CLASS OF 1969 | 2019 | ISSUE 3
Tom Earle finished a 45-year English teaching career in Honolulu. “Will travel soon.”
Tony Mohr “cruised from Singapore to Dubai—visited Malaysia to Fujairah. Also published some essays.”
Vickie and Rob Pratt “sailed about 300 miles, Maine to Martha’s Vineyard.”
Mike Fink’s family “toured Spain. Best of times. Discovering, eating, talking. Many changes, but some things remain the same. No nostalgia, just taking it in.”
Harry Nothacker “competed in the Alcatraz Triathlon, finished third in my age group. Swam from the prison to the marina, biked through the city, ran the hills and beaches near the bridge. Our son and family live there and shared in the festivities.”
Also from Harry. “Wesleyan ranked #43 out of 600-plus of the large and small colleges surveyed by the WSJ and #14 in producing the most critically acclaimed actors, producers, writers, and musicians since 2014.”
Darius Brubeck wrote, “My father’s birthday centennial is soon. To mark it, my brothers and I will play at the Wilton Library and Lincoln Center. I have a new live album out from a tour of Poland. Our two recent Wes-grad grandchildren are in NYC and working. We’re happy.”
Bill Eaton “felt the campus looked nice at Reunion and enjoyed my obligatory swing through O’Rourke’s.”
John Mihalec: “Enjoyed the Reunion very much, especially seeing Gordy Crawford honored by the school. Thanks to Bryn Hammarstrom, John Bach, and Dave Siegal for teaming with me on our Vietnam panel. Also appreciated the faculty look-back at the library, which included Russ Murphy who said there was no rush on those term papers that I still owed him for the course in Urban Politics.”
Jim Adkins “traveled from Boston to Montreal on a small cruise boat, saw a lot of fog.”
Steve Remmer was “struck by how happy we all were to be together at Reunion, connected by our shared Wesleyan experience. All were old friends, whether we knew each other well during our college years or not.”
Steve Knox had “a great time at the Reunion and the following Friday at the Friends of Wesleyan Men’s Basketball Golf Outing.”
Barry Turnrose wrote, “Sorry I was not able to make it to reunion. Harry Nothacker sent a nice photo of roommates Ron Reisner, Harry, and Dave Farrar at the Friday night Reunion dinner, and I had a two-hour catch-up video call with Harry and Dave a few days later. I hope freshman roommate John Wasserman is also doing well. I will always be grateful for the roommates I had at Wes; they were all a significant and very important part of my Wesleyan experience, and I know I am a better person for it.
“It was interesting this July to observe the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I think I was was one of the few people unable to watch the happenings live in 1969, as I was busy working with Dr. Faller’s Wesleyan experiment at Lick Observatory in California for lunar laser ranging using a retro-reflector array that the astronauts deployed on the moon. The first successful detection of a return laser signal from the reflectors with the three-meter Shane Telescope on Aug. 1, 1969 was designated this August as an IEEE Milestone, with a bronze plaque placed at Lick noting, among other details, ‘This was the first experiment using a hand-placed extraterrestrial instrument.’
Check out Visakha and Ken Kawasaki at brelief.org. Their report on the Sri Lanka bombings are factual and heartbreaking. Sign up for a Vesak card. My last defined good communication as “true, beneficial, gentle, kind, and loving.”
Bob Dombroski “caught Scorsese’s remastered Bob Dylan film, Rolling Thunder. Very wonderful. I have no fond memories of the mid-’70s popular culture. Weimar decadence foreshadowing the proto-fascist neo-liberalism of the Reagan era, which we are now aimlessly trying to shake off, but Dylan was, and still is, a brilliant artist.”
Bob Watson’s son is married and living in Columbia, his daughter is in a psychology post-doc in Seattle. “Jane is downsizing her practice, and I still have some private clients and a book contract.”
Pete Pfeiffer enjoyed the Reunion for “the throngs of old duffers, amiable, intelligent people who lead interesting, productive lives, many exhibiting long, happy marriages. Reunion went by in a flash. I talked late on Olin’s steps, feeling bittersweet with so many dear friends missing.”
Rick McGauley said, “It was great to see everyone. We seamlessly plugged into long dormant relationships without any awkwardness. I enjoyed reminiscing about those shared years with Dan Rose and Ric Peace. Let’s not wait another 50 years.”
Jim Dreyfus wants “to do it again, soon.”
Rich Frost “practiced internal medicine for 30-plus years in northern New York. I write travel and history pieces, as well as some fiction, an occupation more precarious than medicine. My Wes time impacts my thinking every day.”
Jim Weinstein was “in Europe during Reunion. I live in a modern home in Alexandria, Va., surrounded by wildlife and gardens. I sing with choruses at the Kennedy Center. Life is good.”
Andy Burka “still works as a child and adolescent psychologist. Celebrated 44 years with my sweetheart. We have two kids, three grands, all in New Orleans. I’m in touch with a number of Wes friends, maybe because Wes is where I found my true interests and love for learning. It put the wind in my sails.”
Rip Hoffman’s new book is Becoming People of the Way.
John Hickey wrote, “I first want to express my appreciation for your long standing and faithful tenure as our class secretary and historian. I enjoyed hearing about your life on the Connecticut River Valley at the continental breakfast in the Reading Room on Saturday morning at the Reunion and over the years your snippets from your own family life in ‘class notes.’ It was great to catch up with Bruce Hartman, Barry Macey, Jeff Richards, David Dixon, and to see for the first time in 50 years my former fellow ‘Winnetkans’ (as in Winnetka, Ill.) John Wilson and Orin Baird at the class dinner, and Jim Drummond and Lynn Kozlowski at our Library Reading Room headquarters and Bryn Hammerstrom at the Friday luncheon. I was disappointed to miss John Bach‘s presentation as he has remained constant in his pursuit of joyous principle and courage. I was sorry not to be able to stay following the Saturday morning panel discussion, but it was nostalgic to hear from Bernie Freeman, Ed Sanders, Steve Pfeiffer, and Howard Brown, all of whom were on the panel. The reference to Ted Theismeyer’s Freshman Humanities at which Bernie Freeman and Steve Pfeiffer first met reminded me that I was in that same class.
“Finally, when I encountered Ed Cimeno for the first time in 50 years in the library we recalled our year at the Institute of European Studies in Paris and Les Evenements du Mai. Ed had family in Italy and was able to go there during the closure of the University of Paris in the spring of 1968 and was able to return to Paris to complete his exams. I unfortunately did not have the wherewithal to return to Paris that summer and lost my credits for the spring courses.
“George Evans and his partner were delightful companions at the class dinner. I was deeply saddened to learn of the deaths of Eric Schmeider (my former Foss Hill floormate), John Goldkamp (my former fellow French major), Stan Harbison (former Lawn Avenue neighbor), and Bob Davis.”
Steve Broker ’69, MAT’72 identified the bird driving me crazy as a “white-breasted nuthatch.”
Early fall. Dinner with Maurice Hakim ’70. Coordinating an electric car day. Recommend Alexandra Fuller’s African memoirs.
Love,
Charlie Farrow | charlesfarrow@comcast.net
11 Coulter Street, #16, Old Saybrook, CT 06475