CLASS OF 1981 | 2023 | SPRING ISSUE
Greetings from Brooklyn! We went to Maine last July and broke bread with old friends Seth Mirsky ’82 and Nicholas Herold ’83. It was good to see them and their significant others. I also saw Jenny Boylan ’80 here in NYC as part of her book tour for Mad Honey, co-written with Jodi Picoult. But enough about me. You all sent me about 1,500 words of news that I now have to pare down to 722. Here goes:
Paul Robinson reports that the Annie Haslam lead singer of the ’70s band of the Renaissance, has a “legacy” band of which he is a fan, and coincidentally Dave Miller was able to get him an autographed copy of a live album from years ago. “The ’70s live, people!”
Liz Rees reminisced about living on Foss Hill freshman year, and going to dance class in tights and a down jacket. She has a MA in poetry and teaches creative writing to everyone from school kids to grad students, and private workshops that are “like, conducting a post-MFA salon or workshop that lasts 15 years.” She has also published five books of poetry. She’s looking to connect with “any Wesleyan folks who live or summer in Downeast Maine.”
Sandy Herzlich writes that he and his wife Barb Martin Herzlich are now successfully retired in Wayne, Pennsylvania. They have three grandchildren. Barb is a “very successful potter” and Sandy is coaching local HS football. They returned for Homecoming. He was “especially pleased to be able to catch up with our classmates Tim O’Brien, Tony Difolco, and Paul DiSanto. Tony and I had the privilege of serving as honorary co-captains for the football team in the game against Williams. Photos of the event make us look like old men being helped onto the field by strapping young players. Probably because that’s a pretty accurate rendering!”
Laurie (Conrad) Kramer retired three years ago from her job as a software engineer in the genomics department at Princeton University. “An interesting use of my English major!” She lives in central New Jersey “with my husband Phillip and our dog and keep busy playing competitive bridge. I’d love to hear from some of my Wes friends.”
Wayne Pepper attended Homecoming weekend this fall in order to visit his nephew Adam Pepper-Macias ’25. He was delighted to see that Adam has followed in his footsteps by becoming a member of Alpha Delta Phi. Wayne gave Adam a tour of the CFA Theater, reminding anyone they encountered that he directed his senior thesis on the main stage.
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto launched a new San Francisco Bay Area climate resilience magazine called KneeDeep Times; we are indeed knee-deep in all kinds of challenges and messes these days. Ariel mentors emerging reporters, photographers, and artists. She is proud to report her daughter Tira is researching climate equity issues as a graduate student at Simon Fraser University, and her daughter Mikki is an architect in San Francisco. Ariel and her husband Paul continue their work to save the planet —he teaches sustainable design at the University of San Francisco. Ariel is also nearing completion of a memoir of her days as a Napa Valley vintner, for which she once appeared on the cover of Wesleyan’s alumni magazine. “Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end . . . .”
Charlie Spiegel will be celebrating his 65th (ugh, but along with many of you! Medicare) birthday mid-April in beautiful San Miguel de Allende (SMA) Mexico, where he celebrated his 60th with among others, Nancy Chirinos (Traub). “You are all invited, otherwise you will need to wait five more years, until we are, umm, well you do the math.” Attendees will include Nick Radcliffe and Pam Bolton ’85. Laura Fraser ’82, who is hosting in absentia, met with Charlie and Kate Rabinowitz ’83 to help plan the event. Charlie says: “We’ll celebrate at an authentic Mexican restaurant in the chef’s carport near where my partner Lon has a small house. BTW, Anne Stevenson Yang and I met up recently to swap stories of current national (Nevada, with Action-SF.com, a group I help coordinate) and local (Connecticut) election volunteering.”
Chris Graves recently hosted a minireunion of classmates from both prep school and Wesleyan, including Professor Jim Terry.
Chris worked full-on throughout the pandemic on the behavioral science of vaccine hesitancy. “I fielded the country’s largest behavioral science-specific study to decode the ‘sensemaking genome’ of the many ways people are hesitant when it comes to vaccines. The Rockefeller Foundation and Milken Institute asked me to chair a work stream on a global task force seeking to craft a blueprint for a better pandemic early warning system. I supported the WHO, UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Chicago Department of Public Health as well with behavioral science insights.”