We’re renovating a 150-plus-year-old home on the Massachusetts shore. What started as a simple project to remove my bedroom from the path to the beer fridge to eliminate the frequent 2 a.m. wakeups by the thirsty youth of Gloucester has ballooned into a total redo.
The builder, aiming to shore up the foundation, discovered there wasn’t one. Our home has been sitting unaffixed to Cape Ann’s granite this past century-plus, one perfect storm away from drifting out to sea—an apt metaphor for my seasonal affective disorder (SAD)-addled December brain on the verge of succumbing to a Melancholia moment, only without the pretty. The recent pace of disheartening news seems relentless. One day there’s a note from Jay MacNamee relaying Rob Kemeny’s death, soon followed by one from Marc Morgenstern that we’d lost Ralph Carlton. No! Then another from Dartmouth reporting William Dittman’s demise. Stop! What, mere shuffling is not for us ’77s; we instead must sprint off this mortal coil?
But the tide always turns. Another note hits my inbox—hilarious, X-rated remembrances of John Grant (who left us in July) penned by Michael Mosher recounting their sophomore hijinks working at The Breakers—and the melancholy wanes. Michael, an art professor at Saginaw Valley State University, is another ’77 author, recently publishing “Allegedly, Fun, the Michigan rock saga I began in visiting professor José Donoso’s workshop on the Latin American novel in the summer semester 1975 based on an adventurous high school girl I knew. Read it online at Issuu.com/mikemosher6. Nineteen seventy-five—what a year. No wonder my students listen to a band called The 1975.”
Next, an uplifting missive by Diane Arsenault is rediscovered, and my SADittude is buoyed by her gratitude as she recounts 39 years as a family physician, including 24 years as a hospice physician, mostly in Plymouth, New Hampshire. “The struggles of work-life balance as an end-of-life specialist, with a CRNA spouse also on-call, were not always easy but I am filled with gratitude for sharing the lives of so many patients through the years and for raising children who are people of integrity and kindness following their own path of work-life balance. They thankfully live within three hours’ drive, and I am blessed to experience the joy of being a grandparent to three marvelous grandchildren, two of whom have significant disabilities.”
Regarding medical mission trips to Zimbabwe and Guatemala, “It’s eye-opening seeing the contrast and inequity of First World privilege, with its emphasis on perfect outcomes and cutting-edge care, and Third World medicine, where patients are grateful for whatever care they receive and death is a frequent outcome for lack of access to what we take for granted.” Retirement has allowed Diane to spend quality time with Janice Lee Swain and Jay Swain, Steve Upton, and Bill Levinger, and she promises to attend our 50th (and we hope our Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 2025 class birthday party)! Tap into her infectious gratitude at dlarsenault55@gmail.com.
Visit dar7mou7h.com “In Memoriam” for more on our dear departed and other class news.
—A.P. Duffy, 66 Saunders Drive, Wilton, CT 06897; (203) 979-2234; apduffy@optonline.net