1984

There's good news and bad news about the absence of this column from several issues. It motivated me to help bad news for you slackers wallowing in anonymity. When I don't get a response from someone, I just make it up. (Ike Schurman had his long-awaited sex-change operation. Spouse Nancy TargettSchurman reports, "I'm happy for him, but what's the diff?")

The good news is browsing other classes' columns when ours is MIA. It's a bit of a time warp. See if you can identify which of these actual quotes came from the 40-something columns and which come from 90-somethings:

"I was catching up with past e-mails when...."

"You wanna know why I keep writing these Class Notes on a typewriter?...." (The author proceeds to copy 13 lines of gibberish from the bottom of an e-mail transmission, which he then refers to as "fax correspondence.")

"No one knows where [X] is since he took off one March night for a trip around the country...." (Hmm, I guess this could go either way.)

"[X] is exchanging Mexico for the Florida Keys for her annual winter sojourn..."

"The other day I'm out playing ultimate frisbee when suddenly I collide with this guy who gets up screaming. Apparently I had smacked him on his brand new nipple ring...." (I swear I am not making this up.)

We '84s seem to be in that great, gray middle of life. Striving, spawning, and socking it away that we may someday winter in warmth. But gone, tragically, are the days of nipple rings and road trips without a car seat.

Speaking of nipple rings, Paul Hill never had one when we were roomies, but now, who knows? People change. He and wife Nancy Chase Hill '85 have been producing boys—Charlie, Tom, and George—at a fearsome rate. Paul is assistant professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. He is a highly respected scholar on how dirt behaves in water. Send all your dirty-water questions to Paul. Rich Durante and Brooke Baker had little Noa in May. Rich resisted passing out cigars at the office, as his work at the New England Research Institute includes the study of infertility and impotence in aging males. DwayneGathers is director of the California Office of Trade and Commerce here in South Africa. He opened it last year after running his own consulting firm and serving in the State Department. HeidiFarrish Laub has very recently given birth to Andrew, who has joined siblings Nicholas and Kristy and father George in Darien, Conn. Nigel Jaquiss has given up a jillion-dollar job trading oil to write a novel (first draft already completed) and go to Columbia journalism school. Amazingly, wife Meg Remsen and toddler Hannah are all for it. Many thanks to John Penrose, who filled me in on the whereabouts of various classmates. John and Fatima Ezzat Penrose gave birth to little Isabel last September, the night before my own wedding to the magical Kathy Gord '86. Okay, I made up that part about Ike Schurman's operation. But now you know, Ike, that you should have written back to let me know that you guys had a second child, Sarah Anne, who, thankfully, looks a lot like her mom.

Write to me, '84s. I am particularly interested in the following: '84s living abroad; '84s in government; '84s who feel they lead very pedestrian lives; '84s on the run from the law (hey, you may be a criminal, but you're still Dartmouth).

PO Box 2776, 14 Gary St., Rivonia 2128, Republic of South Africa; 011-27-11-807-5769 (phone); 011-27-11-339-3368 (fax); ccallahan@wn.-apc.org>