CLASS OF 1983 | 2014 | ISSUE 3
Summer is over and I’m not sure where it went. Sending sophomores off to college is so much easier and less dramatic than last year. Phew! (Can’t wait till they come home for Thanksgiving.) In the meantime, I just moved to a new home in a quaint little town complete with a river and waterfall and no franchised businesses. I am ready for new beginnings and the new year. I’m not sure why the calendar dictates the new year begins in January. For me, it’s always been September. Seems like there are many changes for our classmates as well…
Ruth L. Schwartz married her longtime partner, Michelle Murrain, in a small, unconventional riverfront ceremony on September 13th. Ruth is a writer, healer, teacher, and visionary. Check out her new project at hearforareason.org. Suzanne Smith is job hunting for the first time in years and in the middle of a divorce. Suzanne, I am going through one, too. It’s overwhelming, scary, and liberating at the same time. Thanks to Facebook, Suzanne stays in touch with Mike Steinberg, Susanna Sharpe, David Hill ’86, and hometown friends Staci Caplanson and Claudia Florian. She’d love to hear from Tricia Reilly.
Ben Binswanger and wife Karen just moved to Fairfield, Conn., and look forward to more frequent visits to Middletown for dinners with Katie Binswanger ’15, Tim Israel ’16, Kiley Kennedy ’16, and Gabriel Weinreb ’18. Steve Sorkin and his wife, Aida, live in Lincoln, R.I., since 1997, also in close proximity to Wes. They enjoy visiting son Mathew ’15, who plays on Wes’s baseball team, which won both the Little 3 and the NESCAC Championship for the first time. Their daughter, Melissa, attends Boston College. Cat Maquire and David Campanelli’s son begins his collegiate journey at Brown University. Stephanie Oddleifson lives in Natick, Mass., and enjoys her job at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care as a data analyst in the Medical Informatics area. One of her daughters attends Colby College and the other is a senior in high school. Stephanie, remember when you introduced me to force blooming bulbs in the winter? Much thanks; I continue the practice. Other nature oriented news…
Naturalist classmate Timothy Brockett lives in Montana where “we arm ourselves for protection from bears and other large predators. Hunting season is a wonderful family time where everyone gets to enjoy the vast outdoors. Many families use the abundant deer and elk to supplement their diet. A few hunt bear but that is a fatty meat. Others hunt wolves and foxes just for fun. The gun laws are progressive so we carry weapons in our vehicles and on our person, and we shoot just about anywhere without a permit or violating the laws. Interestingly, Montana tends to be a very polite society with little crime.” After a long cold winter where the temperature dropped below 30 degrees for several days, and everything freezes within minutes, Tim spent a rejuvenating two weeks in Grand Cayman fishing, hiking, and swimming. And, after the fires that swept through Emigrant Gulch, just north of Yellowstone Park, he spent the summer mining for gold and recovered almost three pounds. Additional summer fun included…
Susan Kelly, Barb Bailey Beckwitt, Sue Stallone Kelly, Karen Adair Miller, Gretchen Millspaugh Cooney, and Christine Tam Rosengarten Darcas met up in Maine in celebration of their friendship that began 35 years ago at field hockey practice. Barbara Miller Legate reports that while in Las Vegas she saw Chris Wink’s Blue Man Group at the Monte Carlo. Jonathan Chatinover spent the summer broadcasting home games for the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks (summer collegiate baseball) with son, Keith, assisting. While there, they crossed paths with Guy Davidson ’16 (current Wes student), son of Guy Davidson (our classmate).
Kenneth Schneyer and Janice Okoomian dropped their daughter off at Marlboro College in Vermont, and their son just started high school and is interested in architectural drafting. Ken didn’t actually win the Nebula or Sturgeon Award this year, but “it’s nice just to be nominated.” He just released his first science fiction collection, The Law and the Heart, and his earlier fantasy stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese, and Czech. Spanish and Italian translations are in the works. Tim Backer just finished a new disc, Platform for Dreams, in which he develops a branch of classical music founded by The Beatles and writes, “It is a great leap beyond my first rock classical album, The Subtle Dawn.” Other professional news…
Janet Milkman works on green building in Philadelphia and enjoys biking, kayaking, and being an empty nester. Cori Adler bike commutes to her faculty position at Antioch University in Seattle and the Cornish College of the Arts. Proud of her neighborhood, which was recently mentioned on NPR, Cori lives with her husband and “brilliant teenage daughter.” Other Wes folk in Seattle include Cliff Meyer ’82, Chris Meyer Wilsdon, and for an all too brief period, Dan Bergman ’85. All, according to Cori, “have a spouse and at least one child, are in good health, and are every bit as scintillating as [she] remembers.”
Lori Kipnes received her master of arts in teaching with a concentration in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from Brandeis. She is the Judaic coordinator at the Frances Jacobson Early Childhood Center at Temple Israel in Boston. Prior to living in Sharon, Mass., Lori had lived in Chicago and Israel. At the time of our correspondence, all three of her daughters were in Israel and under rocket fire. Hopefully, by the time these notes appear in print, a peace settlement will have been achieved. Son Erez, who has Asperger’s and “more than a handful of learning challenges,” is participating in a therapeutic transition program and working part time.
Mary Freeman lives in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is director of workforce development for Southwest Solutions in Detroit, and is in the thick of Detroit renewal efforts, particularly with regard to adult education and training. Mary, let’s talk sometime…I, too, am involved in urban renewal in Newark, N.J. I’m writing a grant to open a community center with wrap-around services including healthcare, education, and job training and workforce development, in one of the city’s poorest sections. Perhaps we will meet at the next Urban Affairs conference.
Finally, many classmates expressed their sincere best wishes to Mike Whalen and his winning team. Until next time…Namaste.
LAURIE COHEN | lauriec@rci.rutgers.edu