Life in the Big City

The "Where Are They Now" Edition

Inspired, as always, by Mrs. Kennedy (whose new banner, although quite fetching, gave me a sudden shock today), I thought it might be fun for me to see what happens when I Google the names of my old (and I mean OLD old, like Fourth Grade old) friends.

Yowza.

First we have Brenda Herschbach Jarrell, whose achievements are frightening:

Dr. Jarrell is a patent attorney with Choate, Hall & Stewart, whose practice is focussed on biotechnology. Dr. Jarrell followed an unorthodox path to the law, starting life as a Chemist (AB Harvard 1987; AM Harvard 1988) and then pursuing a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (UCSF 1993). Dr. Jarrell joined Choate, Hall & Stewart in 1993 as a Staff Scientist, continued to work there while pursuing her law degree (Harvard 1998), and is now an associate.

Of course, that sort of thing is to be expected when your dad is a Nobel Laureate. All I remember about her dad is that he was hardly ever home, and when he was, he was in his office. Brenda had long, beautiful straight blonde hair, Barbie Doll hair, which I was endlessly jealous of and fascinated with, having myself some pretty strange, frizzy and totally unruly brown curly Jewish hair. This didn't exactly help me to fit in in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Together, Brenda and I pretended to be alien children adopted by our human parents but needing to get back to the space ship, which we decided was going to land in Chicopee, Massachusetts. We spent hours devising our plan for getting back to the ship and thus to our true home in outer space. It all made perfect sense at the time. And yes, we lifted the entire story line from a certain Disney movie, but what the hell. We were eight.

Liz Dewey is absolutely nowhere to be found on the internet, but that's OK. I'm actually somewhat in contact with her family as her sister lives here in Austin and her mom and my dad are still in touch for business reasons. I don't think I ever need to see Liz again, actually. She broke my heart when she dumped me during the summer between Fourth and Fifth grade. I haven't been the same since. Anyway, I know she's living in Vermont and working for her dad.

I'm also still a little bit in touch with the beautiful, ephemeral Laura Heijn, although it's horribly sporadic. She, too, lives in Vermont. The only mention of her name on the internet has to do with some hut in the Appalachian mountains, and an award she got from high school. I don't think Laura even owns a computer. She's an artist, and all that. I miss her.

The shocker of the day was Kevin Platt. I pined like a lovesick puppy dog for Kevin Platt for years, enduring all sorts of horrible taunts involving his first name and my last (which was Zevin at the time), and the whole "Sarah and Kevin kissing in a tree" thing. And now he has his very own homepage. He sounds happily married and all that, so I guess I missed my chance. Kevin was tall, dark and handsome, and a total geek. While the other kids were playing outside at recess, Kevin and I would sit in the back room and READ TOGETHER. I'm still the same old dork I was back then, I guess. But Kevin really did something amazing once, by standing up to a very bratty classmate of ours, and I've always wanted to tell him how much I appreciated that. I guess now's my chance, huh? Wow.

I know I had other friends in fourth grade, but honest to God I can't remember their last names. So this will have to do. Thanks, Mrs. Kennedy!