1981

Hi, it's Dirk. You'll have to bear with me I'm a little tired.

How come? Well, I inadvertently left the door to my bedroom open when I went away for the weekend. Which wouldn't be an ipso facto cause of exhaustion were it not for my puppy.

Perhaps you're confused. You see, about three months ago, this guy named Dennis foisted a small fur bundle of half-spaniel/halfhuskie on me. Real cute named her Blanche. Again, a sufficient but not necessary condition for owner fatigue. Unless you leave your bedroom door open.

I came home yesterday afternoon to discover that my wonderful little wet-nosed, blueeyed baby canine had baptized both mattress and pillow. Adorable. So, I spent the night on the couch. My mattress spent the night on the porch.

Blanche spent the night in the downstairs shower. Yes, it was on.

All that by way of explaining why my verbs may have dark circles beneath them.

I've decided, therefore, to begin this misguided missive with a real barn-burner. For all of us chained to phone and word processor, deal with the tale of Jeff Smith, who is flying helicopters in Nevada for the Air Force and the Department of Energy. "What," you might ask in round-eyed bemusement, "could Jeff be doing for them out there?" Two, three, four. . . that's right, you guessed it! Jeff's the guy that cruises over nuclear test sites to film demo-detonations. No, Dirk hasn't been sniffing the paint thinner again. I'll let Jeff tell you: "When I'm not shooting, I fly over after the explosion to check for leakage of radium." For those of you visiting Las Vegas (which is where Jeff resides), he'll put you up. For those who don't know our megaton-measuring classmate, he's the one who now has green skin and a foot growing out of his forehead.

We can only hope that Sean Bersell and the rest of Albuquerque are not downwind of Jeff these days. Sean writes that he has left banking for New Mexico Law School, where he was recently named editor-in-chief of the law review. "Perceptive pundits," Sean writes, presumably referring to the various Op-Ed writers around the country who have been following his career, "have pointed out that my departure from banking coincided with the collapse of the American banking system, and that economic recovery began just about the time I retreated into academia."

Sean also relays information on DennisRyan and Tom Waterman, who will be graduating from lowa Law School in May. Brian"Beams" Mooney is also finishing crime school, says Sean, and will be leaving Albany for Park Avenue later this year. Others of Sean's once-and-future Gamma Delt-bent cohorts include Jay Baxter, playing with cadavers at Vermont Med School, and Chris Goff, playing with computers in Boston.

The only other classmates of a litigious persuasion from whom I've heard are DoronEzickson and Ken MacKenzie. They have evidently commandeered Boston University's law review, where "Peanuts" and "Doonesbury" have since become regular features.

Also in Boston is Lynn Noel. She's living in Somerville and working for Harvard's Institute of International Development, while folk dancing and singing: not, mind you, for a bunch of mud-kicking yahoos on Friday nights. Or at least not only a bunch of mudkicking yahoos on Friday nights Lynn is recording under the "Revels" label before heading off to study third-world cartography at the University of Wisconsin. (Now, you know I could not make up this stuff, so stop shaking your head.)

Greg Folkers has just left his job as sports editor for a Boston-area newspaper and has begun to work in film production for Chris Bensley Associates.

Like Greg, John Goss is a traveler of the Adelphian Way. John, too, is ifi Massachusetts and is running a fishing business off of that state's acid-sprinkled coast. LloydWidom is in the New York banking umwelt, getting his M.B.A. at Baruch University.

Doug Harrison is at Alabama Med School, while Steve Szeles and Eric Sommers are doing the same at Washington and Northwestern. Mark Johnston is learning to fix mouths at Michigan Dental School.

Taking a slightly different tack in the academic world, Christina Thompson just became one of 23 U.S. students to receive an ITT International Fellowship for study in Australia. (I thought their program was in Chile.) For his part, Michael Chellman is teaching rather than studenting. Mike finished up a stint as manager for a state senate campaign in Virginia and has since set up shop distorting the historical and political views of the kids at Hanover High.

Carin McConnaughy is also teaching skiing in Aspen, Colo. "The summers," says Carin, "are spent working on a guest ranch in Jackson, Wyo." This is the kind of note I usually get on Tuesday mornings when the Washington swamp-rains start slithering through the sides of my windows, trickling down the living room walls, and meeting Blanche's latest gift under the curtains. Adorable.

Talk to you next fall.

P.S. I did not make it to Green Key Weekend, though I did receive numerous phone calls from people who were trying to recall what they did. Not pretty at all.

Sue Merchant '81, of Norwich, was seen onthe Green polishing her skills as a juggler inpreparation for applying to the RinglingBrothers Clown College this summer. Ofsome 6,000 applicants each year, only 60 areaccepted.

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