1982

I am very sorry about the lack of '82 notes in the November issue. Believe it or not, I had drafted notes, in fact the ones that you are about to read, but then my husband and I had the bright idea of trying our new computer's faxing function to get them to Hanover. We got a lovely message saying "transmission completed" or some such. It was very exciting! Unfortunately, I neglected to make sure that Hanover had actually received them, which it hadn't. So either some fool has received the following drivel and wondered what on earth was up, or the first version of these notes is forever trapped somewhere in cyberspace. At any rate, here they are, three months later.

I was saved from the cold calls by a surprise visit from John Henderson. With impeccable timing he arrived to stay overnight three days before I gave birth to our baby daughter. Needless to say, Hendo did not have an action-packed time—I mostly lay around like a whale with my feet up. But we did talk a lot. (By the way, my daughter's name is Philippa. I felt compelled to keep up the population of Philippas on this side of the Atlantic, which thus far appears to include my mother and me and Chip Henkins's wife.)

In the career-moves-and-places-of-residence-seemingly-so-interesting-and-exotic-it-makes-me-sick category, Tom Slocum is in Bhutan working for U.N. Volunteers, assisting the Bhutanese government in establish- ing wastewater treatment systems. Tom has engineering and law degrees and was previously living in Seatde. Jay Mead and Edie Farwell '83 are also living in or near Seattle. Jay is an artist, I believe a sculptor, and when not creating he teaches art two days a week. The Mead-Farwells live in a mint-colored house which I believe Hendo said Peter Heller came from Colorado to help them paint because Jay had gone to Colorado to help Peter build his rammed-earth home. (I love the idea of ramming the earth. How is this done???) I somehow neglected to ask what Peter was doing. In addition, it may be that Jay and Edie bought the house already in mint condition and Peter came to help them do something else. Excuse my fogginess—the hormones were in fall swing at the time.

Marie Furnari and Ken Everett are living in Idaho where Marie is a teacher and is writing a children's book and Ken is an electrical contractor who is exploiting all those Wall Street yuppie types who have moved to unpopulated states to raise their children and work via fax and computer. They are teaching their children at home. I'm in awe. I can barely remember my grade-school math. That's why I'm a lawyer.

John King is living in or near Washington, D.C., with his wife, Rachel Kenzie King '81 and several children. Theirs, that is. Anyway, Kinger is working for an organization that acclimates newly arrived foreign diplomats by teaching them English and discussing U.S. culture and the U.S.'s role in international events. Before this, Kinger worked for the Ashoka Foundation, which, according to Hendo, is like the MacArthur Foundation only with a worldwide recipient base. Hendo reports that the foundation was very sorry to lose Kinger. I found this news disturbing. That is, the fact that Kinger worked there at all. I've always been told it's who you know that matters. If that's so, why did I never get an Ashoka grant?

Bill Messing lives near Silicon Valley with his wife, Tina Helsell, who translates Chinese documents by fax (I didn't make that up), and their daughter Sophie. Bill works at a Microsoft subsidiary developing something called "interactive TV." Hendo and I discussed this futuristic stuff at some length. Now, for the life of me I can't recall exactly what it is. Something about interacting with TV. Before joining Mr. Gates, Bill worked for the company that produced the Day in the Life books.

Finally (perhaps mercifully, you're thinking), Hendo himself is teaching third grade at a Seattle public school. In his ever-curious and career-exploring way, he is also taking classes in the Thai language and in library science.

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