CLASS OF 1970 | 2019 | ISSUE 3

Aloha, all. First of all, I need to remind you that our 50th Reunion begins on May 21 with an informal class dinner and ends on that Sunday with Commencement. (see wesleyan.edu/rc for full details). Please make your arrangements to attend now. Thank you.

I had a long note from Bob Stone (he of the Trumpericks books) concerning a lunch reunion with his swim team and fraternity buddy, Vic Pfeiffer. Bob wrote warmly of Vic (“Some people you meet along the way help to elevate you and enhance your performance”) and of the other members of the medley relay team, John Ketcham and William “Boo” Gallas ’69. Bob reminisced fondly about competing in the NCAA College Division national swimming and diving championships, losing the gold by a blink. “Definitely a highlight for me and an honor to be associated with these very talented guys.”

Bob Stone and Vic Pfeiffer swim team reunion

Tim Greaney, professor emeritus after 29 years at Saint Louis University, wrote that he’s now teaching law at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. Tim is working “to improve our broken health care system.” Recently, he testified on health care mergers before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee at the invitation of Amy Klobachar. Tim says he is “living large in the People’s Republic of Santa Cruz, where I spend a lot of time with Paul Roth, who is still going strong teaching, writing, and traveling the globe as a latter-day Louis Mink.” West Coasters are encouraged to contact Tim.

I had a very brief note from Steve Masten ’70, MA’75 saying he’s planning on attending the 50th Reunion. (Have I mentioned we have Reunion in May? Are you coming?)

Charlie Holbrook says, “Leslie and I are making plans to attend the 50th anniversary of the 1969 undefeated football team at Homecoming on Nov. 2, and in May we will be attending the 50th graduation anniversary of the Class of 1970. It is going to be an eventful year!”

Speaking of Reunion, look for an e-mail soliciting a little bit of writing to be put into a special Reunion memory book being assembled by John Griffin, Maurice Hakim, and John Sheffield. Also, Jeremy Serwer is requesting that you contact him with your top five favorite on-campus music concerts of our Wesleyan years. You can contact John at jqgriffin01@gmail.com or Jeremy at jeremy@theserwercompany.com. I believe they are still seeking photographs from our college years.

In closing, I would like to share with you a profile in courage from classmate David Redden. David was part of the fight against AIDS, using his auctioneer’s skills more than 30 years ago to raise funds by auctioning Christmas trees along with Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Harvey Fierstein.  Now David himself is struggling, doing personal battle with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

Unable to do many physical things, David is busy writing, including editing, expanding, and categorizing “decades of my private Diary of a Sotheby’s Auctioneer.” “It is curious that so many words—well beyond one million, could be written about only one facet of what I conceive to have been a charmed existence.”  In love with the stories of items in “almost a million lots,” David tells of his office, “an irresistible vantage point from which to peer into the hidden corners of human existence.”  I have the distinct feeling that the resulting book will be incredibly fascinating and will, to paraphrase John McPhee in describing the experience of reading his fascinating little book about the history of oranges, will be a book you will enjoy from beginning to end, despite perhaps having thought at the outset that you would never be interested in a book about auctions.

While you await the publication of the book, please consider contributing to the David Redden ALS Fund at Columbia University, to support ALS and neuron research and the work of the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center.  

I have the distinct feeling that the resulting book will be incredibly fascinating and will, to paraphrase John McPhee in describing the experience of reading his fascinating little book about the history of oranges, will be a book you will enjoy from beginning to end, despite perhaps having thought at the outset that you would never be interested in a book about auctions. While you await the publication of the book, please consider contributing to the David Redden ALS Fund at Columbia University, to support ALS and neuron research and the work of the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center. (I am asking the editors to publish David’s entire letter to his classmates in the online edition of this column.)

At this end, having recovered (more or less) from the flood of April 2018, we have renewed our efforts to finish our little offgrid home-in-a-valley with the help of a go-getter contractor.  (Photos on Facebook, if interested.)  Visitors will be welcome.

So, write with news or just because. And don’t forget to make plans to attend the 50th Reunion. (Did I mention our Reunion?)

Russ Josephson | russ_josephson@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 1151, Kilauea, HI 96754