The very proud and distinguished Class of '42 could not let a great tradition end with merely the first son born to the class. They have a generous tradition of providing a handsome gift to any child born to the class that graduates from USMA. My father's class was celebrating their 40th reunion during Graduation Week of 1982, and presented me with a fabulous set of wooden class bookends. Both bear a heavy, pewter academy crest, and one has a plate engraved with my name and class, the other a plate that says, "From her Father's Classmates, USMA 1942."

It would have been all the greater if I had actually graduated that week, rather than in December of that year. But fortunately, the men and wives of that class recognize that goats work just as hard as their hive fathers, (or perhaps even harder!) and that graduating at all is a feat to be applauded.

--Celia A. FlorCruz, '82

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