1961

When you read this, it will be almost March, and I hope spring will be just around the corner. But the new century started out strangely—four snows in eight days in January, with more predicted. Winston-Salem was on the edge of the big one that piled near-record snows from the Carolinas on up the Eastern seaboard.

Though most of us turned 60 last year, and Ralph Barton turned 60 precisely at the start of the new century, the clock keeps ticking. Every day, it seems, brings more class birthdays. A dozen more '61s turned 60 in January, including TonyHoran on the 2nd, Barry Fentin and LeeHeap on the 3rd, Phil Peters on the 6th, Fred Schwab on the 8th, Bob Wendell on the 10th, Tom Theodore on the 13th, Stan Bates and Dave Cook on the 21st, Tim Grumbacher on the 23rd, BobFuller on the 24th and Bill Sheehan on the 29th.

There are still a surprisingly large number of guys standing on the threshhold of 60. I guess they skipped a grade somewhere along the way and got to Dartmouth a year earlier than the rest of us.

Among them: Emanuel Ackerman (November 4), Jaime Alfaro (June 20), Otter Anderson (February 19), ShellyBaroff (March 3), Steven Bates (February 22), John Beckert (May 23), Dave Blake (June 5), Bill Blue (April 6), HowardBovers (August 5), Charlie Boynton (February 15), Charlie Brown (February1), Jeff Brown (February 7), David Clark (April 26), Andrew Cohen (February 3), William Cohen (August 16), GeorgeCole (May 10), class vice president Duane"Doberman" Cox (April 3), SteveCrisafulli (February 13), Richard Field (February 5), William "Fig" Figilis (May 15), Ronald Forbes (September 21), MattFriedman (March 10), Pablo Gartner (June 3), Hank Gerfen (April 24), JimGifford (March 3), Dave Hally (April 16), Peter Holbrook (April 13), Dan Jackson (June 21), Bruce Johnson (June 6), SteveKirschner (March 29), Tim Knox (May 6), Ken Kolb (February 20), Noel Kuhrt (June 29), Art Latimer (September 26), David Laughlin (February 17), HalLevenson (March 14), Bob Lieblich (August 21), Clyde McAllister (June 29), Henry McGowan (June 17), BobMclndoe (March 17), Tom McLaughlin (March 17), Tom Mealey (April 20), Mike"Robert Frost" Murphy (June 22), BillMurr (March 30), Chip Myers (February 13), Frank Norman (February 25), KeithOber (September 15), Dan Paradis (May 30), Ron Picket (April 17), Art Provisor (May 6), Fredrick Reed (February 10), Bob Robbin (February 1), A1 Rozycki (May 6), Tom Sawyer (February 17), AbSchwebel (April 7), Lawrence Shaw (August 3), Bill Shure (April 5), ElliotSinger (September 30), David Steinberg (July 20), Bob Strumpf (February 23), Ted Tapper (March 30), Dan Tracy (October 26), Tom Whitmore (March 13) and Gary Whittaker (October 1). Whew.

Clip this column and send 'em a card or flowers on their birthdays to welcome them into, well, Conger calls it "geezerhood." We probably missed a few—Alumni Records does not show birthdays for everyone. But I guess it's an unusual way of getting a number of classmates into the column, some of whom I know have not appeared in the 23 years I've been writing.

Several columns ago, we talked about the "accident" of pairing on birthdays. See how many pairs you can find on the birthday list.

Oh, we'll still have a couple more 60th birthdays to go after this year. Here are the "kids" who don't turn 60 until 2001: Richard Raskin (January 21, 2001) and George Lamp1 (May 19, 2001). That's less than a month before our 40th Reunion on June 11-14, 2001, in Hanover!

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 20157-1015; rconn@wfubmc.edu