1981
I turned 40 in a Hampton Inn in Macon, Ga., nursing a sore neck from a car accident the previous day. Heading out to a high school in rural Crawford County, where I was working that week, I got bopped by a woman taking her daughter to school. None of us was hurt—just the cars. The woman at the Avis counter gave me a look when she turned over the keys to another Dodge. Even my birthday dinner that evening, alone at a restaurant just down the road from the motel, was a crick in the neck: Macon was packed those few days, with all of coastal South Carolina and Georgia heading inland due to Hurricane Floyd. Too much noise, too much smoke. The young woman bartending barely got me the right dinner.
But the folks at Crawford County High School knew how to treat a newly inaugurated 40-year-old—in fact I'd encourage anyone turning that magical number to head out from Macon on Route 80, about a 20 minute drive west to the high school. They know what to say. Just be careful at the intersection at Knoxville Road.
And when I got home to D.C., after a white-knuckle flight into Reagan National, Scott Von Eschen's e-mail was waiting for me, another Virgo and another guy who knows what to say.
"This time," he wrote, "I have you beat. I turned 40 this past Sunday." The Old Man was getting ready to fly to Vancouver to spend a week kayaking rivers in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California. "I'm going with two of my employees, and we're just gonna spend the week paddling a new river each day, then driving on to the next. We'll just keep working our way south."
Scott had a great summer with his outdoor adventures company, Adventures Cross Country—"Like most businesses these days," he wrote, "we're just riding on the economy wave"—and his daughters and wife Kristin are well, too.
"Campbell had her first soccer game yesterday," her coach confided, "and got in there and mixed it up with everyone. Kristin and I were stunned."
Steve Kroll turned 40 in August, but it went unnoticed by his wife and kids. "Having a 4- and 2-year old around the house," he told me, "prevents any sort of time-consuming celebration. I guess I'll have to wait until I turn 50."
And according to Patsy Fisher-Harris,Alain Moreaux is doing something rather cool for his Big Day. The Eurail pass also turns 40 this year and offers 40 percent discounts to people celebrating that same birthday. Alain and Bernie Sheehan are taking advantage of the deal and touring France together this fall.
"How they are managing to do this," wondered Patsy and the rest of humanity, "without wives and kids is a question I have no answer for. It certainly would not go over big in my household."
Reunion this coming June, classmates. Watch this column for details but make those Southwest Air reservations into Manchester for Friday the 16th. I will be there with an Avis car waiting for you—that is, if you want to ride with me.
Abner Oakes IV, 4807 Dover Court, Bethesda, MD 20816; Aoakes@mrsh.org; 1047 Lincoln Blvd., Apt. 10, Santa Monica, CA 90403; Sgodchaux@aol.com
Soccer mom Pat Berry '81,p.40
Gregory Slayton '81 in the news, p. 47
