After reporting the premature passing of two of our classmates in August, and in the absence of much news from our classmates, I had decided to dedicate this column to health issues and preventative measures taken now so we can enjoy the retirement, present or future. Now I've heard that one more of our class members, Irving Conde Tullar, has died on June 1st after a long battle with cancer. Irving was a highly regarded medical indexer in New York City. Irving's death, the third this year, makes 2002 one of the worst years for the class (only two years have had more deaths: 1976 and 1997). Let this serve as a reminder to all of us to schedule regular visits to our primary care physicians, get our nether regions scoped periodically, stop smoking and ratchet down the alcohol, have regular PSA testing, and of course follow Mary Schmich's recently immortalized advice: Wear sunscreen! ( www.seanet.com/~swmarlow/Sunscreen.html ). I haven't had to deal with a melanoma nightmare myself, though it's made its appearance in friends and family, but I had to deal radically with an elevated PSA last year, so I know more about that scenario than I would have liked. To this eminently sensible prescriptive list I would add a recommendation that those of us who are still working plan carefully for our retirement, by which I don't mean getting ready to sleep in late and vegetate purposelessly. Effective retirement includes a thoughtful shifting of intellectual and physical energies to other activities, probably not income-generating, that will keep us busy and challenged. If you don't have a hobby yet, look around for one. Our class Web page on "transitions" has a number of suggestions (and others would be welcome; contact me about suggestions for additional activities).

Marc Kirschner is happy to report that his daughter, Diana, was accepted early admission to the Class of 2006 (can you believe that year??). Because of that, Marc and his wife, Nancy, are very much looking forward to many trips to Hanover, including Homecoming. After 33 years, he finally saw the light and left private legal practice to join a long-standing client on the principal investing side. He reports having great fun and a wonderful second career, with no interest in retiring. Previously Mark was the head of the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Department in the New York office of Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, a large global law firm. He joined his client, Resurgence Asset Management, L.L.C., and is now a Managing Director and General Counsel. The firm is an investment adviser, specializing in the investment in distressed company securities, a business he knows well from his experience in large, public company bankruptcy and reorganization work. On the personal side, he has 4 children, including Diana, 2 grand children. He spends his spare time when not with the kids and grandchildren chasing golf balls into the woods and water.

Gus Buchtel, 2861 Gladstone Avenue, Ann Arbor MI 48104-6432; gusb@umich.edu or

http://happy.dartmouth.org/classes/64/news.html.