Dear Classmates,

It’s Blair here, taking my turn to bark out a greeting and some thoughts for this month.  One of many great things about hanging out with Wit, Holdie and Madison is that they still see me as I was when we met—even without my trademark pug mask! (That’s my Freshman Facebook pic below!) I don’t really mind being all silver haired now—I look kind of like a Siberian Tiger, don’t you think? You know, we could be pretty silly back then, but I don’t think it’s true, as people sometimes joke, that “college is wasted on 18-year-olds” because it gave us these lifelong relationships---not to mention just a few great tools we all have used to build our lives.  It has been great staying connected, and I am still meeting great classmates whose paths hadn’t yet crossed mine in 1979.

I confess that I have not been to an off-year reunion before, but Holdie got me excited about ‘79 about running up those “39 Steps” to our 39^th this June.   39 steps is nothing for me—I think I was doing 2 X 39 multiple times each day when I lived on the ground floor of Foulke and the bathroom was up on the top floor.  I can’t wait to see you all, and as Holdie knows, there are some pretty cool cats in ’78 who shared our food bowls back when.  Mark your calendar for our next reunion:

So, have you checked out our Facebook group lately? 483 members and growing. It’s worth checking just to see the clever individual photos that Wit comes up with to wish each of our classmates a happy birthday as they turn 60 – there are still 100 who have not yet reached that milestone yet. The photos and messages always make me smile. 

I was also looking at posting of the current list of “Today’s Most Influential Alumni”—fifteen of the 25 names on the list are younger than we are, but eight of the 25 may have passed us in Commons or sat next to us in McCosh.  I still remember Sonia Sotomayor’s Pyne Prize acceptance speech, which made quite an impression on a very young (in so many ways…) self so many years ago, and so soon after the admission of women to Old Nassau.  At the time, I was still rather awestruck at what I might have gotten myself into when I moved into my double crate in Witherspoon Hall.  BTW--It is interesting to note while only one is on this list, there are currently three Tigers on the US Supreme Court— Sonia Sotomayor ’76, Sam Alito ’72 and Elena Kagan ‘81.

I also hear that some of our many classmates who are accomplished authors of many stripes will be taking surprise turns with the pen to share their Thoughts from the Road between now and our 40^th—so stay tuned and join us on the journey back!

Your Classmate,

Blair!