1981

Lolly and I get invited to people's houses for dinner. We go, proffering some small gift, with smiles on our faces. We like it when people like us enough to invite us over for a meal. Only when we arrive at these houses—and this happens all the time—we realize that we've forgotten one item: kids.

On the Saturday before All Hallow's Eve, Beth Shapiro Lewyckyj and her husband, Ray, invited us out to their place in Herndon, Va. (Beth, by the way, still works for the CIA, and you can't tell anyone that, OK?) Dressed as cats, their children Elise and little Jonathan met us at the door and ushered us inside. Tom and Beth Harris Booher then arrived, with their terribly tow-headed pair. A pregnant Jill Martin Eichner soon pulled up in a mini-van, and out tumbled two more, also costumed, also kids. My wife and I felt emptyhanded. All we had was a six of beer; it was good beer, but then it was only beer.

At one point in the evening, Lolly and I, with Kevin Lynch and new spouse Stephanie, were sitting in the playroom. Bustling around us were parents, kids, air-born Legos, a pregnant woman, all that we've come to associate with the various stages of offspring. But in blissful oblivion, the four of us were in deep discussion about a desperately important topic: how to raise an obedient cat.

A few days later an announcement arrived: Doug Harrison's wife, Jama, gave birth to a girl, Jordan Carey, on October 27. Ma and Pa are both busy doctors—Doug's in general surgery while Jama is a general internistso busy in fact that Doug was on call the weekend after daughter was born, and Jama was reviewing patient charts and answering phone calls the Monday after delivery. We're getting used to this little squirt," Jama told me over the phone. "But the dog we could stick in the laundry room if it got in the way."

This threesome lives on Mockingbird Court in Rocky Mount, N.C.great names, huh?— and occasionally makes the drive here to the District, to take in the theater, have a good meal, get a cultural injection.

Speaking of injections: seen Pulp Fiction? Last summer Mark Frawley had a birth, of sorts. With a troupe called The Talent Company, he directed and choreographed a production of Damn Yankees at the recently renovated Empire Theater at the New York State Fairgrounds. And as you read in the recent mailing about our 15th Reunion, Mark's putting together a cabaret for that weekend: if you're interested in doing an a cappella version of "My Sharona" or reciting the Porter's speech from Macbeth, give our own dramaturge a call.

Coaching an NFL team isn't really the Big Time. The Big Time is when you get spoofed in a comic strip: the November 14 "Tank McNamara" put that father-son pair of Don and David Shula in their own fairy-tale episode of Mayberry RFD. Hope some magic dust rubs off on Dave's Bengals.

Lastly, Rockin' Rick Silverman, Reunion Tsar, medical doctor, ex-oarsman, says, "Return your little green cards. Mark that you'll come that June weekend. Learn a really raunchy monologue from a David Mamet play and then call Mark. Bring a cat to reunion if you don't have kids."

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