Class Note 1989

Many of us have interesting family tales. And then there is our classmate Sean Hemingway, who has been able to turn his own family drama into something of a literary challenge. Sean is the grandson of Ernest Hemingway and the editor of the restored edition of one of the most famous books of the 20th century—A Moveable Feast, a memoir of the author’s early life in Paris, published after his death in the early 1960s. Hemingway’s fourth wife edited the original edition and scholars have long debated the contents, pulled together from an unfinished manuscript. The new edition, published this past summer, is made up of 19 chapters that Ernest Hemingway wanted to include, in the order he had placed them. Ten others chapters are contained in a separate section called “Additional Paris Sketches.” Sean is an associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He previously edited a collection of his grandfather’s writings titled Hemingway on War, as well as a separate anthology on hunting. For A Moveable Feast he worked with manuscripts housed in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. 


Political aspirations have hit our Dartmouth generation. Many of us know Charles Wheelan ’88, the economics professor and author who ran for the vacant U.S. House seat in Illinois in last spring’s Democratic primary.


And of course there is U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ’88, named to replace Hillary Clinton by New York’s governor. She faces a 2010 election to hold the seat. Both returned to Hanover in June to socialize with old friends at our joint reunion. And now our own classmates are getting into the act. Doug MacGinnitie has served on the city council in Sandy Springs, Georgia, since 2007. Last winter he filed papers to run for Georgia’s secretary of state in 2010. And Neil Abramson, elected to Louisiana’s House of Representatives in 2007, serves the city of New Orleans during its great season of challenges, four years after Hurricane Katrina.


Finally, on a lighter note, our classmate Clay Nichols sends his regrets for missing reunion, which took place over Father’s Day weekend. He has, perhaps, the best excuse: Fatherhood is Clay’s business. And I’m not just talking about his own three children, who are ages 11, 8 and 5. Clay is the co-founder and chief creative officer for DadLabs, a company with a very big sense of humor, which is helping dads “take back paternity.” Check out their Web site (www.dadlabs.com) for a really good laugh. As many of you who know Clay can guess, there’s nothing serious about this venture, other than the fact that it has been extremely successful. Clay was scheduled to appear on MSNBC during our final day of reunion to promote the company’s new book, DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood: Pregnancy and Year One, which was released that day. Clay and his partners previously produced an award-winning DVD and are in the process of developing a TV show based on the company. Clay has also written more than a dozen plays for adult and younger audiences that have been produced around the country.


—Jennifer Avellino, 5912 Aberdeen Road, Bethesda, MD 20817; javellino@mac.com