Hi Tom,

Don’t know if it made the class notes or the blog, or if we were even able to get you info, but I had open heart surgery on May 31 to replace my aortic valve (good news was my arteries were clean, so no bypasses needed), then got a pacemaker on June 7, and had a pericardial window to get rid of some fluid on June 13 (nicely spaced, don’t you think – kept me in the hospital for over two weeks.  It will, I am sure, come as a surprise to many that there was a heart in there to repair, but then they will probably be happy to point out it was defective.  So I am now semi-bionic.  Things are going quite well in the recovery.  Still not allowed to lift anything over 5 pounds or so, but otherwise I am pretty much doing my normal stuff, and back to walking a mile or more a day.

 We are planning, tentatively, to make the reunion next year.

 Hope all is well with you and Nancy.  How do you like apartment life/  Did we tell you that we have moved to an apartment in Arlington, overlooking the Capitol?  Have to keep the bastards under constant surveillance.  Anyway, we love it, and are happily planning trips(Ireland in October) with the knowledge we can just lock up and not worry about things.

 Ken

May 24, 2007

This is the letter Mike Baroody sent to President George Bush yesterday after Mike found himself made the subject of some Senators' opposition to his former employer, The National Association of Manufacturers.  Also shown is Tom Condon's note to a friend in Senator Joe Lieberman's office.

                                                                                       May 23, 2007

The President

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

               I was honored by your nomination and energized by the prospect of chairing the Consumer Product Safety Commission and leading it to more effectively carry out its mandate of saving lives and keeping America’s families safe.

               Accordingly, it is with singular regret that I write to ask that you withdraw my nomination from the United States Senate. 

               Mr. President, I have thought often recently of some words of the late Senator Daniel Moynihan.  Among his many memorable state-ments was this one about what passes for debate these days:  One is “either serious about something,” he said, “or serious about something else.”  In the current supercharged environment, I am persuaded that prospects for my confirmation by the Senate as CPSC chairman are at best remote but assure you that if confirmed, I would have been very serious about consumer product safety and the mission of the CPSC.  It seems to me that some of the opponents of my confirmation, if serious at all, must be serious about something else. 

               Again, Mr. President, thank you.  May God bestow his blessings on you and on our great, good country. 

                                                                           Sincerely,

                                                                           Michael E Baroody

Sherry,
So my friend of 40 years, Mike Baroody, gets nominated to head the
Consumer Products Safety Commission. You can't find a better candidate –
he is very smart, has a ton of integrity, courage, wit – everything
you'd want. But he became the subject of blog mania, and today asked the
president to withdraw his nomination. His offense? He used to work for
the National Assocaition of Manufacturers. No hearing on the merits,
just guilt by his former association.
I pass this along because it might sound faintly familiar.
Your friend,
Tom C

Tom Weyer and his son John sent the following notice of Rocky Bleier's award.  Tom, who is Rocky's main speechwriter as well as Class President, will have to come up with some acceptance remarks.

Bleier Receives “Distinguished American” Award From National Football Foundation

Former Irish running back and receiver honored.
May 16, 2007
Former Notre Dame football player Rocky Bleier was named the 2007 recipient of the Distinguished American Award from the National Football Foundation, announced Wednesday by Ron Johnson, chairman of the NFF.
A three-year monogram winner, Bleier played for head coach Ara Parseghian from 1965-67 as a running back and receiver. He totaled 784 yards on 166 career carries with 11 touchdowns and caught 36 passes for 422 yards and two scores at Notre Dame.

Continues at   http://und.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/051607aaa.html

Tom:

Two recent articles feature me: The current edition of San Francisco Attorney has an article called “The Power of the Poet”; this week the Los Angeles Daily Journal featured me in an article on the top defense verdicts of 2006.

<<SF Attorney – Profile F.Hainline (Winter06).pdf>> <<Daily Journal – Forrest Hainline.pdf>>
Regards,

Forrest

Forrest A. Hainline III Goodwin Procter LLP 101 California Street San Francisco, CA 94111 415-733-6065 415-677-9041 fax 415-963-1126 cell fhainline@goodwinprocter.com
http://www.goodwinprocter.com  

Jim Hoffman reports that he will be back at Notre Dame May 12^th for the wedding of his middle daughter, who graduated from Notre Dame, and her fiancé who also graduated from Notre Dame.

Jim will be back the following weekend to attend his youngest daughter's graduation from Notre Dame. All of his children, three daughters, will have then graduated from Notre Dame.

Jim reported that his final payment to Notre Dame for his children was made on February 1, 2007, accounting for twelve years worth of tuition being paid. He and his wife Carla were able to celebrate by going out to McDonald's and between them purchasing a “happy meal”.

My three daughters are Holly, Heather and Heidi.

Heather and her fiancé Dan Campion are being married at Notre Dame.

    My home address is:

    James and Carla Hoffman

    554 Pinto Way

    Eugene, Oregon 97401

My telephone number at home is: (541) 484-0708.

    My office address is:

    James W. Hoffman, P.C.

    Attorney At Law

    975 Oak Street, Suite 600

    Eugene, Oregon 97401

My office number is: (541) 485-2007.

(Speaking of his attendance at the Michigan and North Carolina games) I had a mini-reunion with Bob Raaf who is retired and in from Cleveland and Kenny Lefoldt who is going strong with his own accounting firm who came in from Jackson, Miss. We were reminiscing on our time working together in the South Dining Hall as part of the food service crew and some of the bizarre things that other students did when they were going through the food line, as well as some of the mini-food fights and also throwing patts of butter up to stick on the ceiling of the dining hall. Take care and enjoy the holiday. – Mark Lies

Bob Raaf reconnects with old roommate Paul Swenson
by Bob Raaf on Tue 06 Feb 2007 05:49 PM CST  |  IP: 69.160.210.22
At our last class reunion, Pete Farrell mentioned to me that one of his top recruits for the Princeton women's track team was Paul Swenson's daughter Mia and that Paul was living in the Boston area. We hadn't seen each other since graduation weekend in 1968 and hadn't communicated since we both got out of the service in 1971.

After a trip to Boston earlier in the year to visit our daughter, Cindy, I came back and looked Paul up in the Alumni Directory and realized that I had passed within a few miles of his house. To make a long story short, I emailed Paul, he called back and we had a long conversation to catch up on 35 years. Paul has two daughters. One graduatied from the University of Chicago and had just moved to NYC to try her hand in acting, and the second one is a senior at Princeton and still running for Pete. Our other daughter, Amy,is recently married and living in Washington DC , and my son, Tom (ND '05) is living in Chicago.

A few months later, Paul emailed to say that he would be in Cleveland in late October, which then gave us the opportunity to meet for a long dinner. It was great to see him again after so many years. He looks only slighty older but is still able to run regularly – no knee issues yet, but he hasn't had to haul around 200 plus pounds for years.

As menitoned on earlier comments by others, Barb and I were able to get together with Mark Lies, Ken and Maetta Lefoldt at the UNC game and with John and Mary Mulligan and Brian and Sue Schanning at both John's daughter's wedding on Labor Day weekend and at the UCLA game. Joining us for both games were my son Tom and his girlfriend Annelise Sucato (also ND '05 and daughter of classmate and fellow NROTC grad Paul Sucato).

Barb and I continue to enjoy the hospitality of the very gracious hosts of THE GREAT '68 tailgates.

Bob Raaf
rtraaf@yahoo.com

—–Original Message—–
From: Lis, Jerry [mailto:jerry.lis@tcunet.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 12:40 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject:

Dear ND Fans:

Here's a stat from Forbes.com:

The most valuable college football franchise is Notre Dame.  This should come as no surprise.

What might surprise some is this stat:

Notre Dame football contributed $23.2 million dollars to support Academic Programs.  The college which returned the second most money was Michigan, with $2,4 million.  Notre Dame's amount is greater than Michigan and the next 10 colleges COMBINED.

(From John McKenzie)
 
Okay, Man of Steel, I have rambled enough. You were an enigma, a hyperbole,
a paramount, a huge tribute to life itself of which you were bigger than, a
gentle Man with tattooed hands, a motorcycle rider who wrote beautiful songs
in the key of life, which was usually limited to one, or, at most, two
chords, in the fashion of Lou Reed and Neil Young. You married a beautiful
woman and have a beautiful daughter. I will find that picture someday of
Tiana when she was two, with those blazing eyes and perfect countenance and
send it to you.
 
I Love You, Tom. 
Your Pal, Johnnie Angel
 
(From Shaun Reynolds)
 
Dear All,
I just wanted to pass along a couple of favorite Thurber memories for you fellow e-wakers.  After Mike(Farnam) and I moved back to the Bend in the mid 70's, Tom and his then family were living on a rented farm in North Liberty about 20 miles outside of town. Not that he was tilling the land or anything, he just liked the life of the country squire. And he had a barn. It was big enough that Tom had mounted a basketball hoop on one wall and we would cop a buzz and play ball in the dimly lit barn until we had to quit because we were all wheezing too badly from the opaque cloud of dust we had kicked up. But the most memorable event there was a New Years party he threw ('76?,77?). We all drank the kool-aid and sang songs and opened presents, one of which turned to be a game of Rock'em Sock'em Robots (which of course was for one of the kids). So we immediately proceeded to play it for the next two and a half hours, until a particularly crushing left actually decapitated one of the contestants. I have never laughed so hard and so long before or since. And it wasn't just the kool-aid.  Sensei Tom had shown me the truly zen possibilities of martial arts I had never imagined until then. I'm sure all of us who knew him are nodding in recognition of similar intangibles we got from him, but you just can't explain him to someone who didn't…
condolences,    
Shaun Reynolds