The class of 1986 worked hard and played hard. I wrote the first half of a book during my year. But it was not a hard slog. Erica, who worked as an associate at the Wilson, Sonsini law firm that year, and I felt we were on a land-based cruise under the benevolent direction of Gardner Lindzey: legions of new friends, nearly weekly cocktail and dinner parties, weekend expeditions to the city and the redwoods, and memorably, a blind tasting party where we tried to distinguish half a dozen vanilla ice creams. I learned to play volleyball from Lynn Gale, the Center’s tech consultant. After lunch,while the history claque, including Stan Engerman, Al Bogue, and Otis Graham, went off to walk in the hills, the volleyball players– Nelson Polsby, John Haviland, David Brady, Bob Scott and others– repaired to the court. Nelson, a good setter, instructed the hitters on his team to aim their spikes in the direction of the white hair on my chest, a bright bullseye. One day after the game, I returned to my office to see that my neighbor, John Darley, had just acquired a desktop computer, the first in our class. We gathered around to watch him install it. It seemed superfluous to me. After all, I not only had just learned to use an IBM Selectric typewriter, but we had a typing pool that produced the day’s work in a matter of hours. Yes, it was certainly one of the best years of my life.
Peter Eisinger
Class of 1986
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