Homecoming took place on a near-perfect weekend in early October. The New Hampshire and Vermont foliage was at peak. The weather behaved and more than 30 classmates, spouses and children joined. I was not among them: The downside of my 60-mpg car is few appropriate parts are available. I suffered a blowout in western Massachusetts and failed to reach Hanover because it took six hours to get a proper tire to the shop. (Yes, that was I on the side of I-91). I did manage to play golf nearby (notch course No. 299 onto the roster) so the Hanover Country Club trees are safe from my errant shots for another year.
Our solicitation for youtube.com videos brought two for now, but also promises of “yes, later” from multiple classmates. So we hope this starts a trend! A picture is worth a thousand words; a short video could be exponentially better. So our first entrants for 2013 are: Brian Moore and Melinda Lopez. Brian is director of neuropathology at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois. His video about the Cross-Fit gym he owns is skillfully shot with his Dartmouth diploma in the background: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAHBezthxuk. Melinda writes: “I was awarded a three-year Mellon Foundation Fellowship and am currently playwright-in-residence at the Huntington Theatre in Boston.” Melinda has a play opening in March at the Huntington Theatre called Becoming Cuba. Advance praise for it is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzrMEWAQ3QE&feature=player_embedded. The secretary’s prize for next year will be to the YouTube videographer who implants something Dartmouth-y into her or his video that is identified by the most ’86 viewers. Y’all have six issues to impress the voters.
Tom Pennekamp wrote: “I am living and working in Miami as a trial lawyer handling personal injury, wrongful death and complex commercial litigation matters. I am also a member of the Orange Bowl Committee.” When pressed for details, Tom replied: “I handled a case against an abortion clinic in Miami where a child was born alive in the clinic and they killed the baby. We had the clinic shut down, the owners prosecuted and the doctor’s license stripped in Florida. I worked on the Value Jet disaster as well as the plane crash that killed the young pop singer Aaliyah in the Bahamas, among others. I also handled one of the largest voluntary settlements in Florida history, which was $17.5 million for a victim of a scuba accident at a Ritz Carlton in Jamaica. I am single and raising three kids ages 16, 16 (twins) and 12. Now as to Orange Bowl business and team selection, it is more complicated than you can imagine! I will be happy when we move forward with the new playoff system.”
Lee Merkle Raymond wrote: “We were unable to attend the 25th reunion because we were living in Sydney, Australia. June is the middle of the winter and of the school year. I was there to run the corporate debt team for Bank of America and to integrate the newly acquired Merrill Lynch investment banking group into the lending process at the bank. We came back to California in time for our girls to start high school and middle school with their classmates in Palo Alto. It was a whirlwind 18 months and we took full advantage of being in Australia. The people are notoriously friendly, even the investment bankers! The girls adjusted to wearing ties and uniforms, we bought groceries every day at the local shops and figured out driving on the left without any accidents.” Lee nicely chronicles their time Down Under in stories and photos at blahblahblog.typepad.com. It’s a modern-day Gulliver’s Travels.
—Mark Greenstein, 107 Fenn Road, Newington, CT 06111; msg@ivybound.net; Davida Dinerman, 12 Kings Row, Ashland, MA 01721; davida@ dinerman.com