The hot, steamy summer here in Washington has given way to clear, crisp fall weather, and I have a special reason to appreciate it. It seems I had spent two consecutive September weekends visiting my family in Colorado, when we came to the conclusion, rather suddenly, that voluntary family separations are the pits. Nine days later, our house in Colorado had been leased; our car sold; our cat farmed out; and Anne and I and our 16-year old son, Stephen, were in a high-rise in Arlington. It was the quickest, most painless move ever. And living in a small apartment after years of looking after large houses has turned out to be a very pleasant experience. We may never live in a house again.

Frank MAYBERRY called a few days ago to let me know that he had averaged six and a quarter minutes per mile rather than seven in the "Great Race" marathon held at Incirlik, Turkey last May. (My error was due to faulty reporting in the AF Times.) Frank has just PCS'd to Langley after spending seven years overseas in Germany and Turkey. He and his family are living in base quarters, and Frank is the Chief, Ground Systems Division, DRCG, at Hq TAC. I believe that means he is in the com­munications business. Frank mentioned that he had run into Tom SEEBODE at Ramstein AB last winter and Jerry CASKEY at Incirlik in the spring. Tom was flying C-5s, and Jerry was with an F-4 squadron (the commander, Frank believes) on rotation from Torrejon AB, Spain to Turkey. Although Frank had only been at his station for six days when I spoke to him, he had already run in the Tidewater Men's 10,000 meter Championships at Virginia Beach--and placed second.

Russ MACDONALD is here at National War College. He and Barbara and Anne and I had lunch together yesterday. Russ is going out for the NWC soccer team at the moment, and they are about to move into a beautiful new house in Woodbridge. Mike CLARKE is across the street at ICAF, playing catcher on their softball team and living in Fairfax. He and I had a beer at the club a couple of weeks ago. He was most recently working the F-16 program from Wright-Patt. Speaking of the F-16, I ran into the EM, Ron YATES, on one of my plane trips to Colorado. He had a bad case of Pentagonitis and was escaping to Tennessee for a weekend of bird shooting. While Elaine HEAD was in Colorado working on their Breckenridge cabin last month, I used her ticket to accompany Richard and the kids to a picnic and to see Tony Randall in "Music Man" at Wolf Trap. Thanks again, Elaine. Richard, who really likes his new job as military assistant to Undersecretary Resor, has been over here at NWC as a guest lecturer a couple times.

And now a couple of commercial messages: First, about our twenty-year reunion coming up in 1980. The '59rs are getting their act together, and they will hold their reunion at a time other than the regular alumni homecom­ing weekend--theirs will be next June 28 thru July 1st. They chose that date after surveying their entire class and also running into some problems with Colorado Springs motels and meeting facilities being already booked a year in advance. So it is time for us to get started on our plans and arrangements. Who wants to carry the ball on this? Joe DeSANTIS, who is stationed at Bolling AFB (autovon 297-­4344), is heading up the '59r reunion efforts and could probably tell us much on the subject. Second commercial: I continue to need inputs from you guys in order to have material for this gossip column. The next one will be written three or four weeks after you receive this. Please call or drop a note. Anyone for a guest column? My number one favorite classmate at the moment is Bill ZERSEN, who sent the column below from Los Angeles. Thanks, Bill.