1985

Whenever I see a crowd I often wonder, what is important to these people? How do they spend their days? I think about our classmates and wonder what's important to them and what they're doing. It got me thinking about 2009 and things I want to do. Perhaps you want to do some of these same things. Perhaps you don't and, if so, that's cool, as long as you're planning to do something.

My list: Learn to play a video game with my kids so it doesn't seem like a waste of time. Be a better listener. Go see two movies in one day at the theater. Go on a group trip with some friends. Water-ski for the first time in 15 years. Feel safe when my 16-year- old is driving. Stay out late dancing at some club with my wife. Learn to play a new card game. Use more coupons. Be more charitable. Attend church more often. Spend a weekend with my sisters and their families instead of just talking about it. Reduce time on the cell phone. Send in news to my class secretary (oh, sorry, that's on your list). Convince my kids that yardwork is fun. Read a book by the fireplace on a weeknight. Give away old clothes and T-shirts. See the Detroit Lions win a game. Be more tolerant of parents who only only about how great their kids are. Improve at Guitar Hero. Be more patient with lousy drivers. Fly a kite at the beach. Run at least four road races. Still not have a Blackberry. Take a music lesson. Learn to do a backflip. Do 100 situps and 100 pushups every day. Reach out to old friends just to say hi. Improve my batting practice pitching for my son's baseball team. Learn the names of all my kids' teachers. Be a driving parent when my kids want to go out. Chaperone a school dance. Take a 100-mile bike ride to the beach. Take a walk in the pouring rain. Wear sunglasses more often. Convince the rest of my family it's okay to kill spiders and stinkbugs in the house instead of screaming for me to do so. Go out trick-or-treating again. Volunteer in some meaningful way. Cook Sunday brunch more often. Write better columns for the AlumniMagazine. Make plans to attend our 25th reunion. Yes, all this and about a hundred other things. What about you?

For the “Who says these columns don’t write themselves” brigade, I offer the following (via cut and paste) from Matt Dickerson: “Just wanted to let you know that my latest book—my seventh published since graduation—has just hit the market. (It has an official copyright date of January and an official release date of December 2008, but it has shipped and is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.). It’s from the University Press of Kentucky, in its Culture of the Land series (on new agrarianism). The title is Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: the Environmental Vision of C.S. Lewis. A Library Journal review www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6607290.html is available online. I am a (full) professor in the program of environmental studies in the computer science department at Middlebury College, where I also teach in the writing program. I am also the director of the New England Young Writers Conference at Breadloaf.”

Oh yeah, Eric Wilinski got married in October in California and there were a ton of Alpha Chis there. Now that was something that was important to all those who were there.

118 Ringwood Road, Rosemont,PA 19010; (610) 525-4541; slampong@aol.com;83 Pecksland Road, Greenwich,CT 06831; (203) 552-0070; dahlleslie@yahoo.com