These columns are always about connecting to grow and sustain the unique, active, and productive fellowship of the Dartmouth community. However, largely because of age, geographic separation, and economic priorities, large-size, in-person group meetings have become quite impractical for many classmates. Class committee mini-reunion chair Norm Silverman has repeatedly proposed micro-reunions as viable alternatives which can be shared via this medium and The Transmission. As an example, David Gang, Sherwood Guernsey, Peter Hofman, Don Marcus, and Mark Waterhouse recently met up for lunch in Lenox, Massachusetts, after which our aforementioned newsletter editor stopped at a previously unfamiliar beer maker’s facility to bring his brewery product sampling total to 817. (Anybody wish to take up the challenge?)

Class polymath R. Barton Palmer recently broke in a new Mustang GT on a drive from Atlanta to visit me and chair a symposium at the Tennessee Williams Festival. He’s also just back from work visits to Poland and Potsdam.

Dave Robbins kindly wrote to admit that, with the exception of Jim Henle, he hasn’t been in contact with classmates or the College for some years, so he provided an update on his situation since his 40th reunion book entry. After their retirements, the Robbinses traded suburban Connecticut for Tucson, Arizona, in 2016. In the late 1990s and into his 70s, Dave engaged in long-distance, multi-week bicycling tours along both coasts, down the Mississippi, around the Great Lakes, and across country. (I wonder if he ever ran into—so to speak—fellow cyclist Jim Lawrie.) He remains active with gym visits, also solves math problems, and reads extensively. The two Robbins daughters have careers in anthropology/gerontology and advertising. Overall, Dave describes a personal environment of happiness, health, and prosperity. Well deserved!

Greetings from the Gulf!

—Jack Hopke, 157 Joy St., River Ridge, LA 70123; (504) 388-2645; jackhopke@yahoo.com