1951

Bouquets, or at least spring nosegays, to all who have responded to my pleas for news of the new in your lives. I have much to report.

After a 27-year stint as deputy city attorney in San Jose, Ted Laskin is clearly enjoying being a no-frills country lawyer in Angels Camp, a Calaveras County foothills town "above the fog and below the snow-line." His small office is located in the building where Mark Twain wrote that famous story abut the jumping frog, and his clients come to him with rural legal concerns: boundary disputes, claim jumping, poaching, barroom brawls, even cattle rustling—work that would seem to belie his Yale law degree. But as Ted stated in a recent article in California Lawyer, where he was celebrated as "The Compleat Lawyer," the place has its advantages: "I tell myself that these urban lawyers work all year so they can spend a week in the kind of place where I work. It's a beautiful life if you don't want to get rich." Indeed, Ted's fees are sometimes paid in firewood, venison, gold dust, preserves and garden produce, and (once) a Shetland sheepdog.

Earl Brabb, of Palo Alto, is an expert on landslides and other crusty matters, so the recent San Francisco quake did anything but slow him down. Just reading the list of his professional and family doings is wearying to us sedentary types; and even though Earl writes that "each waking moment seems fully scripted, with ever-expanding opportunities and responsibilities, requests to help cities find more water, and tugs of painful conscience as I watch the destruction of the world's environment," he also revels in what his busy life brings him in "incredible new adventures" and "fresh associations with probing minds." He goes on to say that "As the biologic clock runs down, though, I want so much to communicate with you, to share the ups and downs, and to learn more about your lives. Each of you represents a page or a chapter unfinished, with great topics barely explored. How can we bridge the gap until we have a chance to finish some of the lines?" Earl, the answer is obvious: come to our 40th Reunion in June 1991!

Earl also passes on news of two other classmates: Len and Ditty Smith have a cabin at a Donner Pass ski area, where the Brabbs often join them for downhill and cross-country. And Will and Joan Wolfe, of Grand Rapids, Mich., are "in overdrive on retirement plans" after a career in dentistry.

Bill Birkenmeier, of Fair Haven, N.J., got north in October to hike the White Mountains with his son John '83 and to "visit Peter Christian's four times." In November, Bill was treated to a ten-hour tour of San Diego by Chuck Eccles, who, he reports, has in retirement "all the enthusiasm and energy he had at Dartmouth ... he won his golf club championship this year." Bill also writes that "Vonnie Eccles looks the same as she did 30 years ago" and that "the Eccles are the happiest couple I know."

It continues to go well, so continue to keep it up! Next month look for the latest on Dick Halloran and others.

Take care, be good to yourselves, and keep in touch.

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