1977

If anything, Reunions teach us that friendships forged at college are timeless. At Commencement, our greatest skill what we were best at was learning. And we had drawn as much knowledge, intellectual and emotional, from our peers as from books or professors. Is there not something ineffable about intense learning and personal relationships which keeps them vivid?

The bonds and experiences from that past are strong, and we pick up now where we left off then; yet we worry. Fifteen years is fifteen years, and we have all gone through personal innovations. Will our changes be noticed and appreciated? Or are we trapped in our peers' perceptions of our past selves? In our present lives, we do more than just learn: we create and teach, as well as continue to learn. (At least I hope so, for curiosity and inquisitiveness keep us young far more than pumping iron.)

During the class dinner on Saturday night, I found myself suddenly distant, in mind if not in body, from the assembly. And here's what I observed: a homogeneous group. All more or less from the same economic class. Nearly all white. Nearly all heterosexual, I am willing to bet, and a vast number of families with children. And my insecurity about how I am perceived in the present is replaced with wonder: what will the 15th Reunion class look like 15 years from now? Will classmates from other economic classes, other races play a greater role? Will they celebrate renewed relationships with each other, without regard for sexual orientation? Will there be families, complete with children, headed by homosexual parents?

Will single classmates, or couples without children, be made to feel more at home?

This is what makes Reunions challenging: the past, present, and future all commingled, difficult to separate.

So, this secretary's valedictory. Make DougIreland's life easy: volunteer to write a guest column. Tell us how you're helping to change the world. Or, at least, your world. Break down the barriers between and among us. Celebrate diversity. Understand our differences. Make a difference yourself. Give a damn, and more. Reinvent humor (because most of the old jokes don't work anymore). Remember the Golden Rule.

Be like Larry Cubas, working with a Japanese bank in New York City. Or Jack Husack and his wife, a native of Mexico, establishing quality daycare facilities in Atlanta. Or Parker MacDonell '76, helping to make banking services work for minorities in Lima, Ohio. Or Ken Glickman, defining humor as perceived by the deaf and presenting it to the hearing world. Or Diana Taylor, with her leadership in a minority-held business. Or Betsy Gile and Don Wiviott, instrumental in establishing the Rick Angulo World Experience Fund. Or all those .who contributed to the Mark Lebowitz Prize in the Performing Arts, making it easier for Jeanne LaForgia '92 and its other four winners to create and communicate their message for us all. Or JenniferWarren and Evy Chan, giving us their gifts of art and, not necessarily intentionally, showing us how it cares not for gender or race. Or any dozens or hundreds of you for whom I have not space enough to describe in this short time, who make the world better for us all, in ways great and small.

As John Rassias insisted at dinner Saturday, take it to the limit; be genuine; be open to new ideas, and equally open in expressing yourself. And as President Kemeny passed benediction at our Commencement: "Women and men of Dartmouth: all the world is your brother; and you are your brother's keeper."

So that's it. The end of the line. All ashore what's going ashore. That's all she wrote. Or he. Come visit when you're in Hanover.

P.O. Box 861, Norwich, VT 05055