1984

Good evening, and welcome to yet another in the long line of class notes. As you undoubtedly are well aware, this is my final missive for the season, and when next year finds us, we will be one step closer to the front of the magazine. Anyway, I'd like to begin this month's column with a personal note, if I may. I feel that I know you all pretty well now and can say just about anything. See, there are a few things I'd like to get off my chest. I haven't always done the right thing, and I think it's time I turned over a new leaf. I realize that I've wronged many of you over the past few years, and I'd like to try and use this month's column to apologize for or at least admit some of my errors.

While I'm spilling my guts, I may as well tell you how it all began. During my freshman trip, I borrowed Peter Gunn's bicycle pump and never returned it. While I'm not sure exactly what Peter is up to these days, I'll bet that he is severely handicapped by the loss of his pump and never has achieved his full potential as a result.

In marital news this month, DavidShedd has allowed the Vermont News to announce his wedding to Peggy Plunkett. The two were wed way back in September, in Plainfield, N.H. Now, I know that Dave has never fully forgiven me for a

small misunderstanding involving a water balloon freshman year, and thus I will not make fun of him. However, the statute of limitations on water-balloon hurling is a scant three years, so, in order to clear my conscience, I hereby publicly announce that Ben Watts threw the fateful dirigible. I don't know what has made me come

clean after all those years, but this is something that I just couldn't live with. Upon hearing that I was willing to go public, Ben quit his job and is reportedly living off the land in Mexico. Good luck trying to find him, Dave.

What do med students do over the summer? Lie on the beach, you say? Well, most of them probably do, but not all. A glaring pair of exceptions are Anjali Hulyalkar and Steve Winter. The two will be spending the summer doing research at the Burke Rehabilitation Center in White Plains, N.Y. They are two of the 15 recipients of grants from the National Council on the Aging/Travelers Geriatric Fellowship Program for Medical Students who have a consonant for the second letter of their first name. In keeping with the theme of this column, Anjali, I have a confession to make. Remember freshman year? When we shared the phone? Well, Anjali, I made you pay for a 14-cent call to Wichita, Kans., even though I was the one who made it. This is something I feel really awful about, and I'd like to make it up to you somehow, but I won't. Tough luck for you, bub.

But let's not dwell on mistakes of the past, shall we? I have plenty of sins in the present to make up for. Right now, as Steve Brooks peruses this column, he is blissfully unaware that I am in possession of a personal belonging of his. Steve is finishing up his second year at Johns Hopkins Medical School and is planning on spending his summer at Guy's Hospital in London, where he will be playing doctor. Steve says that this will be the LSA he never got to go on. I ran into Steve in the candy vending room of a hospital, where I asked him if I could "borrow" 50 cents (the oldest trick in the book). Well, Steve, old buddy, I've got some real bad news for you. I don't plan on ever returning the money. You may as well have thrown it down the sink, because you'll never see it again. While we're on the subject of money, I may as well tell Kyle Gore that the million dollars I pledged to the Alumni Fund-no, really, I'm good for it. You're second on my list, right behind Steve Brooks.

I'm sure that right about now, most of you are saying, "That's all well and good, Eric, but didn't anyone else in our class get into medical school?" In fact, you're right. James Gladstone, by all reports, will be attending Tufts medical school this coming fall. James has spent the last two years working for some biotechnology company in Boston. I'm sure that there are others of you who are too embarrassed to admit to being in medical school, but hey, if you can't trust me, who can you trust?

Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy your summer, and try not to miss me too terribly much. I'll write to you in the fall. I promise.

The class of 1985 was named Class of the Year for classes less than 25 years out. In the year since graduation the class has published four newsletters and held five of its own mini-reunions and two with other classes and a nation-wide mini-re- union which was held simultaneously in six cities. Seventy-five percent of the class are dues-payers. The class of 'B5 "has yet to really prove itself," said the citation, but it has provided other classes with a "target to shoot for."

1 Cindy Court Melville, NY 11747