1981

I didn't sleep last night: today's the first day of school, and although this is my 14th year of teaching, I still get butterflies through out September's first week. I bet many ofyou have youngsters who've felt like me these past few days. Give them some solace: their teachers, no matter how teflonlike they may seem, feel similar.

I think I get nervous because there's such a great opportunity staring me in the face that first day, 15,16 pairs of eyes watching me nervous, sweating me—for some clue, 16 pairs of ears listening for me to the say the right thing. It's scary but terribly exciting.

As you walk your six-year-old to the bus tomorrow, think about your first day in the third grade or in the seventh. Do you remember that Monkees lunch box you carried, how you had to have your always-too-long jeans rolled up just right, how classrooms smelled of Pine Sol and mimeograph and chalk dust? Fall may mark summer's end, but it's always, for me, the beginning of something more important.

I got to thinking about first days since Mike Steinharter told me that his oldest daughter Kate's first day of kindergarten was yesterday. All went well: no eating of paste, no finger paint in the hair, a nap happened at nap time. Mike and wife Dale live in Weston, Conn., and have three kids (middle sister Sarah is three, and newcomer Jack is twenty months old), and Mike continues to work for IBM in New York. He's in charge of the Citicorp account and has visited Singapore and Beijing recently for business.

Gary Collin just completed a two-year fellowship in trauma and critical care at the Jackson Memorial Hospital at the University of Miami. He then accepted a position as associate director of trauma and associate in surgical education at Roanoke Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, Va.

Before I left New England last June, I had dinner with Mark Heuberger, who does environmental consulting at Arthur D. Little. And in my last column I mentioned that Bill Burgess communicated with me via email. (My address again, .) Billy and wife Didi have two Toddler Terminators, Drew 6 and Christopher 4, and our classmate works for Alex Brown as head of the technology investment-banking group. Bill mentioned that Kirk Wilson lives in Greenwich, Conn., with his wife, Annette, and their three kids. Kirk works for Morgan Stanley, and his Oklahoma drawl has not been tempered one bit since he left that fine state 17 years ago.

Speaking of Morgan Stanley: last April Steven Anderson joined that firm's Chicago office as a principal and senior coverage officer in the corporate finance department. Steve had been working at First Boston.

In May Manhattanite Annette GordonReed became an associate professor of law at New York Law School. For six years previously she was counsel to the N. Y.C. Board of Corrections.

Mark your calendars, gang: we have a reunion in June 16-18, our 15th. Rick Silverman is Reunion Tsar; give him a call if you want to help out.

And finally: I finished two fine books that I want to recommend: Annie Proulx's The Shipping News and Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing. The first is the Canadian Maritime in all its quirkiness; the second is a NAFTA-influenced Faulkner/Hemingway collaboration. (Huh?!)

Peace, people.

5101 Fairglen Lane, Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Althoughthis is my 14th yearof teaching, I stillget butterfliesthroughoutSeptember's firstweek.ABNER OAKES '81