1960

Going to quality places enhances any experience, and just as our June 7 65 th birthday reunion dinner at the Art Institute of Chicago was a wonderfully memorable occasion, certainly the plans to hold our October 5 mini-reunion dinner in the Webster Room at the Hanover Inn promise one as well.

It is just one of the advantages of going to Hanover at the peak of fall color, rather than wait for the regular Homecoming weekend that the Inn will be available to us.

Also at the October 3-5 reunion, together with the classes of '59 and '61, we're going to try something we never have done before: assigning to all comers the book that incoming freshmen are required to read before reporting this fall.

It is Pattern Recognition by the Canadian author William Gibson, published by G.P. Putnam's Sons and selling for $25.95. The first chapter can be found on our class Web site, www.alum.dartmouth.org/classes/60/. On Friday, October 3, faculty and students will join in a panel discussion before our classes on the book, which fictionally examines aspects of the Internet and the post 9-11 crisis.

Roger Hanlon and Rick Roesch have been arranging the reunion, which will also feature the usual parties, hikes, games and meetings.

It will be a fitting sequel to our great Chicago reunion, so ably arranged, primarily by Barry Mac Lean and wife Mary Ann, Walter Freedman and wife Karen Harrison, Jim Brannen and wife Marty and Alan Danson and wife Sylvia.

The cocktail party at Barry's 52nd-story apartment above Michigan Avenue and the brunch at Walters townhouse gave us opportunities to see how splendidly decorated are the homes of even modesdy prosperous Chicagoans.

But we should not have been surprised. In the boat tour of the city's architectural masterpieces, we were informed it is the world's leader in architectural design and decoration.

This was an occasion above all for the 72 classmates attending to see each other and share the experiences of the 43 years since we graduated. Particularly welcome when such reunions are held is getting to better know classmates we haven't seen in some time or don't know all that well.

Among those in Chicago were Rory Mullett, who has a career in conflict resolution from his home in Durango, Colorado; Steve Gell, whose private law practice in zoning and land use in Washington, D.C., followed 19 years with the city as an assistant corporate counsel; and David Bond, a longtime college professor in Vancouver who joined his wife, Diane, in lecturing us at the reunion on their book, Future Perfect, on preparing for retirement.

When Alan Danson told me of his four separate climbs to the top of 17,887-foot Popocatepetl volcano outside Mexico City, before the present eruptive activity began, his account was, I felt, reason enough to have gone to the reunion.

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