1960

A huge photo of a smiling, shirtsleeved Joel Alvord appeared in the Boston Globe on October 12, and an accompanying story conveyed the news that Joel has moved from Hartford to Boston; the better to run the Shawmut National Bank. Under Joel, the bank has diversified its board by race and gender and has put its name ("Shawmut Center") on the new Boston Garden, home of the Celts and Bruins. He's also on the board of Wang Center, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Boston Public Library.

The publicity about Joel led me to seek some economic prognosticating from Bob Freedman of John Hancock and Phil Krone of Citibank and got conflicting predictions.

Bob thinks that the economy and the stock market are going to keep on doing well right into 1996, giving Bill Clinton a boost. He says that Federal Reserve hikes have dampened the 1993 interest-rate-driven recovery, but now corporations are doing so well that an "earnings recovery" is under way. He thinks the Dow will break 4,000 this year or next and health-care and technology stocks will lead the way.

Phil, on the other hand, thinks that Clinton's tax increases on the investor class will catch up with him by 1996, producing a downturn. Phil's theory is that pent-up demand from the Bush era fueled the early Clinton recovery, but that this will fade.

More important in the big scheme of things, Bob reports that he's having a picnic as the father of a five-year-old. And Bob says that his old roommate, Mickey Straus, is likewise enthralled with kids aged four and six. Way to go, fellas: legacies into the 21st century!

Other news: David Horn writes that he sold his accounting business in January, worked with the buyer for seven months, and then "RETIRED." He's moved to Ashland, Ore., with two dogs, a truck, and a Harley, is planning to ride the bike to Hanover for our reunion next June, and wonders if anyone wants to join him.

Bruce Ducker's latest novel, Lead Us NotInto Pemi Station, has been nominated as best book of '94 by the American Library Association. It's a story of a father and son set in Brooklyn in the year 1955. Mel Small's newly published book, Covering Dissent, argues that (contrary to right-wing arid, often, presidential criticism) the media did not portray the anti-war movement in a favorable light during the 1960s and 19705. "Most newspapers, magazines, and television news services are bulwarks of the status quo whose attitude toward dissent and unusual political ideas is generally negative," Mel writes.

And, I got a note fromjo Piltz, who encourages her and Guy's old friends to visit in Kamuela, Hawaii, where Guy is chaplain at the Hawaii Preparatory Academy.

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