1980

The Los Angeles Times ran an article last August titled "Alums Put Best Feats Forward." Describing the phenomenon of class notes, the article criticized "the notes' frequently self-satisfied style " According to the newspaper, The Elements of Style author E. B. White lambasted class notes "as a platform for brazen self-glorification and a sort of windiness.'" Alone in my office as I read these hurtful words, I reacted: "I am," I said, but no one heard, not even the chair. Now dawns a new day.

Ed Rowland and his wife, Amy, had twin daughters, Helen 6: and Ileana, on January 16, 1997. The twins join their older sister Lainie, 2 1/2 years their senior. Well, what is so great about that? Some lady in lowa had seven babies at one time. Also, after five years in Puerto Rico, the Rowlands have moved to Vienna, Austria, where Ed is vice president of strategy and development lor Central and Eastern Europe for Kraft Jacobs Suchard. Ed apparently cannot get a job m the United States.

Jennifer Ruh also seems to think that twins are something special. Born October 4, 1997, Jennifer's babies Carolyn Anne and Wesley Harlie Rider II join their older brother Christopher. Harlie Rider? And he isn't even the first one! Born to be wild. Jennifer's e-mail address is .

Call this the advanced-maternal-age column. Priscilla Eaton Gumina and her husband (neither Priscilla nor Jennifer identified their husbands by name, but then again, their roles were over months ago) had their first baby, Jack, in February of last year. Priscilla is now a self-described domestic goddess, having abandoned her job as assistant dean at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. While there she admitted Carl Hjelm (presumably as a student), who at Dartmouth is best remembered for his accidents. Priscilla and Carl would like us to think that his admission and her departure are unrelated. Adam Eisgrau is a lobbyist for the American Library Association. Quiet, please. Merle Adleman wants us all to pledge and pay early to the Alumni Fund, and thereby avoid additional phone calls and letters. But if you lead a lonely and pathetic life, those solicitations may be your only contact with the outside world or the lost promise of your youth, now wasted. Flappy 40th Birthday to you.

If you have an eminent domain problem in Florida, give Rob Daisley a call at the law firm of Todd R. Stern and Associates in Tampa. What does it mean to be an eminent domain lawyer in Florida? Who cares?

The University of Chicago Press has published Induced Responses to Herbivory by lan Baldwin and Richard Karban. I swear, I don't make this stuff up.

If you had been at St. Raphael's Church on the Hawaiian island of Kauai on September 12, 1997, you could have witnessed the marriage of John Wilen to Mary Jo Shotting. Of course, you weren't there, because you weren't invited. Back home in Piano, Texas, John and Mary Jo had a wedding reception.

Peter Maginot and Chuck Muenzen were there, and Phil Gibbs '81 wrote with the details. Peter's law firm, Davis and Maginot, advertises on television in St. Louis. Chuck is with California Casualty. John works for Frito-Lay, where he is at least president or king. Mary Jo is the queen of her big restaurant company. Phil enclosed a photograph from the reception, graphically demonstrating how disposable cameras offer new frontiers in wedding photography. The picture cannot be reprinted here, nor can I completely describe it, except to say that there were five moons out that night in Piano.

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