1976

So this is the year in which most of us will achieve the decidedly ambiguous distinction of turning 35! How can that be? No longer being included in the category of "young alumni" is a real jolt!

One of our illustrious classmates who has certainly made the best of the 35-odd years is Ethan Weiner. I want to thank his wife, Diana, for taking the time to fill us in on their lives. Diana reported the birth of their second child, Elizabeth Sara, last June. They also have a six-year-old daughter named Debra. Ethan is presently an assistant professor of rheumatology at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, where he also completed a fellowship. He earned his M.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1980 (where he met Diana, who was earning her Ph.D. in molecular biology), and completed his residency in internal medicine at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. The Weiners live in Farmington and Diana teaches part-time at a local college.

Another doctor in our class who trained at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine is Mark Jacobs. Mark is currently a cardiologist at the Central Maine Medical Center. Mark completed an internship, residency, and a two-year fellowship in cardiology at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Boston. He was then a staff cardiologist at Braddock General Hospital in Braddock, Pa., where he directed the intensive care units. Mark and his wife, Alissa, live in Auburn, Maine.

Our class also includes some who have become highly visible. And what we read about Louise Erdrich is quite extraordinary. Front-page review, New York Times Book Review: "Characters as strong and original, as funny and touching, as furious and vivid as any who have recently graced the American literary landscape." Frontpage review, Chicago Tribune: "One must reach for names like Balzac and Faulkner

... instantly and forever addictive." Louise has recently published her third best-seller, "Tracks," and I urge you to get all three!

Forbes was the magazine reporting on classmate T. Coleman Andrews's pursuits. Coleman is president and chief executive of WorldCorp, Inc. the fifth CEO since the airline's founder died in 1984. Coleman took a desperate business with a $28 million loss in 1986 on revenues of $106 million and turned it into a $7 million net profit in 1987 on revenues of $144 million. World Airlines is based at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C., and is now a "profitable, nonscheduled carrier that is 70 percent passenger and 30 percent cargo."

News just in that Rob Saltzman has been appointed associate dean of the University of Southern California Law Center. Congratulations.

Congratulations are also in order for Naomi (Baline) Kleinman and her husband, Joel, who have added child number three, Rachel Simone, to their family. Of course, I personally think three is a lovely number of children to have!

I'm recovering from an exhausting and exhilarating experience with our local theater, something I haven't done since Dartmouth Players days. Needham put on the play "Annie," and I told my eight-year-old daughter, Kristina, that I would try out if she did! Well, it was a lesson in thinking before you speak! Kristina was an orphan and I ended up as the floozy bimbo! Great fun, actually.

"Keep a song in your heart, a smile on your lips, and good fortune will come to your fingertips!" conductor on Amtrak's Benjamin Franklin train between Boston and Philadelphia.

33 School Street, Needham, MA 02192