1992

So yeah, reunion was great. Those of you that were there, I hope you had as great a time as I did. It was fantastic catching up with old friends and getting re-acquainted with long-lost pals. And, seriously, could the weather have been any nicer?

Congratulations to Elissa (McMillen) Aten, who did a great job running the show all weekend (having EBA's chicken sandwiches delivered to the tent on Friday night was the best call I've ever seen). Lynne (Schiffman) Delise was superb with the silent and live auctions, which raised more than $7,000 for the Tucker Foundation despite the fact that our most famous classmate, Aisha Tyler, was unable to make it. Those of you who ponied up for the various items, congratulations and thanks for helping out!

At this time I want to take the opportunity to thank Kate Aiken for all her service as our class president; as many of you may know by now, she stepped down following the reunion. Brant Rose will take her place. I think we all know Brant and how passionate he is about Dartmouth; he will do a great job going forward.

The good news for all of you is that, for another five years, you get to hear my yarns about your classmates. Yup, I've signed a new deal with DAM to write our Class Notes. Fantastic. Fire it up. Five more years of leafing through my 'Shmenu (oh yeah, I still have it!). At this time I am going on record as saying that guest columnists are more than welcome!

We are thinking about adding a new regular feature to the notes: "Where in the world is Nancy DeSa?" Our last correspondence came from Keystone, Colorado, where she attended Wendy Gruenberg's wedding to Carter Wray '97. As Nancy said, "I was supposed to keep track of all the alums in attendance but was having too much fun." Well done, Nancy.

Iiana Shulman Gutstein wrote in just after the reunion to send word that she and her husband, Ben, welcomed a new addition to the family on May 30. Rebecca Dylan Gutstein joins big sister Emma, who turned 2 in July. "We are adjusting to life with 'two under 2' and enjoying both of our daughters," said liana.

Those at reunion may have caught up with Nicole Clausing, but she wrote me before reunion and I am just getting around to it now (oops). Nicole spent six weeks this spring in Asia—"the highlight was taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Beijing to Moscow across China, Mongolia and Russia"—trying to sell articles about the trip. She claimed not to have much luck; however, she was recently published in TheBest Women's Travel Writing 2007. As Nicole said, "I'm proud of this for two reasons. One is that this is probably the only time you will ever see my name in the same table of contents as Barbara Kingsolver. The other is that the story features not one but two protagonists from the class of 1992: myself and Sarah Pettus. It takes place during Thanksgiving 1992, when Sarah was teaching English in China and I was back-packing through the country. It's about a holiday dinner we attempted, complicated by the fact that I managed to leave our turkey on a train headed for Inner Mongolia. Yup, true story."

There you go, people. The gauntlet has been laid down. Send me your worst holiday stories, even if they're 15 years old, and I'll still print them.

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