I have a number of regular(ish) Zoom chats. My regular Thursday morning breakfast group. My five high school friends and significant others. Leadership meetings for two non-profits I spend a lot of time with. And more. They are all enjoyable and important to me. But the one that sticks out in my mind today is the discussion that I have with a number of college friends every six weeks or so.

Basically, it’s a group of us who were in the same freshman dorm (there is one couple – he Harvard she Radcliffe – that were not in that dorm, but have remained friends with all of us). The dorm was Stoughton Hall at Harvard (Stoughton was formerly named New Hall, but how long can that name have stuck to a building completed in 1804?).

First, it’s the occupational diversity – 3 lawyers, 2 doctors, a physicist, an economist, an anthropologist, and a classicist. Second, the geographic diversity – Washington, Annapolis, St. Louis, Phoenix, Austin. Third, the fact that we were college freshman 62 years ago, and that we have remained in contact all these years (with some notable gaps, to be sure).

So what did we talk about last night in a little less than 90 minutes? Struggles: one spouse recently diagnosed with breast cancer and in treatment, and one friend’s unmarried daughter having recently delivered a baby in a place where external support will be a challenge. Travel: plans to go to Amsterdam, Lisbon and Chile, and recent travel to the Panama Canal and Ireland. Health: Covid experiences and current practices. The New Yorker: 6 of 8 homes subscribe to the New Yorker – discussion about recent article on Austin and various other articles, and the cartoons.

While all of these things may seem normal, let me assure you that the contents of these discussions were more substantive than you might expect. But there was more.

The physicist (retired as a prominent academic) is studying the relationship between Newtonian and quantum physics, looking at the mathematical basis for the operation of the smallest particles yet discovered by science. One of the doctors (retired from running a laboratory at a major university) is partnering with a young colleague to gt an NIH grant to continue developing a nasal vaccine for C-diff. Discussions about both of these topics.

It goes on and on. The next class Zoom will probably be in April. No telling what that will focus on.