Class Note 1990
Issue
Jan-Feb 2020
Hey ’90s, our 30th reunion is June 18-21. We don’t have endless reunions, you know; they’re rare events—so register today!
Recently, I asked ’90s, “What is your best memory (from your Dartmouth career) of something that took place outside of Hanover?” Here is Part II. Kyrie Robinson:“I’m in Toulouse with my foreign study abroad crew and it’s raining (France in spring sounded like a glorious idea) and we are all sitting there glumly in our raincoats on a bench, with hours to kill on some field trip or another, and Mary Vogrin says, ‘Qu’est-ce que f**k are we gonna faire?’ and we all completely cracked up. (Mary almost never swore.) I still mutter that phrase to myself when the weather seems challenging.” Parker Karnan: “When Margie Worthington, Colin Tucker, Mike Uram, Matt Greene, and I all piled into Matt’s Cherokee and spontaneously drove to Boston to buy tickets from a scalper for the U2 Joshua Tree Tour concert. We got stuck in traffic and couldn’t find parking, so we arrived just as the concert was letting out. We all bought concert T’s to fake we attended and then drove back to Hanover. Best five hours ever!”
Jen Gittes: “Hiking down the wrong side of a mountain (not the side we had hiked up all day) in Spain, with Kristin Young. Thankfully, by dusk we managed to hitch a ride in a van transporting vegetables back to the safety of our cozy hostel in the tiny, medieval town of La Alberca, where we enjoyed a most satisfying meal of juicy lechon and roasted potatoes.” Cat Shrier: “At the London School of Economics and Political Science I signed up for the debating society—and quickly learned that parliamentarian debate is very different from American forensics. If you’ve ever seen movies in which members of England’s houses of Parliament get up and talk trash about their opponents to the cheers and jeers of their colleagues, that’s basically what it was like. Oh my God it was so much fun!” Cheryl Shepherd: “Freshman summer, July 4th celebration at the U.S. embassy in China. They flew in McDonald’s from Hong Kong because there was no Western anything in the People’s Republic in 1987—it tasted so good! If I recall correctly, members of our Dartmouth crew took on the Marines in a chug-off.”
Michael Keller: “The 1990 Glee Club spring tour took us across Texas on our way to California. Our budget always had us staying with generous alumni or finding appropriate ‘budget accommodations.’ In this particular instance, we found ourselves staying for the night in a set of abandoned and condemned dormitories at the Texas Military Institute (let your imagination run wild and you will be close). Despite being the perfect setting for a prototypical horror-slasher movie, no lives were lost, but it was certainly a fun (in retrospect) and memorable experience with many Dartmouth friends far from campus.” Jay Davis: “One of many wonderful memories outside of Dartmouth was arriving with 30 other ’90s in Long Island Sound during senior spring, after paddling 200 miles on the Connecticut River from Ledyard on Trip to the Sea. Not so great for my thesis, due eight days after we arrived at the ocean, but I have never regretted it.” Jane Demarchi: “Foreign study program in Beijing in the summer of 1988. China was so different then! Nate Emerson, Sue Mooney, John Sun, and I all missed our Sophomore Summer in Hanover. It was a life-changing experience for me and led to my living in Asia for another six years in the 1990s and early 2000s.”
—Rob Crawford, 22 Black Oak Road, Weston, MA 02493; crawdaddy37@gmail.com
Recently, I asked ’90s, “What is your best memory (from your Dartmouth career) of something that took place outside of Hanover?” Here is Part II. Kyrie Robinson:“I’m in Toulouse with my foreign study abroad crew and it’s raining (France in spring sounded like a glorious idea) and we are all sitting there glumly in our raincoats on a bench, with hours to kill on some field trip or another, and Mary Vogrin says, ‘Qu’est-ce que f**k are we gonna faire?’ and we all completely cracked up. (Mary almost never swore.) I still mutter that phrase to myself when the weather seems challenging.” Parker Karnan: “When Margie Worthington, Colin Tucker, Mike Uram, Matt Greene, and I all piled into Matt’s Cherokee and spontaneously drove to Boston to buy tickets from a scalper for the U2 Joshua Tree Tour concert. We got stuck in traffic and couldn’t find parking, so we arrived just as the concert was letting out. We all bought concert T’s to fake we attended and then drove back to Hanover. Best five hours ever!”
Jen Gittes: “Hiking down the wrong side of a mountain (not the side we had hiked up all day) in Spain, with Kristin Young. Thankfully, by dusk we managed to hitch a ride in a van transporting vegetables back to the safety of our cozy hostel in the tiny, medieval town of La Alberca, where we enjoyed a most satisfying meal of juicy lechon and roasted potatoes.” Cat Shrier: “At the London School of Economics and Political Science I signed up for the debating society—and quickly learned that parliamentarian debate is very different from American forensics. If you’ve ever seen movies in which members of England’s houses of Parliament get up and talk trash about their opponents to the cheers and jeers of their colleagues, that’s basically what it was like. Oh my God it was so much fun!” Cheryl Shepherd: “Freshman summer, July 4th celebration at the U.S. embassy in China. They flew in McDonald’s from Hong Kong because there was no Western anything in the People’s Republic in 1987—it tasted so good! If I recall correctly, members of our Dartmouth crew took on the Marines in a chug-off.”
Michael Keller: “The 1990 Glee Club spring tour took us across Texas on our way to California. Our budget always had us staying with generous alumni or finding appropriate ‘budget accommodations.’ In this particular instance, we found ourselves staying for the night in a set of abandoned and condemned dormitories at the Texas Military Institute (let your imagination run wild and you will be close). Despite being the perfect setting for a prototypical horror-slasher movie, no lives were lost, but it was certainly a fun (in retrospect) and memorable experience with many Dartmouth friends far from campus.” Jay Davis: “One of many wonderful memories outside of Dartmouth was arriving with 30 other ’90s in Long Island Sound during senior spring, after paddling 200 miles on the Connecticut River from Ledyard on Trip to the Sea. Not so great for my thesis, due eight days after we arrived at the ocean, but I have never regretted it.” Jane Demarchi: “Foreign study program in Beijing in the summer of 1988. China was so different then! Nate Emerson, Sue Mooney, John Sun, and I all missed our Sophomore Summer in Hanover. It was a life-changing experience for me and led to my living in Asia for another six years in the 1990s and early 2000s.”
—Rob Crawford, 22 Black Oak Road, Weston, MA 02493; crawdaddy37@gmail.com