| Days Until Graduation |
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| Class of 2026 |
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| Class of 2027 |
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| Class of 2028 |
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| Class of 2029 |
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| Days Since Graduation |
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| Class of 1975 |
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| Days Since 5 July 1971 |
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Summertime is here: By the time this issue of Checkpoints shows up in your mailbox, we should be approaching the summer solstice, although by the time that comes around, we normally feel like we’re already deep into summer. The Southerners and Easterners will be cursing the humidity, the Northerners will look forward to the extra hours of daylight and then plunge into despair when they realize every day after the solstice gets shorter for the next six months, the Western desert inhabitants won’t venture more than 100 yards from a functioning air conditioner, and the Midwesterners will curse because of the heat, humidity, shortening days, and the fact that out-of-staters are using their highways to get to other parts of the country.
This year, however, things may be different. Following the bizarre winter the country just experienced, or, in the case of the Rocky Mountains, the winter that never showed up, all bets are off. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, hailstorms, plagues, and pestilence are all on the table, and that’s the good news. The bad news is that midterm elections are coming, which means the commercials for drugs that treat afflictions we’ve never heard of will be replaced by political ads consisting mostly of accusations of incompetence and malfeasance of one’s opposition while perched on a pedestal of pure and innocent hypocrisy. Now that you’re mired in a swamp of doom and gloom, let the lowly scribe that took you there remind you that the reason you read Checkpoints is to catch up on what your classmates are up to, so let’s start that portion of the column and let you find your happy place.
Classmates’ Updates: Scott Hente, Gary Shugart, Ken Finn, Paul Williams, and their wives have been taking cruises together for the last few years, and this year they took a Southeast Asia cruise. While the guys were there, they strolled onto the bridge over the River Kwai and badgered a stranger into taking a photo of them on 
the bridge made famous by a movie produced in 1957. Gary looks a little bit like Alec Guinness, and Scott bears a passing resemblance to Jack Hawkins, but the only way Ken or Paul could look like William Holden would be with their backs to the camera from a hundred feet away. Congrats to the guys for getting a pin in the map in Thailand for the ’75 guidon.
