1979

"You're jammin' me...." The strains'ofTom Petty at the Fillmore the other night are still ringing in my ears. And I'm still wiping the sweat of one Kevin Sullivan off of my cheek, as we spent much of the show in a fond embrace, or was that his beautiful wife? Glad somebody is still blasting out tunes from our glorious youth. I'll take doo-wop over hip-hop any day. Gawd, I'm sure beginning to show my age. Speaking of which...

The biggest class news is our cross-con-tinental simultaneous 40th birthday partyplanned for the 28th of June in a city near you. As our esteemed mini-reunion chairman notes, "The bad news is we're turning 40. The good news is we're not going to take this lying down!!!" Sounds good to me, though I've had some of my better times lying down, more on that later. E-mail has truly revolutionized my life, and so this column. A plea for news last month triggered a response for which Jim and I are truly grateful. Keep it coming compadres! Before the e-mails there was a phone call that is the stuff of every class secretary's dreams. While napping one sunny Thursday afternoon, I was awakened by the telephone to find Doug Robinson's father on the line. An alum himself, he reads our column and was appreciative of our efforts yet chagrined by the absence of news relating to his son, of whom he is extremely proud. We had a wonderful chat and also determined that his daughter Pam 'BO is a neighbor of mine. This prompted me to hunt down Doug, who I found at his home in Hollis, N.H., one Sunday afternoon. He was enjoying his day off from being a self-described distributive development toolsmith-architect for Hewlett Packard. Say what? Wonderful how the world works. Thanks for the call, Mr. Robinson.

Ben Riley wired some news that has gone unnoticed for too long: "Still following the road less taken, Bill Holmes continues to rack up residency after residency while serving humanity at the same time. Bill obtained his M.D. after college and since then has obtained specialties in general surgery, plastic surgery, and pediatric plastic hand surgery. However, he still has not obtained a 'real' job yet, instead opting for 100-hour weeklong 'training' programs interspersed with sojourns to the Third World. Over the years Bill has put in several stints in Cambodian refugee camps on the Thai border and several trips to Africa and Central America. In each place he acts as a MASH surgeon, often operating without necessary supplies and at times even without electricity or water. Now he is on an incredible one-to one-and-a-half-year odyssey. First, he was in Burundi (during the coup and other disasters) from July through October '96, operating in the countryside where he would save someone from an immediate problem only to find that he or she had died of starvation one week later due to lack of hospital care. Now he is in Slovenia through April operating in a burns unit, and then he goes on to Nepal to help start a hospital for up to one more year. I am constantly amazed at what we '79s accomplish, but Bill's activities are really something extraordinary." Extraordinary indeed! You are the man, Holmsy!

And from Carol Frost: "I am a geology professor at the University of Wyoming, and have studied the rocks of the Laramie Mountains. These include the rocks most like those on the highlands of the moon, among other things. I developed a longdistance correspondence with the first person to map the Laramie Mountains, 94-year-old Katherine Fowler-Billings. (Her son George is an alumnus.) As a result of my questions she wrote her autobiography, in which she describes her early life in New England, her experiences as the first female grad student at the University of Wisconsin, and her Ph.D. work at Columbia. Among her adventures as she mapped the Laramie Mountains was a chance meeting with moonshiners! Next she spent three years in Africa mapping hematite, discovering molybdenum, and prospecting for gold. Later she continued to map the geology of New England while raising two children and carried on various conservation activities. Quite a lady.

"The book, Stepping Stones, has more than 40 period photographs and is beautifully done. And to my surprise, Kay dedicated it to me!" That's so sweet, Carol!!! We are all so blessed.

I'm out of space for now. Keep the wires burning everybody, "Though 'round the girdled earth we r0am...." Peace.

765 Teresita Blvd., San Francisco, CA 94127; (415) 337-7737; ; 7 Griffin St., Simsbury, CT 06070; (860) 651-0085, home; (800) 982-6810, work;

Bill Holmes ison an odysseyacting as aM.A.S.H.surgeon inBurundi,Slovenia, andNepal.Jeffrey '79

Pundit Regina Barreca '79, p. 22