1979
Ready. Seeet. Hut-1. Hut-2. Do ten pushups for jumping the count...Well, football practice is in full bloom and my little Pop Warner team is cursing me under their breath every day as I reminisce about tough guys like Dr. Matty Donovan and John "McNutt"Parkhurst and remind them that football is a sissy sport compared to rugby. Of course, I also recall to my team some of the Dartmouth football stars from our class. Studs like JoeNastri, Jeff Hickey, and Kent Mathewson (take a look at the team pic if you don't believe me). Anyway, two litde Wazoo's are banging some helmets, making dad pretty proud.
As you've probably deduced by now, I've had absolutely zilch for correspondence from our classmates. Undaunted, I placed a few random phone calls to try and drum up material but got mostly answering machines from vacationing '79s. I can only speculate as to what is going on in their lives. For instance, I called KerryHerschel at work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Altadena, Calif. Kerry Herschel, a rocket scientist. Who woulda thunk it? Next I called Laurie Branch's answering machine. She was probably coxing the heavyweight eight in Atlanta. I left a message for Gregg Engles at Engles Management Corp. in Dallas. He had a secretary and everything so I have to assume that Grengles has enjoyed a modicum of professional success. Pretty impressive for a guy from South Mass dorm who grew up so sheltered that he threw his dirty laundry and a cup of detergent
into the dryer when he did his first wash at college. Adding to my frustration were voice-mail messages from EdHeilbron, who was not in his office at Coopers & Lybrand in Boston, and PaulHybel, who I believe is still living in Chicago. I'm still playing voice-mail tag with my Alpha Chi bro, Tom Mclntyre. I discovered that Tmac lives about a half hour from me and, I can only speculate, is running the publishing division of Southern New England Telephone (No doubt trying to help businesses save money in Yellow Pages advertising. Right.) I expect to hear back from all these wayward '79s and will fill you in as to their activities in a future column.
I did have some luck getting a hold of Nancy Wilder, who left private practice a while ago to be a prosecutor for the Cook County state's attorney's office on the south side of Chicago. Wilder's keeping the streets of Chicago safe for her two small children and the Democratic National Convention by sending murderers, gun traffickers, and drug dealers "up the river." Outside the courtroom, Nancy does more than her fair share of alumni interviews for Dartmouth candidates from the South Side (from Cabrini Green to the Big Green) and has a pretty good success rate. Nancy was in the middle of a tough case, trying to prosecute a drug dealer after some rats (as in rodents) living in the evidence room ate half of her evidence (at least the rats were having a good day). When I asked her how her job compares to some of the courtroom TV shows, Nancy simply said that real-life prosecutors are much prettier than the ones on TV (don't accept any plea bargain from those rats).
The University of Pittsburgh announced that associate professor for computer science and intelligent systems MarthaPollack has been elected a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Each year the AAAI recognizes a small number of fellows for their unusual distinction in the profession and for their sustained contributions to the promotion and advancement of artificial intelligence (I could have used a bit of that for some of my calculus courses).
Better write or call or we'll keep making stuff up.
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Regina Barreca '79 on whatstudents will need to leam, p. 32
Nancy Wilder was trying toprosecute a drugdealer alter somerats living in theevidence room atehalf of herevidence—at leastthe rats werehaving a goodday. JIM "WAZOO" WASZ '79
