1981

I hear from and see you all each and every day, it seems, all of us still very connected. I drank beers with Julie Koeninger and her husband, Peter D'Anieri, when they were in D.C. with their three boys this spring. I had coffee with Jerry Pierce-Santos and Howard Morse two weeks ago. Jeff Zimmerman, Scott Bucey, Larry Dunn and I have e-mailed back and forth about a great band from San Francisco named Minipop. John Mott and I nearly bonked into each other running in Rock Creek Park. Even Linkedln alerted me that Keith Hammonds had a new job.

"I'm starting up a new initiative for Ashoka, a nonprofit group that for 28 years has supported social entrepreneurs around the globe," Keith wrote. "My program links social entrepreneurship and journalism: We're looking to identify, fund and connect in cool ways entrepreneurs whose innovations promise to sustain and advanced journalism as a transformative social force. In practice that can mean a guy doing community-based radio in Nepal or another creating a network of news-cartoonists in Indian villages or a third training young bloggers in France's lower-class immigrant suburbs."

Keith no longer commutes into N.Y.C.; his headquarters is in the garage, with regular trips to D.C., and "I see my family for dinner almost every night." He finished that "as I've explored the context for journalism in most other countries, I've regained a deep appreciation for the freedom that reporters and editors in the United States mostly take for grantedeven if we don't always enjoy it responsibly."

It's a small world: B.G. Sykes wrote to tell me that his youngest, Stephanie, will be a frosh at Tabor Academy, where I taught for 10 years. B.G.'s other daughter Kimberly has a year more of high school and then hopes to go to the Naval Academy or Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

B.G. runs Sykes Marine Holdings, with offices in North Palm Beach, his Florida home three minutes from the office. He and wife Cathy will be on Cape Cod for at least half of the summer, their other home still in Harwichport, Massachusetts.

Got a great note from Len Washko, who's in Minnetonka, Minnesota, with his wife, Nannette, and three daughters. After 20 years in corporate finance Len, as he wrote, has "settled down as the COO for the Hamm Clinic, a nonprofit mental health clinic that keeps 30 professional therapists busy in downtown St. Paul. We have psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers in an integrated practice delivering the highest quality of ethical health care to depression patients in an outpatient setting. We are also involved in research, providing training to post graduates who are still earning their licenses, and public advocacy and health policy activism."

Len's wife, Nannette, is a physical therapist and true authority on impairments stemming from neurological deficits; people come from all over to see her about imbalance and vertigo problems. Their twins Sarah and Grace are 16, sophomores, varsity swimmers and talented artists, having been commissioned for a number of art projects, including public murals in Minneapolis. They run their own business designing Web sites, T-shirts, sports-team logos, stationary and jewelry. And third daughter Biz is no slouch: a frosh, she plays the sax in the orchestral, jazz and pep bands, is also a varsity swimmer and is a Kevin Garnett-like rebounder for the hoops team.

Len dreams "of tuition bills for Stanford, Rhode Island School of Design and (gulp) Dartmouth." And he sends his best to all of you.

And I do too. I was in Hanover this past weekend for my wife's 25th reunion, and I wished you all had been there with me. Cheers, friends.