1985

So it's July, as I'm writing this month of sappy patriotic parades, cookouts, weekend shares at the beach... and my birthday. My 30th birthday. A milestone. A turning point, if you will. A time to look back on one's life and set a course into the future. See where one has been and where one is going. An event of such magnitude... Yeah, right. Here now, the news:

"Here's a picture of the dead body that I could see from my livingroom window a couple of weeks ago," Lisa Zaslow begins her letter to me. Thanks for the photo, Lisa. I've forwarded it on to the good folks at the Alumni Mag, but since it's not an alum (at least I assume so since you didn't say anything in your letter) I don't know if they'll print it. But hey, thanks for thinking of me! Lisa also passed along news of Jenny Gabler's engagement to Steve Block. Wedding info to follow.

No other pictures of dead bodies in the mail bag this week, kids. But a quite stimulating letter from Tim Reynolds appealing to me for a contribution to the Dartmouth Alumni Fund. Thanks for the letter, Tim. I join you in urging our classmates to give to Dartmouth. Tim also noted that he graduated from Vanderbilt's Law and Business schools last May and now "practices in Pittsburgh." (Don't ask me what he practices could be either one!) Tim is also planning a September wedding to Mary McAstor '87.

David North sent me a Zaslow-like letter about New York-like violence in Bombay. No pics, but some good Hemingwayesque prose: "In Bombay March 12 I heard the Stock Exchange was bombed. Then CRACK! a car bomb at the building next door exploded in black smoke and sheets of flame ... Evacuated to England, where the following weekend IRA bombs in the next town killed two." Dave signs off with the news that he's leaving his job in England to become financial manager for a chemical company in Spain. He leaves me with the warning, "Don't tell ETA." Don't worry, Dave, I don't even know what ETA is, so it won't be hard not to tell them.

In less cryptic news, from our good friends at the Dartmouth Alumni Records office come two tidbits. Eric Beinhocker wrote an article about die rising power of the Pacific Rim which ran as an ad for the MIT Sloan School of Management in Fortune Magazine last December. (Tried to read the article, Eric, really, but there was a really bitchin' episode of "Mary Tyler Moore" on Nick-at-Night...)

A cool article in the Hackensack Record on Tim Hassett reports that he is director of stadium operations at Yankee Stadium. Comp tickets, anyone?

Got a letter from Sally Spiers's dad, Ron, with news of Sally's wedding to Craig Foley last August in Vermont. Sorry, still no other pictures of dead guys, but a cool picture of Sally in a wedding dress surrounded by classmates Ray and Paxil Agostinelli, and Josh Touber. Other non-'85s in attendance were Sally's sister Martha '79 and her brother Peter, a Tuck '84.

The vigil continues for the birth of Sally Schwartz Higginson's second daughter, who is due in August. Sally, you might want to give Galan Daukas and his wife, Denise, a call. They celebrated the birth of their second daughter, Anastasia, last March.

If you're in Greenwich Village, try to catch a band called Distant Cousins which is partly made up of Jim Doughman, Catherine Dail, Joe " Mama" Holland '84, and Fred Gilde '88. They have an album called "Twice Removed."

That's about it. Have a great summer. And Lisa, if that was an alum, let me know.

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