I am suing my neighbor’s eleven-year-old daughter because she overheard my son Chester say, “I am going to blow up the school and everybody in it,” and she then reported him to the principal. My son has become a pariah at school and has been kicked out of home-ec class. You should know that I have always been very strict with my son about not allowing him to take his homemade bombs outside his bedroom. Besides the lawsuit, I would like to retaliate in some other way, but my brother-in-law has told me that legal action is enough. What do you think?
You have strayed into the difficult philosophical area that Schopenhauer called “getting even.” It is important that you utilize the court system to get even legally, and then, according to Schopenhauer’s dictum, “give ’em a little kicker.” Why not invite your neighbor over for dinner and serve him fatty, high-calorie food?
I am a sixth-grade teacher and would like to hang the Ten Commandments on the wall of my classroom. However, I am told that this is illegal. I’m not sure whether I should honor the Great God Jehovah, Lord of the Universe, or the Constitution of the United States. What should I do?
Easy. Change all the “Thou shalt not”s to “Don’t”s. Cut the one about coveting your neighbor’s wife (now regarded as “too little too late”). Change the word “Commandments” to “Suggestions.” You now have “The Nine Suggestions.” This should make everyone happy.
2001
BRUCE MCCALL
UNDER THE PROVENÇAL DEADLINE
TRUDY and I had always dreamed of settling into some sunny southern European burg and turning our misadventures as hapless outsiders into publishing gold. But now, heading into this fourth sequel, even we wonder if maybe the vein hasn’t been pretty much mined out. (Editor’s Note: A wonderfully felt paragraph, but the consensus here is that it’s not an intro. Some of that old-time insouciance, please!)
Pork and beans and Trudy’s famous Jell-O salad again tonight. Yum! This snobby food-fetish thing—finding some exotic new recipe, hunting down the idiotically obscure ingredients, haggling with avaricious shopkeepers, fussing around in a steamy kitchen—to think how we used to dote on that whole precious foodie thing! Live and learn. That new supermarket, two towns over, is worth the drive for the frozen U.S. Parker House rolls alone. (Editor’s Note: Powerful stuff, but we worry that literal-minded readers just might think that you’ve become jaded, even a mite surly—“ugly American,” so to speak. How about “We never stop marveling at the locals’ passion for fine food” and leave it at that?)
Talk about a backwater! The video store has three Stallones and The Sound of Music, dubbed. We caved last week and got satellite TV, first one in this broken-down community. Of course, the neighbors are all up in arms about the big dish. What a peevish bunch. And two-faced: Any day now they’ll be coming over and begging to watch some Brazilian soccer game, right in the middle of The Sopranos. (Editor’s Note: Brilliantly, brutally honest. HOWEVER: I can understand how hard it must be by now to keep up the chipper, insouciant—that word again, but it fits!—tone of the first four books, yet I can’t stress enough how inseparable that tone and your success have been. And, frankly, when you cashed the advance check we all thought you’d signaled your readiness to wear that lopsided, self-deprecatory grin for one more round. I don’t want your millions of book-buying fans to sense that their American pal abroad isn’t having a ball.)
Trudy pointed out today that we haven’t had a dinner invitation from a local in exactly one year. A-OK with us, if that’s how they want to play it. We ran out of things to talk about with these yokels a lot longer than a year ago. “How soon are you returning to America?” That’s the only damn question they could ever think of. (Editor’s Note: This is more of exactly what I mean. I have to delete the whole paragraph to save you from yourself. Where’s the ingenuous guy with a dual-language dictionary who used to laugh off his gaffes and get all dewy-eyed just sitting in the town café?)
The old bastard local winegrower had put a curse on our scraggly little vineyard, but until he tried running me down in the village today I hadn’t quite realized the depth of his animosity. (Editor’s Note: Much better! I think if you make this funnier it can be a terrific little anecdote about your eccentric fellow-villagers. It was the way you came up smiling every time you were dumped on—the humility and the humanity—that made those first four books so great.)
The phony little mayor and his delegation completely surrounded the house, their pitch torches blazing in the night. How ancient, Trudy and I wondered, was this local ceremony or vigil or whatever? Did they have a special name for it? Would they keep coming back, night after night? (Editor’s Note: Local color, outsider’s awed perspective, Old World–New World interaction—splendid!)
It was, the policeman assured me, just a few young bucks letting off steam. Tipping our car over the embankment—a prank, a “macho” thing, and absolutely nothing personal. He had a cousin who could come, perhaps tomorrow or the next day, and roll it back up the hill; please, some money for the long-distance call? I couldn’t help thinking of the same situation back home: the endless waiting for the cops, the forms to fill out, lawyers and insurance agents and tow trucks, and certainly no mob of bystanders joking, calling out suggestions, making of it an occasion for fun. The gift for having fun—it was perhaps the best trait of this singular people, Trudy and I agreed on the long, long, long walk home. (Editor’s Note: You’ve regained the old stride—masterfully sketched!)
I had finally broken the peasant’s viselike grip on my wrist and handed over my gold Rolex; Trudy, meanwhile, was marveling at the sauce his wife labored over at her ancient stove, stirring with a crooked forefinger and spitting what appeared to be tobacco juice into the pan. “Could I have the recipe?” Trudy inquired. “No! Get out, American bitch!” It would clearly take time, and patience, to glean the secrets of this kitchen. “Out! Out! Out!” The salty spirit, the utter lack of ambiguity—by now we knew it was no mere empty social ritual but pure, personal hostility. We had connected, outsiders no more. (Editor’s Note: What an ending! They’re gonna love this! Not to jump too far ahead, but have you given any thought to a sixth book?)
2001
ANTHONY LANE
JEWELERS’ CAESAR
One of the first scenes in the British writer Fay Weldon’s new novel takes place amid “the peaches and cream décor” of the Bulgari jewelry store on Sloane Street in London.… Readers may not know that Bulgari, the Italian jewelry company, paid Ms. Weldon an undisclosed sum for a prominent place in the book, fittingly entitled The Bulgari Connection. —The Times, September 3, 2001
ANT.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your earrings,
Within whose massy hoops, which feed the sense
That craves their argent light, there doth reside
A pearl beyond all price, except to those
Who have already oped their coffers vast
To that esteemed Bulgari, dearest merchant
I’th’affections of my noble friends,
To whom alone this unsurpassing pair
Is now available online, for nought
But fifteen hundred bucks and fifty cents.
Tush, enough of bargains; may mine eyes
Let fall their jewels on this unlucky stiff.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
Unless these men of high estate have shown
The foresight to invest with prudence sound
Their assets, hedg’d more thickly than the glade
Wherein Dian, beloved of the moon,
Did trippingly ensnare the panting hart;
For if my Lords of Morgan and of Stanley,
And thou, fair Dean, whose arm doth yet
Embrace old Witter in its reach, do take
The proffered purse, in mutual assurance
Of thy unbounded funds, why then, we yield
&nbs
p; The restless clay of this unhappy frame
Sans weeping, for we know our eldest sons
Will never have to do a stroke of work.
Brutus, whose liquidity I doubt,
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it,
Tho’ not as grievously as those who mouth
Their wither’d answers to the empty air,
And find their cell phone orphan’d of all force,
When they forgot to charge it overnight;
Whereas the lusty Panasonick hath
A battery ingenious devised,
The Superflux T20, that endures
More deeply than the blasted oak, whose limbs,
Like to the babe’s, will ne’er be sundered from
The bosom of the earth. And thus, hands-free,
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral:
A heavy task, eas’d only by the ride,
More soft than any steed, that I enjoyed
Upon the sooty couch of my sedan.
Ah! Infiniti, whose very name
Doth footings to eternity vouchsafe,
With ABS as standard as the breath
Of mortals; ah, thy wheels, whose alloy trim
Outlives the jasper of the Afric soil,
Or marble of those columns orgulous
Which yet the uneyed Samson did, in love’s
Despite, reduce to flinted waste! And all
For payments down of half a grand a month.
1. PLEB.
Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.
2. PLEB.
If thou consider rightly of the matter,
Caesar has had great wrong, and we are dopes.
1. PLEB.
Wherefore dopes? Fie! Rubies red as fire
Can you and I, who feast on orts and leavings,
Ill afford.
2. PLEB.
’Tis so; and yet I hear
Word that the King of Burger graciously
Doth even now his whoppers grill’d with flame
Unburthen, three for price of twain. Avaunt,
And dip our napkins in his sacred sauce.
Exeunt.
2005
IAN FRAZIER
CLASS NOTES
JACK “Spicer” Conant tells us that when he was in Houston recently on a business trip he put in a call to Houstonite and classmate Chuck Gales, but Chuck didn’t call back.
Jim Carmichael writes that he happened to see Marc Weinstein in the Salt Lake City airport not long ago and pretended not to recognize him.
Out of the blue the other day, Bill Tolan says, he realized he had forgotten the names of Marty Glimer, Todd Saalsten, and Andy Camp. A quick glance at our yearbook refreshed his memory.
Anne (Patterson) Simms asks, “What in the world was I thinking of, going out with Mike Stack?” Don’t know, Annie—but are you sure his name wasn’t Russ?
Arthur Stancik never liked Jim McMickens, and hasn’t seen him in years.
From rainy Seattle, Alex Kostygian sends a note inquiring about “the name of the skinny black guy who was in our class for a few weeks at the beginning of sophomore year and then dropped out.” Sorry we can’t help you with that, Alex!
Fuadh Akmed Muhammad says he now can’t believe he ever went to school here.
Though Geoff Emery sat next to Hotch Engleman at every assembly for four years, today he can’t bring his face to mind.
Mariah Miller told Judith (Mandelbaum) Giles and Lacie (Stone) McCarthy she’d love to have lunch, but doesn’t get into the city that often. Judith, or maybe Lacie, had just returned from Italy.
Benjamin Kaplan, recently downsized, wonders why he should donate money to a school he can’t afford to send his own children to. Ben, you’ve got us there!
When Marylin Cho saw Tony Lemire’s name on her caller ID last summer, she let the machine pick up. Her daughter, Sophie (’06), later erased the message by mistake.
Gus Trebonyek and Ted Antrim, who lived just one floor apart in Brainard junior and senior years, never met once during that entire time. Gus went on to a career in law, and Ted eventually became a consultant with a management firm. Ted moved to far-off Anchorage, Alaska. Gus, meanwhile, settled into a successful practice as a litigator in Detroit. Finally, as middle-aged men with wives and families, both Ted and Gus came back for the twenty-fifth reunion, where again their paths did not cross. They still don’t know each other from Adam.
A luncheon buffet and cash bar at the Westin Hotel gave class members in the San Francisco area a chance for catching up and reminiscing last month. Spencer Beale, who attended, reports that nobody there looked at all familiar, and he thinks he might have been in the wrong room.
Wasn’t Kay Fortunaro a number, with those tight sweaters she used to wear? Well, turns out that was someone else. A misidentification of a photo in our Class Register is to blame.
The secretary of Fisk Pettibone passes along the welcome news that “of course he remembers [us]” and will drop us a note when he has time.
MOVIN’ ON: Often, mail sent to classmates returns unopened, but with a little sleuthing we discovered that Melanie Ostroff hasn’t lived at the address we have for her since 1985! The house, a two-bedroom Colonial, belonged to her parents, who bought it in the sixties and have since died. The current residents went to public schools.
Mitchell DiMario, Sallie Stark, Chris Feinstock, Joel Bushwell, and Will “Thirsty” Tabor all rented cars for business travel on weekends within the past year, thus qualifying for certain perks and discounts. They may meet to talk about this next fall.
Bruce Dunlop couldn’t pick Tim Brandt, Roger Magnuson, or Larry Bollardi out of a police lineup today. He hasn’t a clue what became of them, or whether he might have confused them with some guys he used to hang out with at a summer camp in Maine.
Guy Forstman says he left Rick Kelling’s business card in the pocket of a suit that’s at the cleaners, or possibly in a drawer at the office. Guy is sure it will turn up.
On the way to a sales appointment recently, Bob Halmer drove right by the campus. Though going fairly fast, he appeared to look much the same.
Cecily Spaeth-McCorkle makes more than any of her former teachers, according to a newsy e-mail she sent from the South of France.
Married the week after graduation, classmates Alison Stammel and Randy Tinsley divorced acrimoniously long ago. Both report that they are better off.
Wilson Yoshida very rarely thinks about anything having to do with his past, and throws away all letters or circulars bearing the school’s return address. Wilson was the 2002 recipient of a “no-limits” checking account.
Lyle Kerner simply disappeared.
McMurdo Station, a lonely research outpost in Antarctica near the South Pole, has to be the last place on earth where you’d expect to run into your roommate from sophomore year. If anyone ever does, please write or call with details.
We have received the following from Katie (Cole) Shearwood, firing off a missive in the midst of her busy schedule:
Hello, all! As we formerly youthful (don’t remind me!) friends and classmates wend our way closer to codger-hood, I can’t help but sit back and wonder. What I’ll be when I grow up is still up for grabs, though perhaps less so now than ever before. In ’99 I left my longtime job as a group vice-president responsible for more than eight hundred people in a pre-public biotech company dealing with infrastructure issues—enjoyed the work, but felt a change was due—and founded KatieCorp, my own firm handling on-demand biosecurity auditing and database vulnerability analysis. Who would’ve guessed? I absolutely love it, and only regret that I didn’t make the change weeks earlier. Plus, as an added bonus, I met my current spouse/partner/best friend/severest critic/terrific lo
ver, Dennie Strube. (Dennie Shearwood, my ex, is history, though we remain good friends, and I kept his name.) I quickly had three children to add to my previous two and his four, and before we knew it all had left for colleges and graduate schools, where they are doing fine. I remain very concerned about the state of our nation and the world. As a new empty-nester, I find I have more time to think about what I, as a generation, have accomplished for right (and wrong). The success of KatieCorp, whose factories are now in Suriname and run themselves, causes me to look for new challenges. When I see my face in the mirror in the morning, peering between the lines for the hopeful young person I once was, I say, ‘Katie—,’ and then I tell myself various things. I’ve had to juggle so much (I’m with a small local circus here in Montreal) and yet I still get up every morning eager for what the day will bring, and no man I’d care to drink with would do otherwise.
Does anybody have any idea who Katie was?
2003
BRUCE MCCALL
AIR POCKETS
DEAR Full-Fare Passenger Only,
This is the last edition of Air Pockets in its current form. With the next issue, our in-flight magazine will appear as a lively, fascinating, and informative paragraph on the back of your boarding pass. And it’s yours to take with you.
As this airline’s new chairman, I have the pleasure of announcing a host of other passenger-related initiatives inspired by our merger with the Fifteenth Circuit Bankruptcy Court:
• Baggage check-in and pickup at the luggage carousel are now two separate cash-pay opportunities.
• Lavatory Class, a low-cost alternative featuring aisle-free seating and almost unrestricted restroom privileges.
Disquiet, Please! Page 30
