1970

Rich Mattern wrote recently with little evidence of purpose other than to engage in a bit of Modesto Dashing. Apparently this is what New Jerseyites do to compensate for feelings of inadequency. He thinks I've been a little harsh on the Garden State in past columns, and points out that it is still possible to reproduce there. To wit, he and wife produced a bouncing baby boy last December 17. Little Jonathan joins the equally healthy Christopher 12, and Kate 10, in creating pandemonium about their home in Essex Fells.

As if there isn't enough toxic waste and pollution throughout New Jersey, Rich overexposes himself daily to gamma rays and worse as a radiologist at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair. He subspecializes in angiography and interventional radiology including angioplasty and bilateral and kidney procedures. Rich also reports that the family skied the Dartmouth Skiway over the winter (no doubt in lieu of their annual campout in the landfills of the Pine Barrens). Good luck to all the Matterns, and don't mind that healthy glow.

George Irving has traded his view of the East River from the United Nations for sumptuous offices at 799 Broadway downtown. He's formed his own firm, Irving & Lynch, and will be in the general practice of law, including international commercial transactions, capital financing, insurance and risk protection, dispute resolution including arbitration, estate planning, and fiduciary administration. General practice certainly isn't what it used to be, but we're sure Greg can pull it off. After all, he graduated from Harvard Law and studied at The Hague Academy prior to 14 years of tiding to keep the whole world happy in the General Legal Division at the U.N. Ail the best, Greg, but if it gets too hectic just remember it's only a few blocks over to pastoral New Jersey.

Tom Wentworth was daring enough to entrust me with a copy of his Christmas newsletter, so I'm going to be nice to him as an incentive to the rest of you to do the same. Tom is a professor of botany, now in his 15th year at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in ecology with a strong field orientation, focused primarily on the distributional and environmental relationships of natural vegetation. What does all of this really mean, other than that he takes lots of long walks in the woods? It turns out that Tom really gets off on loblolly pine seedlings and creeping blueberries, and he has a raft of publications to prove it. Beyond that he is taken to bio-imponderables. Please write if you can help him figure out how to measure biomass a forest or roots for example—since one can't exactly take it indoors. In fact, Tom has become so frustrated by the process of measuring plants that he's lost his professional composure to the extent of recently referring to them as "awkward things, defying application of consistent methods."

Fortunately, Tom travels frequently so as to keep from losing it completely. Last year he was in Puerto Rico, rafting on the Colorado, to Toronto and San Diego, plus several trips to New England. He goes kayaking and sailing around North Carolina as often as possible. All in all, he thinks the Research Triangle is a great place to live. Obviously, he's turned into quite the Southern gentleman, since he closed his letter by encouraging other rarely published classmates to contribute to this column. Please take Tom's advice.

P.O. Box 3934, Modesto, CA 95352-3934