Class Note 1990
Recently, I asked ’90s, “Looking back at your Dartmouth years, when (or with whom or with what group of people) did you feel the greatest sense of belonging?” Here is Part II.
John Kornet: “When I was sung out of my freshman room by a bunch of Glee Clubbers as a way of telling me I had passed the audition. They are lifelong friends, five of whom I just saw last weekend, not to mention the one I married!” Catherine (Youssef) Kassenoff: “Although my philosophy foreign study program trip to Scotland ranks high on my list of ‘belongings,’ I have to say it was being a River Clusterian. Outcasts on the central campus, we River people had our own brand of fun, from jumping in the Connecticut River on icy Hanover evenings to sharing the same rickety old bicycles to get us to the farthest reaches of campus.”
Laurin Grollman: “My small freshman dorm, North Fayerweather, was amazing. We were an eclectic bunch, but we were tight and appreciated each other’s idiosyncrasies. In addition to my roommates Jane Bieneman and Julie Warren, we adopted Pam Behne (who had a single because her roommate decided last-minute not to show) as a fourth, and then spent a lot of time hanging out with Darwin Brown, Ron Phillips, Ted O’Donoghue, Dave Yaccino, John Kelly,John Kornet, Steve Huang, Tom Stone, Mike Bersick, John Stouffer, Kelin Pickard, Julie Alperin, and others who made the transition into the Dartmouth community seamless and fun. Though we mostly dispersed after freshman year, that group made me feel at home pretty much from day one.”
Alan Ellis: “I felt the greatest sense of belonging at Phi Tau. Like any group of people, we experienced conflict, but I felt a strong and enduring sense of acceptance as a human being.” Chris Henrich: “Dartmouth rugby football club, 60 minutes into any match with Harvard, because you knew they were about to crack wide open.” Phil Privatera: “My freshman trip. Not being an outdoorsman, I signed up for hiking level 3 (or maybe lower; it may have been a negative number). The whole time, Lori Graham had me thinking we would be attacked by bears or something. Well, we never hiked. In fact, we hooked up with a fishing trip and never fished. Essentially, we played hearts for three straight days. I can still see everyone’s faces: Sandy Yusen, Richie Mazzola, Lissa Kane, John Carrol, Rick Muise,and others. Who’d have thought we could make so much happiness doing nothing in the middle of nowhere?”
And in classmate news, I’m pleased to announce two new books by ’90 authors. Benjamin Kwakye’s new novel, Obsessions of Paradise, “chronicles the oft-dehumanizing odyssey of migrants in search of hope and is a tender story of insecure but compelling love.” Kirkus Reviews wrote, “Kwakye’s prose finds the tension in the strangeness of place…a bubbling mysteriousness rooted in desire and longing will propel readers ever deeper into this idiosyncratic story. An oddly compelling tale of two connected couples separated by geography and culture.”
And Marjorie Worthington,a professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, recently published The Story of “Me”: Contemporary American Autofiction. (Autofiction is fictional autobiography.) One reviewer called the book “consistently intriguing and elegantly constructed.”
This past April three Dartmouth alumni were elected to town meeting in Milton, Massachusetts, including our own Angela McConney Scheepers.
And keep your eye out for Melanie (Schneeberger) Robbins’ new TV show, The Mel Robbins Show, which premieres on September 16. Mel (a best-selling author and highly successful speaker) may have millions of fans, but her ’90 classmates were her first fans!
—Rob Crawford, 22 Black Oak Road, Weston, MA 02493; crawdaddy37@gmail.com
