Consistent with the "transition" nature of this phase of our lives, I'm frequently hearing about enhancements of first careers or establishments of second careers. In the first category is Dave Plavin, who was appointed last summer by the Potus to the Federal Aviation Management Advisory Council. Otherwise, Dave's day job is being President of the North American branch of the Airports Council International, which means that he represents 150 governing bodies that own and operate more than 400 airports. In the new careers category, Gene Marshall retired from the US Foreign Service several years ago and returned to New Hampshire, where he is completing a two-year term in the State House of Representatives. He writes, "Unlike first term, I have opposition in the primary this time around, so a second term is up to the voters." In other news, Tom Clark writes that he and his wife went to Hanover last fall, staying in the Hanover Inn and hiking in the surrounding hills. His daughter graduated in '97 and he and family enjoyed seeing the campus again. He's impressed by how the campus has benefited from the rising tuition: "a lot neater and tidier than I remember". Tom and his wife Lori both practice law in Hartford and enjoy traveling whenever possible (England and Italy last year, Canada and France this year). At the time of his note, Tom and Jim Pendergrast were doing carpentry work together around their places (Jim lives in nearby Bolton, CT). Mark Roseman reports that his son Seth is completing his first year in the MBA program at the Wharton School at U-Penn. (Mark himself was Wharton MBA Class of 1969 after graduating from Boston University Law School.) Seth has an industrial engineering degree from the University of Michigan (Secretary's note: There are almost 500,000 living U-Michigan graduates! In previous columns I didn't mention the U-M degrees of John Lane [MBA] and Steve Miron [Law]). Michael Bailin's daughter, Deborah (Dartmouth and Haverford Colleges) was married last summer and is working on a Social Work degree at Bryn Mawr.

In case you're are looking for a collector car (read "pricey car with a story to tell"), Rick Carey can lend a hand (see www.rickcarey.com). According to Rick, his "AxioMedia", which I puzzled over in the March/April column, consists of him, his wife Ellen and their dog, supported by a couple of laptops and a DSL connection. Rick is a freelance writer on collector cars and the collector car market for a variety of specialist publications. Here's a sample: "Sometimes I make a real coup, like the 1968 Corvette that was offered here and there for about 3 years and couldn't find a new home for $225,000. The owner consigned it to Christie's, I did the catalog description. Fortunately I know Henri Greder who drove the car at Le Mans in '68 and '69 and in the Tour de France so I could add much new material and firsthand recollections. It sold for $578,000."