The Confluence: A Collection of Essays, Art & Tall Tales about Fly-fishing and Friendship 

David Van Wie (Guy) now lives in Lyme, New Hampshire, just up River Road from Dartmouth College. He grew up in Troy NY. Like Billy’s dad, his was a Dartmouth alum and Guy spent many weekends in Hanover as a kid enjoying football games and reunions, before ending up two doors down from Phil and Norm freshman fall. An upper classman named him Guy (pronounced ghēē) because he thought “Guy Van Wie, French race car driver” suited David. As an undergrad, he played rugby and later was the founding coach of the Dartmouth Women’s Rugby Club. Always an outdoorsman, today Guy is an environmental consultant and the only one of us to have served as an elected official with a term in the Maine House of Representatives. His Dartmouth-wife, Cheryl, and two kids have been very supportive of his various adventures.

​

If the Boys were a company, Phil would be CEO and CFO and Guy would be co-founder and COO or CTO. Anyway, despite the Boys willingness to dispute most anything, there’s no disputing that Guy is the best fisherman of the group along almost any dimension. Lastly, we should note that it was Guy who had the preposterous idea of writing this book, and managed to get all the Boys to actually pull it off.

​

Check out his website and blog: www.watchyourbackcast.com  where you can follow his blog and buy a copy of his book Storied Waters.    #StoriedWaters  

​

Phil Odence grew up in southern New Jersey with summers sailing and fishing on Cape Cod. Mostly he has lived in New England since graduating from high school (but he also screwed around in Europe, Colorado, and California for a couple years after grad school). He works on the business side of technology companies.

​

He and his wife were the first of the Boys gang to downsize, in their case from the Boston ’burbs. Having shed two daughters, he now resides in  Cotuit, MA. He sails all summer and runs barefoot all year round. And he reads and travels a lot. Phil is the co-leader of the Boys of the Grant and serves to keep us all physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. He also was the major co-author and co-editor for this book.

​

Norm Richter grew up in New York City going to public schools with numbers instead of names (who names a school PS 31?). He arrived at Dartmouth in the autumn of 75 having never seen the campus to become Phil’s roommate and first (and fast) Big Green friend. After law school, he went to Washington, DC where he worked for all three branches of the US government, and began hearing about rockfish in Chesapeake Bay.  After marrying a gal with strong ties to Block Island and moving to Rhode Island, he learned they were really called stripers, and Norm became a saltwater fisherman.  He started his family a little later than the rest of us and so still has daughters in college and grad school. Norm is now back in New England, splitting his time between Lexington, MA and Block Island, RI.

 

Bob Chamberlin is living in Salt Lake City, Utah these days, and yearning bot move back to New England. Bob, Dave Van Wie and Phil Odence went to grad school together in a small, funky systems engineering program at Dartmouth’s Thayer School. Bob’s the only mid-westerner of the bunch, having grown up in Illinois before graduating in 1979 from the University of Wisconsin. After grad school, he continued to reside in the Upper Valley (of the Connecticut River), mostly in Norwich, VT. He’s a transportation engineer now running his company’s Burlington office, and has a couple of great kids, both out of college now. Bob is also a professional artist and produces watercolors that delight his fans and receive very positive critical acclaim.

In April 2016, Bob was officially adopted as a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1979. (The book helped.)

Oh, and he’s about the nicest guy in the world. Check out Bob's website.

 

Ed Baldrige is a Pennsylvania native and arrived at Dartmouth from Allentown. He played rugby with Dave Van Wie, Phil Odence and Dave Klinges, and knew the others of our band, but was not particularly close friends with any of us while at school. After graduating, through a series of fortuitous circumstances, Ed ended up trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and was sharp enough to get out while he was ahead. Now he runs an investment firm managing people’s money. He too is an empty nester along with his wife Lydia Panas, an acclaimed portrait photographer. (Lydia, in fact, contributed a portrait to the book.) He was a late, but welcome addition to our group, as explained in his story, Late To the Party.

 

Dave Klinges (Klingon) lives in Princeton, NJ, right near the campus. He showed up in Hanover, NH freshman year from Bethlehem, PA. He was an intense, fearless rugger at Dartmouth and only recently gave up playing when yet another joint stopped working and required surgery. After graduating from Tuck School of Business, Klingon went the New York investment banking route and is an expert at funding public infrastructure projects. He married a Dartmouth grad who somehow puts up with him and they too have great kids, one still studying in Hanover.

 

Bill Conway, a consummate gentleman, hails from New Orleans originally and spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard enjoying many happy hours bluefishing in Nantucket Sound. Bill rowed lightweight crew while at Dartmouth. After graduation, he went on to law school in Louisiana and spent his early career on Capitol Hill writing energy laws. Now, Bill is a partner in the energy practice at Skadden Arps in DC. He lives in a haunted house in Potomac, MD with wife Diana and the youngest of his three kids. The other two are off at college.