CLASS OF 1971 | 2014 | ISSUE 2

Aloha; just a little news this time. Many of you are recovering from a really bad winter, hope you fared well. It is any wonder why some of us left winter for permanent summer time, but I won’t rub it in.

Peter Michaelson says, “I don’t have any significant news for the class notes, as I think my comings-and-goings have been (too) well chronicled over the years. Becky and I were talking about you at dinner the other night, reminiscing on the fun time we had with you at the last Reunion, and we’re looking forward to the next one….” Yes the next Reunion is only two years away.

Ed Swanson writes, “I thought you might enjoy an article I wrote about the day that Leigh Ann and I fished on the River Itchen in England last fall. The Wilderness Fly Fishers was kind enough to publish the article in the March issue of Mending The Line.” If you enjoy fly fishing or even if you never have done it, the article is certainly enlightening. He talks about fishing on one of the best chalk rivers in England. If you have ever seen pictures of southern England’s rivers, they are crystal clear because of the limestone.

Heard from Vic Pfeiffer, who writes, “Like most other classmates, I intend to send you something, and then it never gets to the top of the list of ‘to dos.’ I just finished a really good book by Katy Butler called Knocking On Heaven’s Door. If you haven’t read it, you ought to. She combines the very touching story of her mother and father’s deaths—Jeffrey Butler was a Wesleyan professor—with the issues of dying and medicine in America today. Very well done and recommended to our classmates. I’m ‘retired’ (as of 2008) from a career consulting around health issues in Washington, DC, and now live on Maryland’s Eastern shore where I job coach (now just three days a week) adults with intellectual disabilities. My wife (33 plus years) and I have a 27-year-old autistic son, so we know the issues. Our daughter (Wesleyan ’06) lives in San Diego and we are expecting our first grandchild next summer. Wow! Thanks for doing the class notes job and for doing what you can to make them interesting. I missed our last Reunion, but perhaps 2016. The numbers get depressingly large.” So if you haven’t begun thinking about Middletown in May of 2016, know that at least two of your classmates are!

Leo Au and wife Melina are retired and hanging in SW Florida. “I am still actively involved with the Wes alumni association as co-vice chair and sit on a number of committees. Before the year is out, I wanted to pass along that in February that I attended Mike Yamashita’s talk at the Asia Society in N.Y., where I encountered our classmate Howie Dubner who has been working in the legal publishing business in New Jersey.” Well, that is it for this time. Aloha from paradise!

NEIL J. CLENDENINN |Cybermad@msn.com
PO Box 1005, Hanalei, HI 96714