1982

Minnesota in February. Vast. Cold. Thousands of miles of frozen water. A state that is near nowhere and far from everywhere. A winter landscape which reflects radical mediocrity. A simple land inhabited by people who value the simple life and deify the gopher. The home of ToddMarkman and Denny Runck.

Todd is living in Fairbault with wife Lori and their four year old daughter Maria. When he's not busy at home, attending Jerry Jeff Walker concerts, or following the Vikings or Golden Gophers, Todd works as a senior vice president in the Fairbault branch of Norwest Bank. As indicated in a recent Markman family Christmas card, which shows Maria with a bowl's worth of chocolate ice cream melting on her head, Todd has passed the defective Theta Delta Chi gene to his daughter. Like father, like daughter.

Hawaii in February. A state that, in some ways, is nothing more than a melted Mnnesota in the middle of the Pacific. A place tiny in land mass but gigantic in natural disaster. A state that is home to Dr. Darryl "Ghenghis"Kan and his wife, Linda. Darryl and Linda have two boys, Scottie and Brent, who unlike the Markman and Runck children are not at risk to receive the defective Theta Delta Chi gene. But Scottie and Brent are not out of the genetic woods, so to speak, yet. Unfortunately their father is a carrier of the Beta Theta Pi gene. The expression of this defective gene is indicated by an indefatigable need to carry a blow dryer, the inordinate use of the words "I," "me," or "my," and an insatiable desire to collect back issues of GQ magazine. Fortunately, Darryl's training and success as an orthopedic surgeon in Hawaii have prepared the Kan family to battle any possible onset of Beta Theta Pi syndrome.

Beta Theta Pi syndrome is a slowly evolving nausea, permeated by a strong odor of hair spray or mousse, which lacks the acute senseless bewilderment phase manifested in Theta Delta Chi syndrome. Unknown at this time is whether the children of Rachel"Northern Exposure" Bettencourt have manifested the behavioral aspects of the Theta Delta Chi gene. Rachel's husband Chip, unfortunately, is a carrier of the '81 TDC gene. Their three children, Jeanne, Debra Jane, and Chrissy live with their parents in Leominster, Mass. Rachel spent last summer in Alaska clerking for the Native American Rights Fund. She is now finishing her third year at Boston College law school and is contemplating her own practice in the Leominster area. Future space in this column will be used to address other genetic disorders, such as KKG.

Please write. Although I recognize my mandate to report on fellow 'B2s, I have received overwhelming correspondence and comments from non '82s, or, more appropriately,'82 wanna-bees. Absent further contributions from you folks, the '82 wanna-bees (i.e.'81s Jim Rill, Joe McLaughlin, and Ned Mandell, Jack Daley '84, etc.) may soon spread from their own meager class columns like poison ivy in a crowded wagon on a hot August day in the slaughteryards of Chicago. Chicago, the work place of Brett Homovec....

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