G'day, mates. Yours truly has just returned from a four-week vacation trip to Australia and New Zealand and heartily recommends both to you. They are populated by some of the friendliest people I have met, none of whom expects tips and all of whom speak with marvelous accents. If any of you are thinking about going to either country, I'll be happy to share my experience.

The long arm of Yale cannot be underestimated. Bob Brown moved ten days before Bill Night ingale's dues letter was sent. The letter was addressed to his new home. Bob was impressed. He is living outside Philadelphia and calls the move "long distance, at least seven miles." My experience is that any move is long distance, regardless.

News on the grandchildren front. Mark Hamilton from Port Charlotte, Florida, reports his first granddaughter, Taya, modestly described as "a beaut." Aren't they all. And Hank Keating from Winston-Salem confesses that six-plus grandchildren keep him busy.

We may be aging, but several of us still have children in college. Yale tells me that Bob Anthony, Hugo Beit, and John Shillingford each has a son or daughter graduating this spring. I doubt that there are others in the pipeline, but surprise me.

Don Williams is balancing a nice life between summers in the Berkshires (Sheffield, Massa chusetts) and winters in Naples, Florida. He is still active in singing groups and serves as a naturalist volunteer at the Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, not to mention acting as innkeeper for family visitors (six grandchildren).

Sterling Tignor has retired from the active practice of surgery, but has been appointed clinical professor of surgery at Indiana University's Medical School. Sterling lives in Kokomo (love that sound), Indiana, and motorcycles (!) in his spare time.

Several of our retired classmates have decided North Carolina is the place to be. Rocky Bonsal checked in from Southern Pines, saying that he retired in 1997 and recently sold the family's 106-year-old business. His e-mail address says Pinehurst, so I suspect there's a touch of golf in his lifestyle. Gordon Cook is in Blowing Rock (another great name), where among other things he teaches in a GED program for parolees, recovering alcoholics, and recovering drug addicts. And Frank Sargent now lives near Asheville, having fled Miami ten years ago. He considers the location ideal and has joined the local Yale Club where he is considered the "kid." No wonder he thinks life begins at 70.

Perhaps it's the San Francisco air, but retirement has not caught up with Norm Rosenblatt. He and his wife have just opened their fourth hotel, this one called Vineyard Creek Hotel, in the Sonoma Valley. If that's not enough on their plate, there are also five grandchildren to keep them busy.

Another classmate is back in the business fray. Kinnie Smith retired from CMS Energy in Detroit several years ago and moved to New York to practice with a large law firm there. CMS has had some severe financial bumps since the beginning of the year and Kinnie has returned to the company to help put it back on the right track. Detroit's gain is New York's loss -- we miss him at the weekly class table.

I have just learned of the death of John Harris last June. John was a research chemist who retired as a Boston University professor in 1992. John and his father were the first black father and son to graduate from Yale, and John's son continued the tradition, graduating from Yale in 1978. John's wife Emily Louise survives him, but I do not have her Boston address.

The annual class dinner in New York is scheduled for next February 7. You should soon be receiving a letter about it from Marvin Deckoff and Paul Dietche. Tickets to a matinee performance of Thoroughly Modern Millie are available. The dinner and associated festivities have become a great weekend in New York, and this one will be a good start to our reunion year. Plan to come.

As part of our 50th Reunion, Yale has sent each of us a class tie. Let me know if you haven't received it.