Ladies and gentlemen of 1956, as we approach year end, it comes to mind how we handle the adversity that stalks us! A Seattle classmate, who has saved my life twice, grows dahlias. He occasionally falls, can’t get up, calls the fire department. They come and get him on his feet and back to work! I spoke with Sue and Brad Leonard in Missoula, Montana. Brad took second in the 50- and 100-meter sprints at the Montana Special Olympics this spring and qualified for the nationals. He has endured high water and floods and is forever young! July 3 I slithered out of a central Washington lake, crawling like a reptile out of my float tube. Four nice rainbows, seven hours kicking around, and my legs were shot! Couldn’t stand up. Didn’t our ancestors slide out from the ooze? Jack Tamagni sent a recent article about Tom Marvel’s son, Jonathon ’82, and his new architectural creation—a splendid, 36-floor co-op in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Apple close to the tree! Pren Carnell checked in from the Albany, New York, area—family and volunteer work provide succor. Finally, our class poet laureate Gerry Finkle closes out the Year of the Poem with his awesome and prophetic “America the Beautiful.”

Sand castles on the beach await the tide,

The inexorable tide that does not wait,

And dreams vanish in the light of day,

And disappear into timeless time.

Pax Romana stretched across the world,

Now its ruins lie buried with its fame.

And now my beloved country slips away,

Soon to become lost in history’s space.

America the beautiful, where are you now?

Where are the alabaster cities,

Where the clear and spacious skies,

And brotherhood from sea to sea?

Was it a dream that could not be fulfilled,

An idea to make a more perfect union

That was forged, and then again, re-forged?

We are in peril of loss that’s lost forever.

And the oceans are rising.

So rest well, Joel Ash, the Lone Pine will never die! See you in “The Woods!”

—J.W. Crowley, 15612 SE 42nd Place, Bellevue, WA 98006; (425) 746-1824; crowleyjack58@gmail.com