CLASS OF 1966 | 2017 | ISSUE 1

We celebrate the lives of three beloved classmates, William August Hauser, David Adams Berry, and Alton L. Flanders III. Bill died on October 21, 2016, in Ely, Minn.  “Pacifist, a lover, an artist, a writer, a linguist,” Bill, writes his good friend, Jeff Nilson, was “a wonderful man…one of he most talented people I have ever known. He sang in the glee club, played lacrosse, did quite well academically, spoke Spanish, learned how to speak Russian and German, and embraced everything he did with a glowing life force.”

Playwright and screenwriter best known for the play and film, The Whales of August, David did not graduate with our class, signing up for service in Viet Nam and basing his first successful play, G.R. Point, on that experience.  Alberto Ibarguen tells us: “My most vivid memory of [David]…was a letter from him in Viet Nam to me in the Amazon jungle, where I was a Peace Corps volunteer. He wrote in a clearly legible, firm script, until, according to his narrative, they took a shelling wherever he was and the writing, punctuated by a thumbprint in orange colored clay, became shaky. It gave me an inkling of what he was going through.” Bill Dietz has suggested to President Roth and to David’s executors that Wesleyan would be a fitting place for David’s papers.

Alton passed away on December 22, 2016. Often ill in his last years, Alton, a longtime resident of Nantucket, was a supporter of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

On September 8, Bill Boynton, joined by John Wilson and Gary “GFierce” Conger, had the exhilarating experience of being at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to watch the “launch of the OSIRIS-REx mission to rendezvous with a small asteroid named Bennu.” In this his 10th NASA mission, Bill’s role is “to plan the operation of the spacecraft and the operation of the instruments to get the data we need to collect the best sample.” These launches, Bill writes, “never get routine!”

Mr. “GFierce” has “after 40 years selling publishing services to large companies” chosen “art as my second career: traditional oil paintings on canvas of New York City skylines, Ohio and Vermont landscapes…I started painting at age 60 and have found it to be a wonderful way to be my own boss and be totally absorbed in the work.”  Do see his monthly Art Lovers Newsletter.

Tony Alibrio writes: “Not all that much to report,” an assessment with which I disagree, seeing that he spent the three weeks before Christmas at his home in Lakewood Ranch, Fla., before returning to his home in Connecticut to host “a table for 23: four sons with spouses, 12 grandchildren, and two relatives.” Tony is not keen on “Wes declaring itself as a ‘sanctuary campus…,’ my political bent probably the result of working since I was 12 and having to pay one-half of my education.” Tony reports that his brother and fellow classmate, Jim, is doing well.

Delighted to receive David Griffith’s biographical sketch for the class Reunion book; I remember an open field tackle he made against Williams, a thing of beauty.  “Wesleyan,” Dave writes, “for me is a priceless gift to the mind and memory,” a sentiment beautifully put and one I share.

Clark Byam, who practices law in Pasadena, Calif., took his “three children with their significant others…together with my wife and her daughter and husband and grandchild (and my former wife)” to Sedona, Ariz, for Thanksgiving. While there, “both of my daughters became engaged so it was quite a Thanksgiving.” I’ll say! John Shaw writes that he has “completely retired, as has wife Connie, [and] have relocated to Southport, N.C.

With retirement also comes travel. Daniel Lang sent a photograph of him and his wife, Diane Lang MAT’70, standing on the Greenland ice cap this past June. “This was our third trip to the Canadian Arctic. We plan to go in another direction—Nepal—for our next trip.”

The peripatetic Rick Crootof and Linda have recently traveled to New York City, Los Angeles, and Sarasota; next stop, Buenos Aires followed by “a three-week cruise down to Antarctic and up to Valparaiso, Chile.”

I am honored to serve as class secretary, following Howard Brodsky, Irv Richter, and Hardy Spoehr. I took the position on two conditions: I don’t have to take bag-pipe lessons, appealing as that might be, and Hardy will agree to supply kukui nuts for the enlightenment I will need.  So far, so good.  Hardy has done such splendid job, his wonderfully detailed, humorous, inclusive account of our 50th Reunion being one of many examples. The Reunion had many highs, but my fondest memory will be from that last evening, the banquet in the Olin Library’s Campbell Reference Center, Hardy recognizing those Wesleyan students who had been serving us for three days with the gift a Kului lea. The room was absent of dry eyes. Thank you, Hardy. Classmates, let me hear from you. As Richard Wilbur reminds us: “We fray into the future, rarely wrought/Save in the tapestries of afterthought.”

P.S.  A number of us—Dave McNally, John Neff, Rick Crootof, Hardy Spoehr, and myself—are planning to attend our 51st Reunion this coming May, catching up with and cheering on our friends from the Class of 1967 who will be enjoying their 50th Reunion.  Please do attend, if you can.

Larry Carver | carver1680@gmail.com

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