(FORTUNE Magazine) – Dear Statperson: At the present inst., I still count myself a survivor of the Yale class of 1950. This was the first big postwar gathering, and because of all the veterans, the oldest ever. (Median age at graduation: 23.45.) I adduce my breathing status only because the obituary pages keep reminding one that the fellows are fading fast. Although we Yalies are obviously of high socioeconomic status (SES), which is supposed to correlate positively with life expectancy, I am told by our class historian that as of last fall, 310 of the 1,767 who entered in 1946 had already passed over the great divide, all of which leads me to anxiously ask: Shouldn't God be taking better care of a class that always contributes heavily and furthermore includes William F. Buckley Jr.? SLEEPLESS FROM NEW HAVEN

Dear Bulldogperson: You have it all wrong. Whatever else He is doing, the Almighty is taking damn good care of high-SES folks generally and Yale men in particular. Your class, which was all male and overwhelmingly white, has far more survivors than would be actuarially anticipated in a randomly selected group of white males who were 23.45 in June 1950. One would have expected the death of 1.7% of any such group by 1960, of 4.2% by 1970, of 9.3% by 1980, of 22.8% by 1990, and of 29.7% by 1993 -- when, in fact, only 17.5% of your classmates had expired. Another way of looking at it: If Yale men were average, then at least another 215 of the 1,767 would now be gone. You owe an apology to Somebody.

Dear Probabilissimo: Although it makes every effort to stay au courant on management praxis, our crime family has chronic laundering problems, and I am not talking olive-oil stains. Running profits through checking accounts is increasingly problematical, as the federals keep leaning on bank managers to report not only deposits of $10,000 or more, as required under the Bank Secrecy Act, but even to rat on customers making multiple deposits anywhere near this limit, which is how that trusted employee of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing got caught the other day after he had managed over several years to sneak 17,000 portraits of Benjamin Franklin out of the bureau's headquarters building near the Jefferson Memorial. What is the use of stealing if a fellow cannot turn around and spend the stuff without the feds asking how come a night watchman for Dominic's Carting Co. has a purple Lexus? That is what the younger soldiers keep asking, and who can blame them? Mindful of Capone's fate, our policy manual eschews tax evasion on organizational income. All we are looking for is a non-disprovable and socially acceptable story explaining how we got it. URGENTLY NEED DETERGENT

Dear Laundryman: Although the associated transaction costs are high, persons wishing to cleanse lucre often find that long-shot betting at racetracks offers a suitable format. Let us say that an average day's problem is to account for $50,000. Making a few large bets on favorites would doubtless enable you to cash some big tickets. Given that the track takes 18% out of the betting pools before paying off on ''win'' bets, your median expectation would be to go home with $41,000 -- now all accounted for. The limitation of this approach is that (a) it leaves you still without an explanation for how you got the resources enabling you to make those big bets in the first place, and (b) it doesn't leave you with any documentation of your winnings. Long-shot betting solves both problems. Your tactic in this scenario is to buy a large number of relatively low-priced tickets on ''exotic'' bets, e.g., trifectas (in which one picks the first three horses to cross the finish line, in order), and furthermore limit yourself to implausible ponies that would pay off at long odds. You will obviously cash fewer tickets this way, but every time you do have one, the racetrack will issue you a W2-G form attesting to the win. (Federal law requires the track to do this on any ticket paying off at 299 to 1 or more.) The takeout on trifectas rises to 25%, so your median expectation now is to go home with 37,500 fully documented dollars for every $50,000 you put into the pool. It's expensive, but you end up in the clear, which as Schopenhauer wrote is what life is all about. Or was it Nietzsche?