Plunging into the tumult of the treasuries floor at the Chicago Board of Trade -- "Now stay single file and close together or you may get knocked down" -- and hearing the periodic roars as the prices changed by a tiny fraction of a dollar, seeing the Chicago Stock Exchange and the options exchange up close, and enjoying lunch in the members dining room, thanks to Denny Engleman.

Boarding the Anita Dee II, a three-deck Lake Michigan cruise boat -- with the strains of the Dartmouth Glee Club wafting over the loudspeakers. The boat had drinks, socializing and, later, the televised Chicago Bulls game on the first deck, an elegant buffet dinner on the second deck, and a chance to see a crisp Chicago skyline from the upper deck, though the chill of an unexpected cold snap sent many below after just a few minutes.

Gathering around a copy of our Dartmouth statue of Robert Frost in a major Navy Pier sculpture competition. The sculptor, George Lundeen, had changed the words on the writing table to a different Frost poem.

Another Passages session led by Duane Cox, as we continue along the road to retirement and our 40th reunion in 2001, which the College calls our last big reunion. The ravages of mortality accelerate after the 40th. Waaah.

Eating a gourmet buffet lunch atop the John Hancock Center, one of the world's tallest, and feeling the gentle rocking back and forth as the gusts of the Windy City bumped off its sides.

Enjoying a white-glove dinner in the luxurious Mid-America Club atop the even taller Amoco Building, with a great jazz band, dancing and group singing of Dartmouth songs, following our Saturday night "tradition" at out-of-Hanover reunions.

And it featured a gathering of the 1961 swimming team: Captain Charlie Brown and Dave Cook, Cleve Carney (Chicago co-chair along with Mardi Glenn), and Tim Grumbacher (who is planning his third Ironman!)

More about Chicago next month and on our new class website. But I need to tell you about the Oct. 17-18 minireunion in Hanover, which minireunion chair Art Johnson described at our class meeting: The general outline will follow the usual pattern, Dartmouth Night parade with a reception afterwards. Because of the noon start of the football game, the pregame activities have been condensed. The Saturday morning class meeting will be at 8:30 a.m., followed by grilled lunch with the Fayerweather students, followed by the Yale game and a keg at the Frost statue site. The headquarters is split again, with a block of rooms at the Airport Economy Hotel and all rooms reserved at the Sumner Inn in Hartland. Our dinner will again be there with Football Coach John Lyons as the speaker. One word of warning: don’t wait to reserve a room. This may be peak leaf weekend or one week after peak, and the demand on rooms will be huge.

Robert Conn

Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Medical Center Boulevard
Winston-Salem NC 27157-1015
Rconn@wfubmc.edu

Note:  This column is limited to 500 words at the request of the Alumni Magazine.