1968

Snail mail and cell phone calls since the last column. The snails brought me a book: Twentieth-Century American Fiction on Screen, courtesy of editor Bart Palmer, noted in the frontispiece as now at Clemson byway of Yale and New York University. I'll bring it to the reunion to share with the class. Dave Loring wrote to say he'd attended a November breakfast at the USS Constitution honoring the first U.S. Marine office to die in combat, against the HMS Guerriere in the War of 1812. Other Dartmouth attendees included Drew Ley '67, Bernie Lovely '67 and Nate Fick '99. Stamped mail also brought sad news of two deaths: Jeff Freirich, for whom there will be an obituary in a future magazine, died of pancreatic cancer; and Elva Mikula, who with her husband, Tom, was part of the Hanover ABC House. Classmates who were part of the ABC program may remember them fondly.

On to the electrons, written and spoken. In support of 40th reunion yearbook, currently in creative preparation by Dick Olson, I contacted assorted Tri-Kaps who hadn't answered the initial call. Steve Calvert wrote that he and Patti had spent a week in N'Awlins on a church-sponsored mission to help the Katrina recovery and plan to return again in the spring. Steve is back in Rhode Island and working on a new career, of which I want to learn more!

Bobby Lynn, still in Minneapolis, had a couple big pieces of news: the first that he retired as a judge of 19 years this past April and had gone into consulting in alternate dispute resolution with wife Patty; second piece of news was that his heart tried to do a little retirement during a September visit to Oregon and he had assorted adventures getting from a local hospital to Portland for five days of care.

Allan Ackerman is a management consultant in a small firm in Chicago. After Dartmouth he went to Harvard School of Architecture, interrupted by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sojourn in Vietnam, and did energy-saving consulting in the Boston area until moving to Chicago in the early 19905. That is where he met second wife Martha. His big news, like too many of us these days, is he is a cancer survivor, with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma five years behind him now.

Pete Zack, too, is dealing with the big C, in his case, prostate. For the past nearly four years he has been doing the dietary and minimizing sugar route and his PSA is pretty steady, but he does plan to get a round of new tests soon. Pete is still director of the Maine Energy Education Program, where he and staff of four travel all over the state to present programs to grades 4 through 12. He even has a hybrid car, courtesy of the state. Margaret is active as always, as a director and treasurer of their nearby health center and as associate director of Spurwink, a program that runs group homes.

More news next column—it doesn't all fit! And be sure to pencil in those June reunion dates!

157 Sandwich Road, Plymouth, MA02360-2503; (508) 746-5894; david.peck@childrens.haniard.edu

REUNION June 9-12 2008