Florian Philip MEINHARDT--who savors life with bombastic brio--has been circling the globe for a year-and-a-half with bride, Grace Cervin, who he married in Santa Fe, NM June 1997. I shared martinis with them in Denver when they were here celebrating their wedding anniversary last June by visiting the Springs, Win­ter/Estes Parks, and Central City's gambling dens. "Filling in the gaps" of places they'd not yet visited, they're now searching for the world's best food and wine experience--so far, it's been the "French Laundry" in Napa, CA--in their opinion, this brasserie has out-frenched the French with a 10-course "Tasting Menu." (R: I call them "foodies"--food fanatics more interested in a gourmet meal or selecting a wine less vinegary than solving global warming). The following month Karen and I were driving to Santa Fe, NM to suffer some opera, and stopped in Taos for a late dinner, turned around in Don Martin's four-star bistro and literally bumped into Grace and Phil! Over dinner, their table talk included tales of trips on the Windstar from Istanbul to Athens to the Greek Isles, through Panama's Canal, round-tripping the Paris-London Chunnel, drinking a bottle of Glenlivet Scotch while ensconced on the Great Wall of China, and Grace's luging and Phil's paragliding in New Zealand. They're living in Del Mar, CA (Phil's building a love nest in Vegas), where Grace owns a gift shop near the racetrack after careers as business editor for Gannett Newspapers and financial guru on L.A. TV Back for the Navy game in October, they promptly departed for Stuttgart where Grace picked up her new Mercedes, then 13 days in Southern Europe and the Black Forest.

At At left, Phil paragliding in New Zealand. At right, Phil and Grace in Constantinople with friend.

J P BROWNING waxed mellifluous in his exhaustive missive from Weatherford, TX, a letter only slightly shorter than The Federalist Papers yet long enough to have its' own Library of Congress number (paraphrasal follows): "Still working for Lockheed's Tactical Aircraft Systems (the old General Dynamics plant in Fort Worth) as systems engineering manager for their Joint Strike Fighter Program. Still married to Carole since 618/60-we've two boys, a girl, four grand sons two to seven. Daughter Kerrie's getting married in the Spring of'99 and then moves to OKC. Carole teaches Special Ed in Springtown, TX and we'll retire in 2000." JP's had three or four lives, starting with F- 100s at Myrtle Beach, SC; LTV Aerospace in Grand Prairie, TX on the A-7 program while flying Crusaders in the Navy Re­serve (he retired as 0-6 in '89), then Braniff as check captain until their bankruptcy, and then on to Hughes/LA, finally getting his last life with L/M. He occasionally talks with Mike LOH and Ron YATES in their consulting capacities with Lockheed, Johnnie KUENZEL's his stockbroker, and JP wants to "retire somewhere having four seasons." (R: try Colorado-we sometimes get all four in one day! Thanks for the GREAT letter, JP)

The Rocky Mountain News of 5/24/98 had a story entitled HOME BASE which related Lowry AFB's history and included a photo (top of next column)in the cap­tioned "Cadet Orientation Flight--1956." Our son Scott called and said: "That's YOU, Dad!" (He obtained the original photo, enlarged it, and saw that it wasn't me.) I sent the photo to Jock SCHWANK, who showed it to Dick COPPOCK ('61), who sent it to Jim BROWN ('59), and I also ran it by Bill GILLIS, who thought it could be either Jose DEYNES or Max MILLER (Max says "no"). Does Anyone Know?

After logging 24,000 hours, Bob ODENWELLER (Planetarium Lecturer 2,1) fi­nally flew his last stem-winding flight as, well, a commercial pilot for TWA to Milan with wife, Jane. He still works for TWA on a database program for their Advanced Qualification Program (he re qualified as flight engineer in order to stay on their payroll), and the FAA sent him to school to learn Crystal Reports (don't even ask). Bob and Jane and her 88-year-old mother took a trip to Normandy, Brittany, and Italy last October--call Bob for info on cheap "digs" in Venice, which are palaces owned by counts and countesses, since their opera-singing daughter has oper­ated some of these as a "mini-business" while performing in Italy last year.

Stop me right row if you've already heard this, but Victor Ralph THOMAS (formerly from North Loup, NE and now living in Boulder City, NV) writes: "While on the board for the chamber of commerce, I was appointed to the Southern Nevada Private Industry Council (PIC). Historically, we dealt mainly with the Job Training Partnership Act ( JTPA), and now deal with Welfare to Work (WTW) which came out of Washington's Department of Labor in 1997. At the D.C. Conference last February, members of Congress told us they'll disburse monies directly to our PIC, so we now have $7 million through 1999 to work with in the JTPA and the WTW toughest cases in the welfare barrel. Our goal is to get these people into jobs, working mainly with the chronically unemployed, single parents with small children, chemically-depen­dent persons on welfare, and those without a high school education or GED." (R: Good work, Vic. I've also been on our JEFFCO PIC, and know all the acronyms.)

Who's the ATO? Who's the Cadet?

What I Am (Most) Famous For Award. "In October 1976 at the ripe old age of 40, I ran THE Marathon from the ancient city of Marathon to Athens, Greece. 1,080 of us were in the race, and while waiting at the starting point, I made a mental note of a small step protruding from the entrance into Olympic Stadium, just to insure that I didn't trip over it after running the 26+ miles. At Marathon (where the Athe­nians defeated the Persians in 490 BC), we were inspired by a number of speeches, all of which were totally Greek to me. The first 10 miles dropped from 75 feet above sea level to 25 feet below, climbed to 650 feet, and after 20 miles the peak was reached and we dropped to 350. After surviving a really big pack of extremely vicious dogs that sniffed at my private parts and then tried to attack me, an older gentleman offering cigarettes and a senatorian elder handing out sugar cubes laced with some purplish fluid (hemlock?), and an extremely fat lady who stepped in front of my path and into whom I ultimately collided, my feet tripped on that same small step which I had seen earlier-I slid into the stadium on my stomach to the cries of my awaiting daughter Karl, who proclaimed: 'There's Daddy!' I got to my feet and finished the race 10th overall, first American to Finish!" (Frank MAYBERRY, eater of lotsa Wheaties.)

Deja and some Vu. George PUPICH wrote me about THE FINAL SOLUTION (R: no, not Auschwitz) to that 1959 New Year's Day game in Dallas when we tied TCU 0-0: "Our Cotton Bowl Team had a reunion with former TCU opponents at the AFA-TCU game in Houston Sept. 26, 1998 (we lost this game 35-34). Rosie, it was won­derful, and we all thanked John KUENZEL for putting this event together (R: JK won the prestigious N. Jay Boots Award at graduation, you'll recall). The TCU guys were friendly, gracious, and we swapped lots of lies--a coin toss by Brock STROM finally settled that zip-to-zip outcome. WE LOST! (Upon closer examination, their coin was discovered to have a horned frog on both sides, so they resolved that contro­versy by mandating another get-together in 2000)." Besides George, John, and Brock, others attending were; AFA footballers from '59, '60 and `61: BRICKEY, BRONSON. GULLEDGE, HARDAGE, DK JOHNSON, JOZWIAK, LANE, MAYO, PHILLIPS, QUINLAN, RAWLINS, RODGERS, ROSANE, THOMSON, WAGNER, WATERMAN, WIDEMAN, ZALESKI, and managers MILTNER and VAN INWEGEN.

Attending Bruce Mosier's retirement party from left in front row are Andi Biancur, Charlie Diver, George Pupich, Rosie Cler, George Luck and Jim O'Rourke. In back row are Jim Glaza, Phil Meinhardt, Bruce, Jim Waddle, Jock Schwank, Fred Porter, Ron Yates, and Tony Lovell. Not shown are Wayne Kendall and Chris Warack.

Social Swirl. Bruce MOSIER's retirement party from TWA was hosted by wife, Caryl, and daughter Valerie in the Tiara Room high atop Doolittle Hall on Oct.10th after we'd drubbed Navy--the food was great, and the free booze so plentiful that five of our classmates added Bruce to their wills. (R: does the noun usufruct come to mind, boys and girls?) Attending were those in the photo, plus the ladies, also HELLER ('61), and '59ers MONTGOMERY, MILLER, BROWNING, BROWN, and CHEPOLIS.

The following month, Rampart Range's '60 grads drank and supped at the Springs' Radisson Hotel following the AFA-Rice game and celebrated our 10-1 regu­lar season: Chris & Pat WARACK, Killer & Barbara KENDALL, Dick & Sharon SCHEHR, Fred & Mary Lou PORTER, Bruce & Caryl MOSIER, Jock & Hope SCHWANK, Tony & Carol BILELLO, Jack & Jeanne BRUSH, Andi BIANCUR & Carole Kramer, Duck & Mary WADDLE, Rosie & Karen CLER, Ron & Connie YATES, Linda GLAZA, Denis & Liz WALSH, Roy & Barbara JOLLY, and George PUPICH. (R: what could have been a great photo of the entire group is not included, since that ex­plosion resulting from the reflection of my camera's flash off so many gray hairs broke the camera lens! The light, by actual lumen measurement, was greater than both the November '98 Leonid meteor shower and those roentgens recorded at the 1945 Hiroshima A-blast). But upon departing, these frenzied football Falcon fanatics broke into a rousing chorus of "Buckle Down, Wynsocki, Buckle Down!"

Potpourri: This from Clem DOUGLASS III "That's me in the left half of that picture in your Summer '98 Checkpoints (p. 64), and on the right is Walt FUTCH--who knocked me out in three rounds of intramural boxing ... George Elliott LUCK retired from Boeing and has formed Falcon Aviation Consultants, which performs flight training for Emory-Riddle Aviation in Everett, WA (George owns half a Beechcraft Bonanza) ... Jim O'ROURKE still works for Boeing in Seattle teaching flight in the 737/757/762, owns half a Beechcraft (no, not George's other half) ... Tony LOVELL survived seven surgeries following a massive heart attack in October '96, was given six weeks to live, and is now living with only half a heart.

Trivia '60. LOVELL and GLAZA are the only two '60 grads who each had five kids by one wife (R: does this mean that some hapless lady had 10 kids for those two ugly guys, or two ladies each had half of the 10. (I'm confused, but just report what I'm told) ... Leon GOODSON took the tests for the Academy, passed them, and it required an Act of Congress (literally) for him to enter the Academy ...

Correction to the summer column (Subj: youngest classmates): Fred WALKER--4 May 39, Dave LUCE--27 Mar 39, Denis HANEY- 20 Mar 39, Paul SULLIVAN--16 Mar 39, and Bob RAGER--4 Mar 39.

Contest Results and Winners. Nicknames of our classmates which appeared in the December '98 issue will appear in the June '99 issue of Checkpoints, with an­swers. Winners?

Beware the Ides of March. My phone, FAX and mail lines are now open. Bye.