It’s 4:15 a.m. and the house is ice cold right now. I woke up five minutes ago frozen in bed because the temperature dropped UNEXPECTEDLY AND WITHOUT WARNING* to 45° outside and I never switched the thermostat from AC to heat. So I’ll sit here and write things until the house warms up. I hope it’s soon.
Yesterday in the mail I got a copy of the D219 Alumni News, the quarterly alumni newsletter from Niles Township North, East and West High Schools in Skokie, Illinois. The key word in that first sentence is “quarterly,” because I graduated from Niles North 42 years ago
and this is only the second issue I’ve ever received. Maybe “quarterly” means “quarter-century.”
And everybody wonders why old people get crabby.
So as I’m reading through the newsletter there’s an impressive two-page spread with snippets of exciting alumni accomplishments. For example, Eva Shiu (’06) won a Fulbright scholarship, Neil Kimel (’87) is second horn with Chicago’s Lyric Opera orchestra, Noam Pikelny (’99) received the first Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass and performed last November on Letterman, Tahera Ahmad (’02) is Northwestern University’s first Muslim chaplain and the subject of a recent PBS documentary, Gary Kremen (’81) founded
Match.com and Charles Prebish (’62) recently retired as Professor Emeritus from Penn State University.
I’m feeling slighted. It might be time to send a paragraph of my own to the D219 Alumni News because I’ll be 60 in a few months, and at my age a girl doesn’t have too many quarter-centuries left. Here’s what I’m proposing to send:
Marcy Lutz Marks (’69), former “Playboy” centerfold and inventor of canned kidney beans, high-capacity inkjet cartridges and memory foam, is enjoying retirement at Club Meds in Mesquite, Texas. She writes the Howdygram, injects insulin and makes beds.
I thought I’d also include a photo of Raquel Welch in costume from
One Million Years B.C. You know the one I’m referring to.
In case you’re interested, the house finally warmed up so it’s probably a good idea to go back to bed for a while. Thanks for stopping by. Next time bring a friend.
*Somebody at the National Weather Service probably knew and forgot to tell me.
2 comments:
Hey, Chuck Prebish ('62) was a colleague and friend (still is) when I taught at Penn State in the late '70s. I'd forgotten that he went to Niles. And speaking of famous Niles alums, my classmate and chum Martin Chalfie ('65) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008. And he came to Lafayette to speak about his work last month.
Bobby
Hi, Bobby. Thanks for your comment and mazel tov on knowing (and remembering) so many of your brilliant and talented classmates. It’s definitely encouraging to know that somebody’s reading my posts on Sunday morning instead of eating pancakes.
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