.

Sue Pabst added Bowman to the end of her nomenclature when she and David were married at the beginning of the summer. He's in Jamaica at the U.S. Embassy; she's in D.C. at the State Department. A formula for true marital success.

Bob Southworth was married in August. Like his bride, Bob is teaching at the Colorado Academy in Denver. Having snagged a master's in education from Tufts, Bob is teaching drama and tech-directing for the Froelicher Theater.

Jeff Levine took time off from med studies at Yeshiva's Albert Einstein school for the same reason that month. And Bill Rockwood followed suit, breaking from his job with Westinghouse in the land of sun and silicon.

And finally, there was another one of those letters from Bill Barker. I swear that boy has been smoking the carpet again. And it will only get worse, since he's on his way to Northwestern Business School this fall. '

Bill wrote to report on the wedding of one John Casaudoumacq, an event of frightening dimensions. Kevin Carpenter manned the occasion better than anyone; he's off to get a master's in capitalism from Harvard this fall. The remainder of the party, says Barker, consisted of the kind of crew that you'd expect to find at sunrise chewing bark and roots down by the river: Geoff Bracken, Danny Evans, John Bassindale, Lee Carson, and Kirk "Dirt" Wilson.

And Bill Burgess, says Barker, "had so much fun at John's wedding that he has decided to have one of his own. The victim: Karen Cosgrove." I'll wait until I have this directly from Burgess, of course, before putting such a potentially devastating announcement into my notes.

I m out of space now, so let me just pass on word from Brian Reidy, who decided that he'd let me in on all the suffering he's borne since signing onto the U.S.S. (get this) Enterprise. "Only three months until my next beer," he writes. "So now you have to consume twice as much to cover for me."

Ah, the spirit is willing. And the flesh is more so.

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