1986

Four years of sailing an unarmed FJ on Lake Mascoma sparked Brad Holt's desire to conquer bigger waves and fight more fierce enemies than The Crimson. A navy recruiting officer lured Brad into the armed service by hinting that being captain of a Dartmouth sailboat might qualify him to command larger vessels. When Brad saw the navy's color "travel brochure" he signed up for duty aboard the USS Farragut, a guided-missile destroyer. Not that Lake Mascoma doesn't have some exotic ports of call, but they aren't known for their red-light districts. While most of us landlubbers have been confined to this continent for most of the last two years, Brad has been roaming the high seas and occasionally setting foot on land. It sounds like the same person who sets the Love Boat's route has been scheduling the Farragut. Last summer Brad spent a leisurely few months "down in the Caribbean testing weapons systems and enjoying good liberty." Next the Farragut headed to the Arctic Circle to participate in a "giant NATO exercise." (Brad, is this really suposed to be public information? What if some sinister '86 do any exist? has become an undercover spy?) His next "mission" was a sixmonth cruise in the Mediterranean. This is where the trip got really strenuous. It was a whirlwind trip Pompeii, Rome, Alexandria, Cairo, Memphis, Genoa, and "several ports in France." Brad claims that all this travel was critical to the maintenance of world peace. The next several months won't be quite as exciting for our friend. He will be posted at Norfolk where he will be studying navigation.

Being a naval officer does have some drawbacks. For instance, Brad was somewhere in the mid-Atlantic last summer when Craig Meuser married Ellen Serlin in June.

Taxes, taxes, taxes ... we all complain about taxes. Each time you grumble about taxes remind yourself that some of your tax dollars are paying the salaries of your classmates. Your tax dollars don't only provide defense against invasion, they also provide food and shelter for Brad. Likewise, citizens of Boston are helping to fond the lavish lifestyle of Shelly Leverett. Shelly takes her cut of the government pie as an employee in the Department of Public Welfare, where she joins the struggle to provide a decent standard of living for all Bostonians. Doing good isn't always easy. Shelly has found herself in some tricky, sometimes even treacherous situations, such as when she had to seize the assets of a father who was behind on his alimony payments.

Allan Pulsifer got his master's in engineering from Columbia and now is working for a high-tech laser company in Boston.

Dierdre McDonald celebrated her graduation from NYU law school by heading down to Australia to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef.

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