I’ve talked before about our monthly classmate breakfasts in Hanover, Florida, and Lake George, New York. I’ve met many great classmates; this month I’m featuring two Florida breakfast friends by starting at the end of the alphabet. Bob Ziemian says his first Florida experience was entering Navy flight training in Pensacola. He flew out of Pensacola for the craziest moment of his life, landing on the aircraft carrier Lexington for the first time solo. After getting his wings he flew regularly into other Florida air stations. In his second career as a Massachusetts judge he realized that our justice system was not dealing effectively with substance-abusing defendants. He visited the first drug court, in Miami, where the chief prosecutor was Janet Reno (later attorney general). He was then successful in establishing the first drug court in Massachusetts (1995), expanding the system to more than 50 courts, and becoming president of the New England Association of Drug Court Professionals. He continued his professional contact with the Miami court judge; now a Florida resident, he says, “I just want to get out of the cold in winter!”

Native Clevelander Mike Zare marvels that his path to Sarasota took an amazing Asian detour. Freshman year he bonded with Tokyo native Tetsuro “Ted” Inaji, a one-year exchange student, while playing ping pong and listening to classical music together in Little Hall. This inspired Mike, a French major, to minor in Asian studies. When Dartmouth brought in Yale professor emeritus Henry C. Fenn our senior year to start a Chinese language program, Mike enrolled and found it a delightful challenge. What a fortuitous happenstance when, while teaching at Honolulu’s Punahou School, Mike fell in love with Joan, a Chinese Jamaican who has become his bride of 52 years and counting. The next logical step was for them to travel to Taiwan, where Mike taught at Taipei American School before they eventually chose Sarasota to raise their four sons, who have so far blessed them with six grandchildren. I met Mike years ago when he saw my Dartmouth sweatshirt on Siesta Key Beach, Florida, and introduced himself. It’s a small world indeed!

—Bob Murphy, 7 Willow Spring Lane, Hanover, NH 03755; (603) 643-5589; murph65nh@comcast.net