1956

The Cube reports that plans are going apace for the Harvard football weekend in Hanover, 29-31 October. This year he's scheduled a class meeting prior to the game, and a class dinner afterwards. He and Joyce will host a brunch in Wilder on Sunday, if he is still on work release. The next Fun City Funtastic will be 28-30 January in N.Y.C., so mark those calendars.

Line Spaulding writes of the joys of living in Massachusetts: Dear Poon;

I don't know whether you've had a chance to check out your vast real-estate holdings in Chatham, but I hope so. It's been a terrible winter along the outer Cape coast and you could have lost a house or two overboard.

Our winter in Worcester has brought a few changes too. It's not that I mind losing my State Trooper job, it's how I lost it that pisses me off.

I failed the Aspect Ratio test.

After Bill Weld took over the governorship from Mike Dukakis, the Mass State Police introduced a new "shape test" as part of a trooper's biannual physical. The test compares your weight, waist, and age against your height according to this formula: 1.1 x (your weight in pounds.) + 0.5 x (your age) + 2 x (your waist in inches) / 4 x (your height in inches).

Granted I had gained a few pounds since my last physical, and I've had to let the waist out on my trousers a total of 3 inches (which I didn't think was too bad since college days), but what killed me was my height. Note there is no age bias, surprisingly, in the formula!

As I was stepping up to the height measuring bar, the nurse asked me how tall I was, and I answered, "five-ten and three-quarters, the same as always."

"No you're not, you're only five-nine and a quarter."

"Check the record," I said.

"I did. You've shrunk."

Well, Poon, that one-and-a-half inches was a real downer. You've got to score a max of 110. Mine was 113, but would have been 110 if I had kept my height. Perhaps if I hadn't had that back fusion?

I'll never be able to lose the weight or shrink my waist enough to make up the shortfall. They just don't want spheroids in uniform. I feel as though I've been gripped by a monster, like being in debt to a loan shark charging primetimes-three, interest compounded weekly.

Just a word of advice after you check your cellar holes in Chatham, Poon. Check your body carefully for leaks. Retired submariners on Clinton's payroll could be subject to the same Aspect Ratio requirements for pension payments as Weld's State Troopers.

Semper Fi, Line

Box 1031, Burlington, NC 27216