1978

Vietnam hadn't ended and disco hadn't started. Nixon resigned on August 9. Ford pardoned him September 8. On my freshman trip I walked through the Mahoosuc Range with Bill Dexter, who said he intended to be a doctor (he is, in Hanover), Sam Lippin (now a politically incorrect furrier in New York), and Christian Bergraw, who had just gotten out of the Norwegian Army ("We had to sleep with our boots on," he noted). Mainly I remember our group laughing uncontrollably, after lights out at Moosilauke Lodge, about Marlin Perkins's "Wild Kingdom" and Dean Carroll Brewster's hokey songs ("zuffi-zum-zum-zum-zum"), which my daughters now sing at the kitchen table.

Freshman week Jefif Verzella walked in and met his roommate Weare Zwemer (now a child psychologist in Chesapeake, Va.). Within 24 hours Weare observed that Jeff resembled Ernie from "My Three Sons" and started introducing Jeff by that name. "To this day nobody in our class knows me as anything but Ernie," says Jeff (now a doctor in Williamsport, Pa.).

Rick Beyer remembers meeting MarkTomizawa at WDCR freshman week. "I instantly disliked him," says Rick. (They have since served as one-another's best men and are business partners.)

Rick also inadvertently tested the legend that math prof Bill Slesnick memorized each year's freshman book: "I dozed off in Math 5, feeling safe at the back of 15 0 students and woke to hear Slesnick, whom I had never spoken to, roaring my name and asking if this was how they taught me to do things at Providence Country Day School."

One of the first things Walter Callender (a VP in Banker's Trust's global-research group in New York) and his roommate RonKing (a benefit-plan manager at Prudential in Newark) did was to look up female classmates in the Freshman Book and pay them visits. One stop was Room 311 of Hitchcock Hall, the residence of Jennifer Jarvis. Ron remembers: "I said, 'Yo, baby, how you doin'?' and I gave her a Black Power handshake, but since she was from Georgetown, Guyana, it meant nothing to her." At first, that is. Ron and Jennifer (a marketing manager at HBO) now live happily in South Orange, N.J.

On October 8 President Ford offered his Whip Inflation Now (W.1.N.) program. Soon after—on the goading of Sue Kepes (a health worker in Portland, Maine)—roommates Marc Capobianco (a creative ad person in San Francisco) and Tony Anella (a Los Angelean) put on ski masks and streaked Woodward Hall during a dorm meeting. Since everyone was gathered in a cramped hallway, Marc and Tony had to pick their way gingerly through the crowd. Marc insists that Barbara Dau Hoffman nearly fainted, but Barbara couldn't be reached for verification.

Chris Simpson Brent (an IBM exec in San Francisco) remembers "North Massachusetts Hall and the friendships that started there; running with the ski team through endless rolling hills of the College Grant; Ranny Cardozo, who was a special buddy that first year; freshman English; being humbled and intimidated by it all."

On October 29, Muhammad Ali Koed George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain the heavyweight title. It should make us feel young to realize that Foreman is still boxing today. (But Nick Lowery is now the thirdoldest person in the NFL.)

Tom Swartwood wishes he had memories of Winter Carnival, but he doesn't: he knocked himself out on a patch of ice at the Skiway and had amnesia.

On April 30 South Vietnam surrendered and the U.S. abandoned Saigon. Around that time my roommate Ty Hilkert (now with Texas Instruments in San Mateo, Calif.) returned from a concert by an obscure guy from New Jersey and declared, "You just missed the future of rock and roll." Since Ty listened mostly to Steeleye Span and "Bungle in the Jungle" by Jethro Tull, I said something to the effect of "I don't think so." But (as Casey Kasem might say) Ty was right: the act I missed was Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.

Inseparable roommates Harriet TravillaReynolds and Ann Hoover had a record player that if you turned it off it wouldn't go on again, so they left it on, and for the rest of the year they played "Rosalita."

It was late in the year when a member of class of '75, who was sleeping on a ledge above the entryway to Hitchcock, rolled off and fell face-first onto the sidewalk below. He hates it when I tell that story, so I won't.

5317 White Horse Road, Knoxville, TN 37919-9344

Ty Hickert declared, "You just missed the future of rock and roll." Ty was right: the act I missed was Bruce Springsteen and the E-street Band. BROOKS CLARK '78