1981

New Haven pizza is simply the best. Sallys and Pepe's are iconic places that cause passionate and irrational behavior in people. I read on the Chowhound boards about a guy who, on a Saturday, will drive to New Haven from D.C. and back—an 11-hour roundtrip pizza, or as it's called in that town, "apizza," which is pronounced A-peas. I ate it a lot as a kid, living in the next town, and had the chance to enjoy some when I was home recently, with the requisite glass of chianti

Sue Lasko Sulisz did the same, when she was visiting her father, who still lives in North Branford, Connecticut, where Sue grew up. Right now Sues living in Michigan; her husband, Dennis, consults for the auto industry, and Sue told me that "virtually every house is for sale" in their neighborhood, as that industry continues its death throes. Sue works for Towers Perrin as an executive compensation consultant, with a specialty around not-for-profit health care. She also specializes in trying to keep her 12-year-old in correctly fitted shoes, as he is no doubt past the size 11 that he was in when she and I talked. As she told me, she and Dennis are "getting him ready for Dartmouth football."

I had a nice e-mail conversation with classmate Ted Morgan; he and wife Kathryn and 14-year-old son Owen live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, "in a cozy bungalow, not far from Lake Michigan." Kathryn is education director for Discovery World, a nonprofit organization dedicated to water issues, sustainability and innovation. As for Ted, he's "been in professional theater for most of my career," with eight years at the major regional theater in Milwaukee, the last six as associate artistic director. Since 2003 Ted has been freelancing—he has a very understanding spouse—"doing some professional, some academic and some commercial work, plus various other adventures: sailing on the Atlantic as a deckhand on a wooden ship, adapting and directing a play in a medium-security prison, writing for a few magazines, running a summer camp and so on." Kind reader, I repeat: Ted has a very understanding spouse.

Ted relayed a great story of his work in a Milwaukee charter school, where he developed and taught a creative writing class. Ted " had two ninthand loth-grade classes per semester for 10 weeks. I had them write creatively and primarily autobiographically from a variety of angles—moving from looking at their personal history to their present life to their future." After eight weeks he culled the writings of each student for a story, threaded them together, crafting a monologue for each, and then handed each a clean copy of the monologue to read. Ted gave his charges the option to keep their monologue private, share it with others or have him or someone else perform it. In one class "I had time to weave monologues together into a kind of choral poem, which excited them, once they heard it aloud. Needless to say, I got a lot out of it, too, and its something I hope to do again and develop further."

Just got off the phone with classmate Carolyn Samiere who's an enforcement attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission office in San Francisco. She helps catch bad guys that foment financial fraud. While we were talking, she got an e-mail from her 13-year-old daughter Soleil, who had just boarded a plane in Tel Aviv after an "amazing adventure," as Carolyn said, with classmates from San Fran's Brandeis Hillel Day School, where Soleil's an eighth-grader. I bet that she will have many great stories to tell her mum.

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