40ish Professor Carries Commuting to the Sixth Degree

Henry Cheeseman of Los Angeles knew there was no way to avoid middle age. Nervously approaching 40, Cheeseman, a business professor at the University of Southern California, decided it was time for a radical change. He would seek a degree in banking law--from Boston University School of Law. Well, on Sunday and 160,000 miles of commuting later, Cheeseman graduated, adding yet another degree to the five he already has. “I was heading for 40, and I had seen a number of my professor friends who turned 40. They were depressed and stressed,” he said. As to the rigors of the nine-month, Monday-through-Thursday trek, Cheeseman said: “I just took it week by week.” He also continued to teach at USC on Fridays.

--A World Series in May? Sounds downright un-American. But not if you happen to be a bird fancier with a yen for robins and gallinules and screech owls and pine warblers. Twenty-seven teams, including “The B-Team” from Great Britain, took part in the World Series of Birding in New Jersey, a race to spot and identify the most species of birds from midnight Friday to midnight Saturday. The winners, the Bushnell Optics-Chapman Club from Easton, Pa., collected the Stone-Urner Cup for spotting 205 species, one more than the 1984 record. The B-Team, which got caught in a traffic jam, tied for fifth place. “The out-of-town teams are getting better,” said Pete Dunne, a member of the third-place Zeiss Optical team.

--”We’re all one big, happy family,” said Tom Gaidosh, 48, of Sutersville, Pa. “Put together by chance,” added Sheldon Ceo, 27, of Aliquippa, Pa. They are two of eight men who are still alive after receiving the Jarvik artificial heart, and the reunion of seven of them (one is still hospitalized) with doctors and nurses at Presbyterian-University in Pittsburgh, Pa., was an emotional event. Six others died because of infection or rejection of the transplanted organs. “Those people gave us something, and I think we should carry on . . .” said Carrie Howard of Holland Patent, N.Y., whose husband, John, 45, is among the survivors.