1983

If you don't mind, I'm going to take a little break from Class Notes to write an etiquette column, which I've always wanted to do When I was young, Mrs. Kandel, my best friend's mother, was the last word in good manners. Her Belgian accent only gave more authority to edicts like "Never comb your hair on the street" and "Dress so that you wouldn't be embarrassed to be introduced to the Queen of England." She looked a little like Queen Elizabeth herself, which might or might not have something to do with the fact that many of her favorite sayings revolved around royalty. "Promptness is the courtesy of kings," was my favorite.

I don't recall Mrs. Kandel ever making a pronouncement on telephone etiquette, but I have no doubt she would agree with me when I say that only very small people do not return phone calls.

Now, I'm not holding myself up as a model of perfection. I've "forgotten" a call or two in my day. But honestly, if I got a call from an old school chum I hadn't spoken to in over a decade, would I return the call? I like to think so. I like to think that I'd scamper to the phone with delight, even if it were just the pesky old class secretary. There are half a dozen or so of you out there who know what I'm talking about. Where is your class spirit? And besides, it makes me feel bad when you don't return my calls.

Take Gordon Dyal, for instance. Time was, I considered Gordon a friend. So when I left a message for him at work it never occurred to me that he wouldn't be thrilled to chat. Day after day I waited by the phone. Anticipation turned to bitterness. I began to plot my revenge. If he didn't call back, I'd spread the word that macho Gordon, hunter, fainted dead away at the birth of his first son, Nicholas, now five, and had to be carried out on a stretcher. To give him credit, he did manage to stay upright for the arrival of Evan, now three. (Oops—Gordon got on the line the second time I tried him. Never mind.)

Gordon, who I hear will be running Morgan Stanley's New York M&A department any day now, has just moved to Chappaqua "the burbs," as he puts it, a little disingenuously, I think. He and wife Candace are in the midst of building a house there.

Gordon also reports that Clay Spears and his wife, Sandy, had a baby girl a few months ago. Congratulations, Clay! The Spears live in Houston where Clay works for Destec, an independent power producer.

And congratulations as well to Judy StoneMallory, who writes that she and husband Ben had a second little boy on August 3. His name is Andrew, and he joins two and a half-year-old Mark and family in South Burlington, Vt.

In the I think I'm pretty smart but I couldn't do these jobs category, Tone Engel has been appointed senior consulting engineer at Cognex Corp. in Needham, Mass. He was instrumental in developing the company's machine-vision software, which is used to help guide the placement of electronic components onto printed circuit boards. And Dan Gelb has been appointed assistant professor of orthopedics at the Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania, not to mention receiving the Yves Cotrel Fellowship to study surgery of the spine (or should I say "la colonne vertebrale"?) in France.

For now, tootaloo which, you might have guessed, derives from that French parting phrase, "tout a 1'heure."

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