Is My Name in There?

The other night, at the end of another day in the salt mines, I was leafing through a fundraising brochure sent by my old (but despised) prep school and decided to look up the class of '85 to see who was sending in checks. There were a whole bunch of what looked like tiny crosses next to about half of the twenty or so classmates listed, and when I scanned down to the bottom of the page, the notation indicated that they were now "deceased!"

So, I freaked out a bit, and then noticed that there were lots of crosses next to kids from the graduating classes around mine. Did they all die on 9/11?!?! (I read throught the "Portraits of Grief" in the Times religiously, and only came across one person that I knew of through my wife...how could I have missed all of these people?) Is there some sort of freaky disease running through this rich, privileged crowd (of which I was never a part)?!

I raced to the computer and started searching through the Times' listing of the 9/11 dead (nothing), then checked their obituaries listings (nothing), then punched various names into Google (nothing). My wife returned from her errand and I relayed my bizarre tale of dozens of former classmates cut down in the prime of their lives. I remember seeing so-and-so in Central Park with his kid, and this guy on Lexington in the 70s...and do you remember meeting this guy in the playground a few years ago?

She takes a closer look at the brochure and tells me that the notation indicates not that they died, but that they have supported the school alumni fund for five years or more...

Oh. Never mind.