1980

Round the girdled earth I roamed just before this column was due (but I did not pull an all-nighter to finish it). Ross Jaffe was undaunted by the early hour in California when I rang him from London. As a medical doctor and founding partner of Versant Ventures—a leading venture capital investor in medical devices and biomedical technologies—Ross is used to spending time with lawyers at odd hours. For nonmedical excitement Ross needn't go far: He lives a half mile from the San Andreas Fault, races automobiles and has just invested in a Broadway show.

I caught up with Katie Wiley Laud, who explained that both during and after college she marveled at the athleticism of many of our classmates. Among them was Carlie Geer, who went on to become an Olympic-medalist rower. Katie happily described how a few years ago, inspired by those classmates, she finally decided to pursue a sport—running— on a serious basis. For her 50th birthday Katie, having trained for months, entered a half marathon in Vermont. She finished it and was catching her breath when she saw a somewhat familiar figure in the bicycle escort for the lead marathoners close on her heels. Familiar indeed: In a poetic moment, it was Carlie Geer. Katie switches to business attire when she attends board meetings for a bank and when she acts as CFO of a nonprofit that builds environmentally friendly "workforce housing."

Speaking of athletes who were active in college, I had a nice chat with Ed Laux, who played basketball in our era. Ed is the head of equity trading at the renascent Cantor Fitzgerald firm on Wall Street. As has happily happened with many of us, Ed rekindled at least one friendship since our 25th: He sees Dave Broil in Nantucket. Ed celebrated his 50th with a family trip to Italy and Ireland. His rallying cry: "Ballybunion on my birthday." I mistakenly thought that was a single malt scotch; Ed explained that it was an Irish golf course. In other words, he had "green grass and brown beer" on his birthday. Had it been three months earlier on St. Patrick's Day, it would've been brown grass and green beer.

Speaking further of athletics, the College announced in June that Cindy Biondi and her late husband, Mike '79, have given a major gift to create Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park as the new home of Dartmouth baseball. The key renovation is a new artificial turf that (barring snow, that is) will allow the team to practice and play in the early spring. It is amazing how well the team has done over the years—from Red Rolfe '31 himself, the famous Yankee, to the likes of Jim Beattie '76 and Brad Ausmus '91—with modest facilities. One of their secrets: great coaches who were great recruiters. That includes current coach Bob Whalen, with whom Mike had a close friendship and who will now have another tool in his recruiting arsenal.

Merle Adelman alerted me to an article by Mark Liponis in Parade magazine. It would appear that Mike, who is the medical director at Canyon Ranch spas, is a regular contributor to Parade. When I "googled" him (my kids taught me that newverb) I discovered a variety of interesting articles and noted that Mark is the author of at least one book. If there is a general theme it is about ways to stay and to feel young even when you're over 50, so you might want to google him yourself.