1989

Many thanks to Rob Clark and Charlie Williams for providing me with electronic fodder for this column. I've never met either one in person, but when I do I'm quite sure it will be entertaining.

Rob, a tax consultant for Coopers and Lybrand in Boston, writes that he recently jetted over to Amsterdam on the same flight with Alan Dershowitz and the Queen of Sweden. He didn't notice the former and didn't know what the latter looks like. Why he bothered to tell me this, I'm not sure, but evidently someone told him about his airborne close encounter after the fact.

Anyway, while in Amsterdam, Rob ran into Dartmouth prof Peter Travis at an Italian restaurant, where the two shared fond memories of a Beoivulf seminar.

Rob writes that Walter Colsman is the chief financial officer and Mr. Fixit for Planet Live International, an Internet startup that specializes in Webcasting. Rob didn't know what that means, and neither do I. The two got together for dinner in San Francisco recently. Rob ate sushi, and Walter ate sea urchin. Not for the faint of heart.

Rob adds that Dave Green has bought a house in Orford, and he frequently goes kayaking and mountain biking. He and Juliette, his significant other, just got a cat who apparently enjoys gardening. Again, I don't know what this means. Perhaps the animal assists in fertilizer production. Rob also writes that Wayne Shammel lives in Oregon, where he is general counsel for an Indian reservation, and Geeta Anand is a reporter for the Boston Globe. Finally, Mr. Clark wants to know whatever happened to Rob Feinstein.

Charlie Williams e-mailed me that he quit his job in Boston analyzing telecommunications markets in Eastern Europe, and has relocated to Rock Hill, S.C., to be with his fiancee, Erin. The couple was due to get married on a hilltop in the North Carolina mountains in June.

Charlie was planning to spend the summer hiking, mountain biking, and Whitewater paddling. This fall he's off to Ann Arbor for a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan business school, where they have an institute devoted to studying the transition in Eastern Europe.

"My main task during the Ph.D. program will be convincing Erin that she should quit her job as the cops reporter at the Charlotte Observer and leave behind the mountains and Carolina sunshine to join me in poverty in flat, wintry Michigan," Charlie writes. "In the meantime, we'll join the ranks of commuting couples."

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