1989

I received a humorous and reflective note from RobClark a few months ago, recalling his own brush with a Brodsky memory—on a slow train to a job interview with the IRS in D.C. (he is a tax attorney). Apparently Harper's reprinted our graduation address and spurred Rob to respond to my last column's attempt to put some meaningful gloss on several years' worth of collected class anecdotes.

I thought I would share some excerpts from his note—they address (or, rather redress) my provocation about why the lack of news and fill this column space better than I can from my desk chair here in my federal office building. "Whatever those things are that might have made us uncommunicative... are the same things that prove that Brodsky really was totally wrong. Or maybe just out of place. The setting certainly was right for his little feel- good commentary, what a chilly, damp morning and being thrown out of Dartmouth and all the optimism of the spring in Tiananmen Square having been crushed just a week before. Succumb to boredom? *!*%#....Boredom is the province of the uninspired and unimaginative."

Well cheers to defying (?) Brodsky. You are right—habituation, not boredom may be the issue. And just because nothing new ever happens is no reason to embrace cynicism more than you would otherwise. And I am convinced too that "a time for everything" includes many different things that will keep life interesting. None of us is limited in scope.

No longer new-fangled, Rob has survived an LL.M. program in tax, is a tax attorney, and is facing his thirties optimistically with his wife, Beth. Bob Beadel is building his law practice in Boston; JoeCerniglia has also put roots down in Boston. Dave Green and his wife, Juliette Bianco '94, have a son, Maxwell. WalterColsman got married last year and is living in San Francisco. Scott Ellison, a corporate attorney, lives in Manchester, N.H., with his wife, Tara, a nursing student, and their black lab Pemigewasset. Scott and Tara got engaged over New Year's 1998 at Dartmouth's Second College Grant and got married in a chapel at the base of Mt. Whiteface last June.

Thanks for the great note, Rob—l am sure there will be an obstetrician in the crowd at reunion for the birth of your first child in mid-June. Any takers?

127 3rd S.. NE, Washington, DC 20002;

Vermont grass-based dairy farmer Chris Bailey and Deanna Emberly Bailey, who, when not caring for two-year-old son Solon, is an agricultural educator.

June 18-20