We had a nice gathering at the home of Ben ’80 and Mary Maynard, overlooking the Mississippi River. Ben served a Sazurac, which is a New Orleans drink made with rye whiskey, simple syrup, bitters, and absinthe.
At Williston Northampton, Ben was a big lacrosse player and the 1980 boys lacrosse team were the “unofficial” New England champs, having beaten the Longmeadow High School team, the reigning Massachusetts State Champs. They had six players go off to play college lacrosse, including Ben.
Also in attendance were Fran Sullivan ’79 and Jeff Sullivan ’85. Fran mentioned that she wasn’t able to attend Reunion this last year but watched the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies for the 1978 boys soccer team on YouTube. Jeff was a chef at several local restaurants and is now an electrician, finding plenty of busy as the city continues to rebuild from Katrina.
Rebecca Couret ’89 and her husband Bill stopped by for a short time enroute to the first of many Mardi Gras balls. Both Rebecca and Bill are members of different Mardi Gras “Krewes.” Rebecca is a member of an all-women crew and their parade is scheduled for the first night of Mardi Gras. They say that that population of New Orleans swells from just under 500,000 to over 2,000,000 during Mardi Gras. It was fascinating to learn more about the whole event. All the floats are created by outside companies and can only be used a maximum of three times. Each parade has a theme attached to it.
Brian Webber also put in a short appearance as he was running in the New Orleans Marathon the next day. He was hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Brian is a grad student in the architecture program at Tulane and is loving life in New Orleans. I had him download EverTrue and encouraged him to use it to find possible internships with other Williston alumni architects.
Roy Weiner ’59 and his wife were also there. Roy was excited to hear about the tribute for Bob Couch. Roy’s parents brought back a camera lens from Italy while Roy was at Williston and gave it to Couchie, who remembered that and mentioned it to Roy last year at Reunion. Roy is going to look and see if there are any photos he can contribute to the tribute. I encouraged him to write up the story about his parents and the camera lens.
We gave everyone a Williston pub glass at the end of the evening.
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