1981

I often write to—plead with— classmates for news, and I do get it. I really liked Liz Krahmer Keating's rather nonc halant response to my request. "Well, I did find time to get married about two years ago," she wrote. Guess the younger sisters of both Liz and husband Bob were best friends, "and so it took us a while to figure out that there was more going on for the two of us than just making our sisters happy," she continued. Poor Bob had to be The Spouse of a Doctoral Candidate—Liz was getting her accounting Ph.D. from MlT's Sloan School—and read stuff for her when none of Liz's committee would make the time to do so. Was that included in their vows? To have and to hold and to read dissertation drafts and make comments that are not too biting since we have to see each other every day for the rest of our lives? I do.

Now that that's over, both have moved to Chicago, Liz to be an assistant professor of accounting at Northwestern's Kellogg School, Bob to do the high-tech thing at Computer Sciences Corp. Since you'll not be asked to read and make comments on any of Liz's writing, contact her at .

More Chicago news: Debbie and BruceMcKenzie had their first child, Kevin Bruce, this past March, as Bruce was becoming a senior vice president at Chicago's Northern Trust Cos., in the personal trust department. "In fact we opened Kevin's minor exclusion trust last week," wrote Bruce, "so that we can start saving for his Dartmouth education', class of '22." In addition to work and family, Bruce serves on the board of Breakthrough Urban Ministries, a social service organization that provides shelter, food, and various other services to the homeless—addiction counseling, job training, tutoring, low-income housing, and so on. Each year Breakthrough serves thous ands of Chicago's homeless and works with many as they make the full journey from homelessness back into society. "Since I spend most of my work time with very wealthy people," said Bruce, "it's great to keep a healthy perspective on life by working with those less fortunate."

Bruce is also active in his church—the occasional preacher and teacher—and stays in touch with Greg Slayton, HaroldWilliams, Jim Steinwedell 'BO, and Beth Johnston 'B2. E-mail him at .

You know me and books, and that's why I leave you with a delightful poem I just found in Linda Pastan's most recent collection, a poem called "The Bookstall." Just looking at them I grow greedy, as if they were freshly baked" loaves waiting on their shelves to be broken open—that one and that—and I make my choice in a mood of exalted luck, browsing among them like a cow in sweetest pasture.

For life is continuous as long as they wait to be read—these inked paths opening into the future, page after page, every book its own receding horizon. And I hold them, one in each hand, a curious ballast weighing me here to the earth.

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