1983

Enough about you. I, for one, am just back from a rather breathless month in Manhattan. My husband's consulting work took us there, 15-month-old twins and all. The packing alone was mind boggling. Do you remember that scene in Joe vs. TheVolcano where Tom Hanks is adrift on several lashed-together trunks? That's kind of what it felt like, only not such nice luggage and far, far noisier. The main problem, however, was that when I returned home to L.A. and sat down to write this month's column I realized that I'd recently written about just about everyone I saw or talked to while in New York.

Like Jessica Rosenberg Brown, for instance. But Jessica has fully earned another mention. She just gave birth to her second little girl, Laura. (Oldest daughter, Lily, is a bit over 2.) Unfortunately, I was not able to pay my respects to the new Miss Brown. She was born a week or so after I fled the East Coast.

Nor did I see John Hall, who I hear is still gainfully employed in the city. I gather he has made the jump from law to corporate finance at J. P. Morgan.

I did run into Mary Gerraughty Shaia, but not in New York. We were in Ann Arbor, Mich., for the wedding of Steve Kronick '82. Two years ago, in my first Class Notes, I wrote that Mary was the proud parent of four boys. Reader, I was wrong. (I was so young, so inexperienced then.) I learned to my chagrin that she and husband Anthony Shaia '82 actually have one son and three daughters: Matthew, Margaret, Katherine, and Bridget, ranging in age from 8 1/2 to 3. Anthony is an orthopedic surgeon but I'm going to let you guess what keeps Mary busy.

Although the Shaias lived in Richmond, Va., Mary doesn't neglect her Massachusetts roots (although her accent is decidedly more Southern now). She reports having a great dinner over the summer with Sue Bremble Johnson in Boston, where Sue and her husband, Drew, live. Sue, however, is rarely there. She travels extensively as vice president of national accounts for a medical products company called Bio Clinic.

Steve Batha and his wife, Margo, recently had a second child. Antonia Batha was born on April 23 and joins a 4-1/2- year-old Ben. In between children, Steve managed to finish his post-doc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and took a job at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, participating in the fusion experiments which, as Steve puts it, "you may have read about in the newspapers or seen on the television news."

"I see Francis Ambrogio and his family (wife Martha and son Francisc, 2 1/2) quite often," writes Steve. "Francis works for Phillips Van Heusen and is living in Forks, Pa."

Steve also reports that Bob Dinan and his wife, Barbara Nadon, have moved from Boston to L.A., where Bob "is busy exploring Southern California on his motorcycle."

I don't believe Rabbi Dave Stern has a motorcycle, but he's been getting around over the years nonetheless. He has lived in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Rosa, Calif., and Jerusalem, but he's in Texas now and an associate rabbi at Temple Emanuel. His wife, Nancy Kasten, is a rabbi, too, and the couple has one son, Jacob Kasten Stern.

When my twins were born, I went out (dragged myself out is probably more accurate) and got contact lenses. I was too vain to wear glasses all the time but too nearsighted to be able to tell them apart without squinting. As it turned out, I lack the manual dexterity to put the darn things in in under 20 minutes, and even without twins, who has that sort of time? Now I squint and wear glasses (I haven't found time to have my prescription updated either). What I really should have done was call Rich Lasonde. He's an ophthalmologist with a specialty in radial keratotomy, a process that uses surgery to reshape the cornea, thus improving vision. If you too are nearsighted, vain, clumsy, and have twins, Rich can be found in Sanford, Me. (a tad distant for me anyhow), where he is on staff at Southern Maine Medical Center. Season's Greetings!

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