Tag: 1968

With the birth of Ben Barnett Buzzell in Seattle on June 1st, Judy and I became grandparents.

As I anticipate entering hospice care shortly, I expect this will be my final set of class notes. It has been a joy and a privilege to serve as your secretary.

Take care, guys.

I remember the quick and the dead: Bill Eaton ’69 saying he wanted to be a professor because it wouldn’t interfere with his afternoon naps. Going to a street fair in Mystic with Phil Calhoun ’62, MALS ’69, his wife Janet, and their young daughters. Nat Greene finishing his high-speed lectures on the minute. Virginia Kimball-Cooke dancing with Bill Smith at a reunion of Uranus and the Five Moons. Playing house ball with Sandy Blount ’66 and many others. (The only game we lost was to an assemblage of Amherst All-Stars.) Bill Barber—a gentleman and a (Rhodes) scholar—giving me a B even though I got sick in the middle of his final and couldn’t finish. Long conversations with Geoff Gallas’s mother when visiting Geoff and Boo Gallas ’69 (two classic Southern California surfers/lifeguards) with Wink Wilder in 1967. On that same trip, Will Macoy ’67 and I bumped into Geoff Tegnell in Haight-Ashbury. Jim Weinstein’s ’69 love of opera. George Creeger assigning Henry James’s The Golden Bowl saying he hadn’t read it himself and should. In time, when I told him I’d given up on it (too long; too dense), he acknowledged having trouble keeping up with his own assignments. Dave Losee reminding me, on multiple occasions, I’m something of a crackpot. (It is not like he doesn’t have his quirks).

I saw Bob Carter ’70. We suffered through a harsh boarding school together and shared improbable antics on the Upper West Side in 1971. From whence he went on to a Mexican road-building crew in Wyoming, graduate school, a white-collar career, a full and happy life in Newton. Presently volunteering with an organization that helps seniors stay in their homes. Two boys: a doc and a forest ranger. One of Raquel Welch’s early roles was as Jerry Martin’s ’69 babysitter. At the holidays, I got a touching miniessay from Wig Sherman on our time of life. In his holiday card, Bill van den Berg mused on getting older and said he’s volunteering with an organization trying to reform the antediluvian rules of Pennsylvania’s state legislature. Dave Garrison ’67 reported having a blast playing his euphonium along with 640 other players at a Kansas City Christmas event, the largest gathering of tubas in the country. With a doctorate from Johns Hopkins and a string of varied publications, he taught Romance Languages at Wright State in Dayton for 40 years. Married to a poet/novelist/lawyer, he was Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014 and has just published his sixth book of poetry, Light in the River. I particularly liked a line from a piece called “Men at Seventy”:

They have a lot to remember,

more than they have to look forward to.

Reading through his volume, I was struck by how much courage it takes to be a poet.

We lost Steve Berman in January to lymphoma. A committed Jew, Steve introduced Sandy See to shicksas, matzo, and Manischewitz. Sandy remembers him as a bright, warm, gangly guy who would walk about with a serious look until he made some wisecrack with wild, wide eyes and huge laughter that shook his shoulders. After two years in Cali, Colombia, he spent a distinguished career as a pediatrician at Denver’s Children Hospital involved with global pediatric health; as a one-time president of the American Academy of Pediatrics; as an author of a basic text; and as a beloved mentor.

Personally, this summer will be two years in assisted living and I’m here for the duration. While my overall health is quite good, after some falls and breaks, I can’t walk and need help with daily tasks. So, it is the right place for me. Pleasant enough provided I  keep my expectations modest. Did a couple of op-eds for The New Haven Register. (One on the politicized Supreme Court and the other on the problems with financing higher education through student loans). Judy is nearby and visits regularly. My being here allows her a semi-normal life. (She even went to Morocco.) Overall, it is what it is.

Cornered Joel Lang, author/journalist (four decades at the Hartford Courant), now semiretired in Bridgeport. One of his last projects at the Courant was a special, 80-page section on slavery in the North, which sounded like a precursor to the NYT, Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project. Became a book, Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, which was both critically acclaimed and given four or five stars by 95% of its Amazon readers. Joel researched 19th-century logs of the British Navy’s pursuit of illegal slavers at Olin. Acknowledged indebtedness/inspiration to professors Richard Slotkin of American Studies and English’s George Creeger. Noted Middletown was a busy port in the slave trade and home to a large population of enslaved people.

Dave Losee observed you have to have something to retire to, not simply from: An attorney still working one big case, he is now a beekeeper—30,000 new friends in his backyard (in Camden, Maine) is how he puts it. Chris Thomas, a retired family doc in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and an astronomer, “feels very much at one with the night sky . . .  who often stops to think someone in that galaxy is in my eyepiece looking back at me.” His son shares his passion. Wallace Murfit rowed in two of the world’s greatest regattas: England’s Royal Henley Regatta and the Head of the Charles in 2022.

John Carty (a self-employed attorney and businessman) agrees with Trump on one point— “When you retire, you expire”—and is redoing his house to age in place. Lives near Villanova where he participates in their Senior Enrichment Program and various cultural offerings. A heart surgery graduate who, if he’d known how much fun grandchildren were, would have skipped children completely. Wheelchair bound, Lloyd Buzzell has been in assisted living well over a year now. Pleasant enough if you don’t think about what you’d rather be doing. Like you, playing the cards he’s been dealt as best he can. Karl Norris reported his programming experience in the College of Quantitative Studies led him, when drafted, to a computer research group and on to a career in corporate IT. Retired and in Bloomfield, Connecticut, enjoying the blues harmonica, online courses, one indulgent wife, two daughters, one granddaughter, and five “grandpets.” He plans to move to Edinburgh if things get much crazier here. Stuart Ober’s son, Alexander, is a member of Wes’s class of 2026. Lovely lunch with Chris and Gary Wanerka ’62, a retired pediatrician. Going strong: They went on a Memphis-to–New Orleans cruise.

Good chat with Rich Kremer ’69: Wonderful kids and grands spread around the world—North Carolina, Denver, London, and South Korea—so he is somewhat cuddle deprived. We laughed: When Andrea retired from Dartmouth, her department gave her the august title of “visiting scholar” (so she can use the library). He’s been part of a religious discussion group for 18 years, via Zoom of late.

These notes appear months after I write them, so my coverage is always dated but: Ken Kawasaki ’69, after time in France and some teaching in Japan, has, with his wife Visakha, long headed the Buddhist Relief Mission in the hill country of Sri Lanka and reports their area suffers from “serious shortages of petrol, cooking gas, rice, other staples, and medicines . . .  regular power shortages. On top of this, inflation is rampant. People, hungry and angry, are protesting every day.  Because COVID-19 is still spreading, we are basically staying home, but still connected with good folk, who are helping us provide dry rations and basic medicines for those who are in great need.” For information on their work, contact kawasaki@brelief.org.

The boys in the boat—John Lipsky, Wallace Murfit, Coach Phil Calhoun ’62, MALS ’69, Bob Svensk, Nason Hamlin, Harrison Knight, Karl Norris, and myself—celebrated restarting the crew, and enjoying more success than we had any right to, by reuniting in Middletown in October. Sandy See lost his son Karl, 51, in September to cardiac arrest. Karl was a charming, loyal friend and colleague with an endearing sense of humor who had a fulfilling career in development for nonprofits and loved all aspects of New England’s outdoors. Our condolences. Terry Fralich is “doing well on this little piece of paradise that surrounds our home” (in Saco, Maine). I have visited and that is an accurate characterization of his place. Has two homes on the property, one for Terry and Rebecca, the other for his sister and her partner. Semiretired, Terry, informed by Tibetan Buddhism, counsels half-time and teaches at a mindfulness center.

Sometimes I worry about my adolescent enthusiasm for Wes Tech. Passed up some big names when I chose Wes because I thought I would be treated with more respect and kindness there. And I wasn’t disappointed. Got you guys—the most diverse, interesting, and accomplished group of characters with whom I’ve ever associated—as a bonus.

Caught up with Dan Wood ’67: As Nason Hamlin put it, Dan, inspired by the English exchange student, Peter Harborow ’64, along with the late Mike Tine ’67, “did foundational work that was not flashy but essential for the early crew—like convincing local utility to give us telephone poles for the construction of our dock.” Became an endocrinologist (Columbia and UConn); then two years practicing among Hopi and Navajo as an alternative to Vietnam. Moved to Bath, Maine, in 1978. Happily married to an attorney who practiced elder law. Two daughters: one a Yalie who rowed in U.S. national boat a couple of years. In retirement, he is helping build a reproduction of the Virginia, the first boat built by Englishmen in North America.

Rick Voigt recently published a novel, My Name on a Grain of Rice. From Amazon: “Harry Travers walks away from the manicured future his disintegrating, moneyed family had envisioned for him so that he could feel the rush of making something out of nothing. That something would be himself.” Eighty-four percent of the Amazon reviewers gave it five stars. The author is a lawyer (UVA). After working for the solicitor general in D.C., he moved to Connecticut and went into private practice focusing on workplace issues. In “retirement,” he has some college gigs (including Wes).

Vic Hallberg spent 11 years as a Lutheran minister serving parishes in Vermont and Minnesota (where, now retired, he lives) before shifting into the marketing of high-tech medical equipment. Vic has stayed close to Eric Conger, a Hoboken-based playwright, Bob Helsel, a retired IT consultant in Boulder, and Rick Voigt. The four of them (with wives) vacation together in, for example, the Adirondacks and Moab.

Amby Burfoot of Mystic, Connecticut, the 1968 winner of the Boston Marathon and former editor of Runner’s World, competed in his 59th consecutive Manchester (Connecticut) Road Race, a Thanksgiving Day event that draws about 10,000 runners from around the world. He said that any “lucky dude” can win Boston, but you have to be “pretty mean and gnarly” to run 59 Manchesters. He runs these days because he is not ready to “sit on the front porch and drink lemonade or something stronger.”

John Kepner, with a friend, is producing The Race to Social Justice podcast series. In one, John is interviewed on his coming to comprehend white privilege. Ray Solomon figures prominently in another. John’s hope is that candid, compelling discussions about race will help “each of us in our personal journey in addressing racism.” Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and others.

Jeff Talmadge, after 47 years in Wellesley, moved to East Orleans. Bob Ziegenhagen is living in an Episcopal senior living center in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Nice chat with Bill Currier ’69. Still learning things about one another. Bob Reisfeld’s older daughter made him a grandfather last year. His younger daughter got married in August. Though it irked the hell out of Ellen, Wallace Murfit became president of his rowing club, a position with a lot of work and no money that no one else would take. John Lipsky said all his children and all his grands live in Brooklyn. Bill Nicholson’s #1 son has retired. Bill hasn’t. Few years back, saw Peter Corbin, a renown, wildlife painter, who was in Jacksonville for a commission. Received Bill van den Berg’s holiday letter—a beautiful collage of photographs and text re his 2021. In June, Judy and I celebrated our 50th. Most meaningful accomplishment of my life.

Steve Beik died June 29, 2021, in Longwood, Florida. At Wes, a basketball player and ace tennis player (Pennsylvania State high school champion) who, in time, turned to golf. An attorney (Vanderbilt), he was a prominent figure in GOD TV, a worldwide “evangelical Christian media network” (Wikipedia). Described in his obituary as a quiet and reserved “yet passionate to see the Lord use the media to reach the lost.”

Mary Thompson, Greg Willis’s sister, wrote me: Greg died April 28, 2019, “by his own hand. . . .”  The family believes the overwhelming power of PTSD finally caused him to take the actions he did. He served for 11 months on the ground in Vietnam and was never quite the same after those traumatic months. . . . Returning from Vietnam, he completed his MBA at Columbia then worked for the Bank of New York and Prudential Bache before retiring early to the family farm in Vermont. . . . He loved the land and walked almost all of it every day. . . .  He became involved in the local Baptist church. . . .  A train buff, he also collected antique farm tools, mostly from our family, farmers back through generations. He had a good life.”

Sam Davidson, whose exquisite art gallery is in Seattle, touched base with Dick Emerson, a Connecticut lawyer, about Wes’s NESCAC championship basketball team.

Noteworthy exchange: Bob Svensk: “Athletes row—everyone else just plays games.” Bob Isard: “Sorry to have to remind you: Rugby players eat their dead.”

I have had a tough stretch this summer/autumn: Took some falls; broke one hip and a couple of ribs; fractured the other hip. Operation, then extended rehab. Can’t really stand or walk much. Ended up in assisted living—not an easy adjustment (food is terrible).  But no one ever said life would be easy. Sustained by many friends and Judy has been a freakin’ saint. I am the beneficiary of her competence and love every day. I have a lot of limitations and have to figure things out, including how to best continue to serve as your secretary.

On top of that, my brother/only sibling died unexpectedly in December. The product of the same sad family and too harsh boarding school; we were very close.

 

Hal Skinner is a retired lawyer (Duke) in the Jacksonville area who recounted being on campus a couple of years ago for a beautiful Homecoming with his son, Hal Skinner Jr. ’92, and some grands. Hal Jr. is a very busy epidemiologist who, along with his wife, are professors at Lehigh. Hal’s daughter and her husband are attorneys who live nearby. Hal and his wife, Ana, were traveling extensively. He walks the dog and the beaches. He adds he does not like aging.

Jeff Lincoln succumbed to Parkinson’s on November 21, 2019. I knew him just well enough to know him to be a kind and gentle man. Turns out he lived in Guilford, one town over, and was an IT manager at Yale. Had an MBA from the University of New Haven and served as treasurer of some community organizations including the Shoreline Unitarian Society. A founder of Guilford Cable TV, he believed in creating an environment where people share information. Long active as a Boy Scout leader, he enjoyed the outdoors. He had two children and five grands with whom he spent summers at a family cottage at Groton Long Point.

Rich Kremer ’69 summers in Norwich, Vermont. The only thing he loves more than golf is family. As he has a lot of both scheduled this summer, he is one happy camper. He plays regularly with a couple of great characters: Nick Browning ’69 and Walter Abrams ’69.

Bill Carter is in Hanover. He’s been involved with Ashoka, a change-making, international NGO, for 40 years. Ashoka is currently focusing on scientists and social entrepreneurs addressing climate change. His wife, Nancy, has been a school board member for 25 years. His oldest son teaches in Saudi Arabia, his middle daughter is a social worker in Chicago, and his younger son does energy retrofits in Portland, Oregon.

Bill is working with Chris Palames, who is in western Massachusetts and the creator of Independent Living Resources, a nonprofit he runs from his house that is making an impact throughout western New England. Presently, he is creating a platform on Patreon for content-creators to share their responses to and experiences with disability—including his own. (He was injured in a wrestling accident while at Wes.) He noted with warmth his life-long friendships with John Bach ’69 and Professor John Maguire, whose civil rights work served as a model for Chris’s work with American Disabilities Act issues.

Sidebar: John Maguire was an extraordinary person, one of the faculty members who made Wes what it was. By his own account, born a bigot, he became, among other things, a personal friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a graduate of Yale Divinity School, a Freedom Rider, and president of the innovative State University of New York–Old Westbury.

Ray Solomon retired as the long-time dean of Rutgers Law School–Camden (with a year tacked on as chancellor of the Camden campus). To mark Ray’s work at Rutgers, an anonymous donor contributed $3.5 million for the establishment of a Solomon Scholar program for outstanding students committed to public service. Ray’s entire career has been in legal education: After a J.D. and a Ph.D. (American history) from Chicago, he clerked for a Federal Appeals judge in Cincinnati before working eight years as an administrator and research scholar for the American Bar Association’s Foundation. After a stint at Northwestern, he moved on to Rutgers. Originally from Philip County, Arkansas, he is involved with memorializing the Elaine Massacre, a little known 1919 racial conflict that was one of the most deadly in American history. He is married to a Russian literature professor he met through the late Walter Kendrick. Part of 1968’s Golf Club (Dave Gruol, Pete Hardin, Craig Dodd, etc.), he keeps up with a slew of classmates. He has two daughters and one grand.

Many of you are smarter and better read than I. Nonetheless, I would like to recommend Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration and Caste, as it taught me more about race in America than anything I have ever encountered.

Our world-class ornithologist, Paul Spitzer, is now a columnist for Connecticut Estuary, a quarterly that is focused largely on the four-state Connecticut River watershed and Long Island Sound. Paul characterizes it as “a noble effort to document and, thus, protect the natural and cultural features of the region.” Living on the Choptank in Trappe, Maryland, he swims daily. He notes, “We’ve had a big, luscious vegetable garden for years . . . Chris is a brilliant woman of the soil, and we eat well.”

Some months ago, Wink Wilder quite aptly noted that being 75 then was akin to having a high draft number back in the day. So, in that sense, we are most fortunate geezers. (I slept better after my second jab.) While slowly falling apart, I was not keen on dying quite yet and am profoundly grateful for having seemingly survived the pandemic. And profoundly sad for those that did not.