Python training in the Philippines?  Neil Rogers was back in the

Philippines, where he explored that retirement option.  See the following post.

Free to be us, free to be the Class of 1968!

Now that many of us – okay, okay, except for you, Jim Hutchinson, and a couple of other near-Millennials born in 1947 – have reached the sweet interlude between forgetting our workaday cares and forgetting to put on our pants, this is a good moment to consider the profile of the Class of 1968 in retirement. What prompts this, besides envy, is the arrival of some retirement announcements from Tom Condon in Connecticut and Jay Schwartz in Baltimore at the end of 2015 as well as word from retired Dennis Reeder that Jeff Keyes will be leaving his Federal Magistrate position during 2016. Here we are, no longer answering to the man, free to be us, the Class of 1968 pure and unfettered!

Observation of Tom Condon in his natural state at Notre Dame – that is, at rest – leads to expectations that Tom has now reverted to form. There was a time when Tom’s sleep habits were causing him to miss his early afternoon ROTC class and imperil his military career, but that is not the risk now. After Tom’s years as a reporter and a columnist for the Hartford Courant, the writing of books and articles, we all run the risk that Tom will give in to his punning muse. Beware the advent of PUNishment.com. Tom warmed up for retirement with a vacation in Bilbao, Spain during the fall.

Others throwing off the shackles of the workplace have fled the whole thing. Brian Schanning sails all over the world with Susan. Tom Cuggino now lives in South Bend. Roger Guerin and Dennis Toolan took their households to Michigan City, IN’s Long Beach. Tom McKenna has kept his hand in Indiana politics while taking on a large helping of grandfathering. Mike Baroody turned to reflections on public policy: for example, Mike proposes a Constitutional amendment preventing anyone who wants to be President from being President. Bob Smith is a permanent deacon with the Diocese of Charleston, SC. The occasional sagging jowl and rounded hip attest to Brien Murphy‘s retirement from his plastic surgery practice.

This leaves the responsibility of the economy on a coterie of unstoppable classmates: Bob Noonan, retired Army General, is Executive Vice President of Booze Allen Hamilton. Pat Collins is covering DC gang violence for NBC-TV and poking a blue stick in snowbanks. Class President Tom Weyer is. . . irreplaceable. John Walsh is protecting his doctor clients from errant judicial decisions. Dave Lensing is hard at work in Memphis as he tries to dig out of a financial hole caused by the price of a fistful of tickets to the Boston College game.

Unfortunately for Jay Schwartz, who intended to walk out onto a Maryland golf course every morning, he is working on getting spring back in his step. Jay is going to La Jolla, CA at the end of January for a treatment designed for cure or alleviation of his progressing MS. On behalf of the class and certain interests in Maryland, I will accompany Jay in order to ensure that our classmate is not being given over to some cell of old Nazi experimenters who mean to harvest his DNA and create multiples of him. The consequences from that could be terrible: whole swaths of the Notre Dame stadium taken up with new ticket holders, Annapolis legislators besieged by phalanxes of him. Jay and I will go on to San Francisco for visits with our sons.

Uh-oh!  Did the California lab create Whack-A-Jay Schwartz?

If you haven’t seen the class blog, www.ndclass1968.com, please read the sad report of Tim Fangman‘s death in a truck-automobile collision.  Just scroll down to the article.

In January, when Tom Durkin’s daughter Ali married her 2011 classmate Alex Richer, Tom “Rock” McKenna, Tom McCann, Tom Gibbs, Bill Bingle, Bryan Dunigan, and Dave Martin attended the Chicago wedding celebration.

Writing as Dennis Brennan, Denny Lopez has published Tales of a Tradesman, his account of 25 years of caring for the homes and eccentricities of Block Island owners. See http://www.tradesmanstale.org. Gus Duffy’s artwork graces the announcement.

Joe Kernan, who will be honored for his military service at a late January hockey game, prepared remarks remembering the service of fallen classmates Mike McCormick, John Crikelair, and Bruce “Duke” Heskett.

Scroll down for news and photos Neil Rogers sent after a visit to the Philippines with his daughter Deirdre, as well as other news I will post as they arrive in coming months.

Photos to share? News? Information about people we remember but don’t track so well? Pat Hermann, once the University of Alabama English professor? George Kelly? Dick Blumberg? Send them in from the cold. Please post to the class blog and send news to: Tom Figel, 1054 West North Shore, Apt. 3-E, Chicago, IL 60626, tel. 312-223-9536, tfigel@reputecture.com.