1983

Ho-hum. For many of you—a good number, I hope—this column will seem sadly anticlimactic as you will have just returned from our unparalleled 25th reunion. You should soon be receiving your reunion book, put together by the tireless Jenny Hanley Ross. Busy as she is, Jenny, who lives in Andover, Massachusetts, with husband Mitch, recently launched an online organic spice business, www.smithandtruslow.com, with Jean Gleason. "Jean is president and chief bottle washer—literally—out of Denver," Jenny explains, "and I'm the marketing arm here in the East."

Mark Flessel had the good (?) luck to sit next to an old high school friend of mine at a dinner in Hillsborough, California, where he lives with wife Laura and daughters Ally (15) and Katherine (12). That's how I came to hear about his new job at Google, where a coworker is one of his own high school buddies, Alan Eagle, who, according to Mark, "writes speeches for CEO Eric Schmidt and hangs out with all kinds of cool people." (Trivia break: Mark, Alan and Gordon Dyal all went to high school together in Palo Alto.) "I've seen Maren Christensen a few times since she moved back to northern California with her husband, Bill, and son Brady," Mark reports, "and occasionally I see Martha Gerhan. Frankly, I wish I saw Rick Herrick, who lives in San Francisco and runs an ad agency, more often but I don't."

Classmates, this news made me sad. All these '83s nearby and no one ever calls me. The upside is that I'm left with plenty of time to peruse the newspapers of cities not my own. How many of you caught Toby Brewster's charming piece in The Boston Globe about the slings and arrows of applying to college? Toby knows whereof he speaks. He's the director of college advising at St. Paul's and before that he worked in admissions at Harvard. Toby is married to Becca Glimp '84 and has four boys, Will (15), Eli (13), Peter (10) and Seth (7)."I've recently been in touch with Peter Ellis, who is teaching at the Kent-Denver School in Colorado," Toby writes, "and with Eric Sachsse, who is always eating breakfast at Lous whenever I visit Hanover."

I had to use bribery (Tina Poulter Elzeneiny's current e-mail) to get any info out of Kurt Bredenbeck, who writes, "I'm single, no children—still too young, aren't we?" (Tell that to Jenny, whose daughter is a sophomore at Laurentian University in Ontario.) Kurt lives "between a penthouse overlooking St. Paul's Cathedral in London and a weekend house made out of a converted barn just outside of Bath." Those of you thinking that a trip to visit Kurt might be in order, the guest room possibilities are greater than you think. Kurt is the founder, creator and co-owner of the Hoxton, a 2,00-bed hotel just north of the financial district in London. He has also finished a coffee table book called Vintage Style: Grand Hotels of Africa and the Orient. Gee, Kurt, the research must have been brutal. Kurt is currently looking for an American publisher, so "any good Dartmouth publishing contacts are much appreciated."

Last but not least, kudos to Michael Behn, whistle-blowing attorney in a case against pharmacy giant CVS, who thanks to his efforts had to pay nearly $37 million for overcharging the government for Medicare patients and switching generic drugs for more expensive ones. Yikes! As our 25th reunion only serves to underline, the day when we're all eligible for Medicare is only getting closer. Here's to our 30th!

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