CLASS OF 1962 | 2015 | ISSUE 3
Robin Berrington last May made his annual trip to Japan for the Noguchi Foundation meeting and afterward went on an expedition to Takayama, Kyoto, and the Kii Peninsula “meeting interesting Japanese, going to fantastic tiny restaurants, including one memorable sushi place along the coast, and explored some ancient, primitive shrines.” Back in the US, he made an annual journey to Louisville, Ky., for its theater festival, and to Shepherdstown, W.Va., where he sits on the board of the Contemporary American Theater Festival. He visited an old friend in Telluride, Colo., at the time the Telluride Film Festival was going on, and writes, “We even bumped into Meryl Streep on the streets one night! How can you beat that?”
David Fiske writes: “On a personal note, after writing in this column for many years about classmates’ grandchildren, Mary Ann and I joined your ranks in May with the birth of granddaughter Quinn, to Kati and son Ben in Washington, D.C. I am still enjoying retirement at the beach and keep busy with free-lance writing of press releases, newsletters, etc., for numerous local businesses and organizations, editing of World Bank papers, and am on the board of the Rehoboth Beach Museum. Oh, yes, and now frequent trips back to D.C. to see Quinn!”
Naftaly (“Tuli”) Glasman retired as professor of educational leadership emeritus and dean emeritus from the University of California, Santa Barbara. During his 45 years there, he published 12 books and 170 articles and book chapters, and chaired 73 doctoral dissertations (mostly PhD and a few EdD). He is now doing volunteer work as a peer counselor with the elderly; teaching Hebrew one-on-one at his home, free of charge; and sitting on a foundation board that distributes funds to clinical psychological research, scholarship and practice. He has just finished a biography titled To Die as an Israeli-American: The Case of Multiple Identities. He writes: “Having lived with a bipolar mental condition that was diagnosed at age 50 and treated since then with medication and therapy, I am now studying and writing about the condition and its stigma. I hope to begin soon to speak about these topics to a variety of audiences.”
Dave Hedges took a trip to the Rhine and Moselle rivers in June, and plans to spend the winter in Florida. He and Ann got together for dinner and golf with Judy and Parker Blatchford in the Adirondack Mountains, where they both have summer homes, and visited Ithaca, N.Y., and Finger Lakes wineries with Julie and Ed Rubel.
Charles Murkofsky writes that he is “still enjoying full time psychiatric practice in NYC.” In his leisure time, he reports on “fighting to hold onto some semblance of tennis and skiing skills,” enjoying four grandchildren, studying French and Italian online, and “otherwise pursuing NYC’s myriad cultural and culinary opportunities.”
Steve Trott shares an interesting anecdote. He writes, “Because of my Highwaymen background, the good folks here asked me to be on the Philharmonic Board. (They may have thought I had deep pockets from the days of the 45 rpm record, remember those?) I ended up loving the stuff, and they put me to delivering the pre-concert lectures. Recently, Esther Simplot, the wife of the billionaire who at one point furnished McDonald’s with every French fry it sold-—hey, we live in Idaho-—honored my service to the Philharmonic with the first Jack and Esther Simplot Award…for eating more potatoes than the Brass Section combined. You have to love this great state!”
Fran Voigt sent in two interesting reports. The first is the news that his wife, Ellen, was selected in September to receive a MacArthur Foundation scholarship award. This prestigious program awards “unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” She is a founder and senior faculty member in the limited residency MFA program in creative writing at Warren Wilson College. Go to: macfound.org/fellows/950/#sthash.uprD8vKL.dpuf for more details. Secondly, Fran reports that his son is the coach of the Nigerian national basketball team, which after winning the 2015 Pan-African basketball tournament has received an automatic bid to the summer Olympics in Rio. It turns out that his son had coached two star Nigerian players on a previous US team. They recommended him for their country’s national team position, and he got selected from among 20 finalists worldwide.
Fran himself remains involved with NECI (New England Culinary Institute) as a board member, occasional consultant, and owner. We still remember those fabulous dinners at several Reunion weekends that Fran and his staff came down from Vermont to prepare for us. He says the school continues to have a “unique niche” with the training “modeled after aspects of medical school education, military boot camp training, progressive education, and the European apprenticeship tradition.” Sounds about right for someone from Wesleyan!
Finally, a sad note to report: the passing last summer of Hal Wyss. After earning his PhD from Ohio State University, he was a professor of English since 1970 at Albion College, where he also undertook a number of administrative posts. After his retirement in 2005, he was active in the college’s Lifelong Learning Program. In his leisure time, he was an accomplished fisherman and birder. We extend our condolences to his wife, Melissa, and his family.
DAVID FISKE | davidfiske17@gmail.com
17 W. Buckingham Dr. Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971