CLASS OF 1972 | 2016 | ISSUE 3
NEWSMAKERS | 1970sNEWSMAKERSETH DAVIS ’72
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Elisa ’76 and I had an absolutely marvelous time at Lloyd Komesar ’74’s Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. Lloyd has done a spectacular job putting this festival together, and it’s hard to imagine anything more enjoyable than spending three-and-a-half days in Vermont in August, watching an array of new films, not to mention a few classics. Next year’s dates are Aug. 24 through 27, and we are definitely going back.
There was a huge Wesleyan contingent there, and Paul DiSanto ’81 even came up to run an alumni event at Middlebury’s Stonecutter Spirits, run by Sivan Cotel ’05, whose product line is most highly recommended. At the risk of offending those I fail to mention, attendees included Steve Goldschmidt, Todd Jick ’71, Neil Salowitz ’73, Mike McKenna ’73, Bill Pearson ’74, Debra Storey ’74, Lyn Thurber Lauffer ’74, and David Weinstock ’75. We were thrilled to meet Juliet Werner ’03, whose documentary, The Laughter Life, was one of the featured showings. (It’s about an SNL-like comedy troupe on the Mormon cable network!)
By my count, we saw films at 10 of the 11 screening times, seeing as many features and even more shorts, and even then we saw maybe 30 percent of what was shown. Nice going, Lloyd! We will definitely be back!
Larry Weinberg got a break from tending to “various GI complaints” (his patients’—not his) to visit his daughter, Leah ’08, in Ann Arbor, where she just received her PhD in musicology, writing her dissertation on Einstein on the Beach. He then hit Boston for his 40th med school reunion, and to New York to see Hamilton.
Mike Carlson and Bob White both had some humorous recollections in connection with Coach Bill MacDermott’s passing. Mike’s was on Facebook, but here is some of what the Whizzer had to say: “There is no doubt that Mac was important in my Wesleyan-experience. It was Mac who dubbed me ’The Whizzer.’ The Whizzer became who I was at Wesleyan around the time of the Dartmouth match in February of our freshman year. As a wrestler, the whizzer series was a favorite of mine and I remember teammate Lou DiFazio from the sidelines, loudly shouting when I was on the mat, “The whip, Whizzer. The whip.” At that Dartmouth match, during the warm-ups, I had a towel on my head, draping it, in part, over my face in the style of Sonny Liston. When Mac noticed me on the mat, he did a double take and held out his hands as if feeling for rain. He asked me, ’Hey Whizzer, where’s the rain?’
“Mac made a major contribution to my wrestling education. I still use the Wesleyan Wrestling Manual that Mac gave the team our sophomore year. When I was in medical school, I was a journeyman wrestler, practicing at high schools in the Newark metropolitan area. I used this manual to help the novice athletes develop their skills. The same February that I became the Whizzer, Mac supported my interest in freestyle wrestling by giving me a chart that was illustrated with a collection of freestyle and Greco-Roman techniques on it. I used it for 10 years after Wesleyan to teach myself to survive in my adventures on the freestyle wrestling circuit in New Jersey.
“I know I astounded some of our classmates at our last Reunion when I told them that the Williams wrestling meet was on the same day as the Fisk Hall Takeover. Why would I remember that? Obviously, that was weighing heavy on my mind that day I went to have a conversation with Mac about the impending event on Feb. 21, but I was detoured from that discussion and became the Whizzer.”
Bruce Hearey might by now have returned to Earth following the Cleveland Cavaliers’ championship season, but he was still floating above us when he sent me some news over the summer. “I drove to Maine with my son, Owen. Owen graduated from UCLA this past June with his hard-earned PhD in economics and starts a new job in LA this September with the Analysis Group. He also visited Iceland in June with his brother, Leif Dormsjo ’97. Leif and his wife, Kristin Barcak, live in D.C., where Leif is a director of transportation.
“Anyway, back to Maine. On the way we stopped and had lunch with Steve Ingraham ’70 in Rochester. Steve is retired from law now, but is still perhaps the most wonderful person in the world, staying busy doing volunteer work with Nepali refugees. Owen and I went on to New Hampshire where we did an overnight climb to the summit of Mount Pierce in the Presidentials. It seemed a whole lot easier for Owen than it did for me. In Maine, Owen and I visited Acadia and Bar Harbor, but mostly went to Rob Brewster’s daughter’s wedding in lovely Franklin. Emily was marrying a nice Irish fellow, David Varley, and it was a special gathering. Presided over by Elliot Daum ’70, a judge in Santa Rosa, Calif., the wedding also featured Al Wallace ’70 and wife, Barb, Rob’s sister, Tish ’77, and some teary fatherly sentiments from the bride’s proud dad. A lot of Eclectic spirit to be sure, in a lush setting looking out over a salt marsh. Rob is planning to retire from his longtime post as executive director of Riverdale Mental Health, and still do some private practice work. Though he and I don’t see each other for long periods of time, it never seems to matter.
“Here in Cleveland, we bask in the glow of a championship, and a successful convention, and await the Indians’ triumphant return to the World Series.”
Last, some personal news. In August I became chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environmental, Energy, and Resources Law. This section has been the intellectual center of my legal practice for more than 35 years, and it is a great honor to be entrusted with its care for the next year. I am already amazingly busy with chairmanly activities, and we’ve got a very full year planned with events in many parts of the country. I hope to see Wesleyan folks at many of them. I was pleased to be able to include some sterling alums in my several dozen chair appointments: Earl Phillips ’77, Jason Gellman ’93, and Colin Van Dyke ’99. And—subsequent to the original writing of this column—I presided over SEER’s Fall Conference in Denver, where Governor John Hickenlooper ’74 was the keynote speaker.
SETH A. DAVIS | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
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