CLASS OF 1969 | 2018 | ISSUE 2
Don Jennings, who grew up in Old Saybrook but now lives in Sudbury, is looking for a second home near us. “I’ve been buying and selling stamps for decades and do some estate planning and zoning work.”
Steve Darnell watched the lacrosse game where Wesleyan became a national champ.
Jeff Richards “has three productions going—American Son, The Lifespan of a Face, and a national tour of Fiddler. I’m energized by the work and creative people.
“Saw Bill Edelheit, Peter Cunningham, and Harry Chotiner, also Alan Metzger ’68, Charles Irving ’70, Dave Rabban ’71, and Peter Michaelson ’71.”
Bill Sketchley’s “disability is discouraging but not fatal. I would enjoy more cultural events and state parks, maybe even Pat Kelly’s resort. I have a ramped van and hire drivers. Life’s expensive. Anybody know a good alternative to cash?”
Nick Browning’s first grandchild, a boy, arrived Mother’s Day. “I still play basketball several times a week, though my body regularly reminds me of its age.”
Doug Bell’s 1-year-old grandson is “a happy young man. I had breakfast with Harry Nothacker, who is a top Ironman athlete. Still friends with Curt Allen ’71, with whom I once played a lot of music.”
Pam and Rick McGauley “led a three-generation trip to Disney, with 4-, 5-, and 7-year-old grands. Everyone is still talking. After a long Cape winter, it’s gardening time. Daughter Louise and family are moving to town.”
Charlie Elbot “coaches school principals at educational workshops. My wife and I traveled to Yucatán and Canyon Badlands, Arches, and Monument Valley. Elliot Daum ’70 visited us in Denver.”
Tony Mohr reports, “All’s well in the courtroom. Beve and I spent three weeks in Japan, no agenda other than hanging out.”
Charlie Morgan “lives in Bonita Springs. We visit New Jersey to see three children and nine grandchildren. I’m busy with insurance consulting and running the Hungerford Family Foundation. Play tennis almost every day.”
John Bach “continues tilting at windmills. Now it’s the nuclear arms race.”
Jim Adkins “works part-time as an ENT doc and plays trombone and euphonium every week. My wife of 41 years has pulmonary problems. Daughter and grandkids, 4 and 7, spent summer here. Kids running around the house is a trip.”
Steve Knox “is practicing law and collecting grandchildren.” Both he and Ron Reisner “enjoyed the Wesleyan men’s basketball golf outing in June. After greetings from Coach Kenny, we joined Dick Emerson ’68 and Pat Dwyer ’67, Jack Sitarz, Brian Silvestro ’70, Bob Woods ’70, Joe Summa ’71, and Jim Akin ’72. Great Wes day.”
Steve Mathews “saw Dave Nelson and Bill Currier. Witnessed the eclipse with Jim Weinstein. Did an American Cruise Line tour of the Revolutionary War sites around Chesapeake Bay. Best to all intrepid ’69ers.”
Steve Hansel looks forward to Reunion next year. “Right now, I’m chairing Eclectic Investment Management.”
Alex Knopp “completed my 11th year as a visiting clinical lecturer at Yale Law School. I’m president of the Norwalk Public Library. Bette finished her first novel. Daughter Jess teaches in the child development center at Norwalk Community College. Son Andrew writes scripts for made-for-TV movies.”
Pete Pfeiffer writes, “The years have not been kind to our class. So many friends have passed or are passing slowly into the twilight.”
Rameshwar Das gardens, leads meditations, and works with wife Kate Rabinowitz ’83 promoting art and wellness for school children through the annalyttonfoundation.org.
Kate and Barry Turnrose “celebrated our 48th anniversary. Steven Crites married us. Dave Farrar, Harry Nothacker, and Ron Reisner the groomsmen.”
Visakha and Ken Kawasaki sent greetings and news from their Buddhist Relief Mission.
John de Miranda taught at Nanjing Foreign Language School as part of a UC Berkeley program.
Siegfried Beer “retired from ACIPPS, the only organization of its kind in the world, ending a 40-year career at the University of Graz. Wesleyan was a major influence in my life.”
David Siegel “teaches medical students as part of an emeritus position at UC, Davis.”
Ian Vickery writes, “Deep in the Ozark forest, surrounded by children, grandchildren, turkeys, deer, and bear, it seems a million miles from Middletown. There is another life, and we are living it.”
Jeff Wanshel writes, “Went up to Memorial Chapel on March 27 to attend a celebration of the life and work of late great poet/translator Richard Wilbur MA’58 Hon.’77. While at Wesleyan (’57-’77) Dick won the Pulitzer and National Book Award and co-founded Wesleyan University Press. His graceful Moliere translations were performed everywhere. An unfailingly kind man and generous teacher, Dick nevertheless did his damndest to set writing students on the good path (excellence). I was lucky enough to take courses from him twice.
“Poetry at the time was broadly divided into two camps, so-called ‘academics,’ where Dick was perhaps paramount, and such wild men as Ginsberg, Creeley, and O’Hara (the ‘new poetry’). Dick was friends with all, negotiating these mined straits with unflappable ease. And soon Wes Press, under Dick’s guidance, pioneered a third way, exemplified by Robert Bly’s ‘Silence in the Snowy Fields’ and James Wright, a poetry observant of nature and ‘things of this world,’ but newly open to the ‘deep image’ of Spanish-language poets such as Neruda and Vallejo. David Orr, reviewing Dick’s final collection, Anteroomsin the New York Times, wrote that Dick had ‘spent most of his career being alternately praised and condemned for the same three things’— for his formal virtuosity; for his being, ‘depending on your preference, courtly or cautious, civilized or old-fashioned, reasonable or kind of dull’; and finally for his resisting a tendency in American poetry toward ‘conspicuous self-dramatization.’
“As the celebrants ably demonstrated, reading his work and reminiscing, Dick is warmly remembered, and his poetry much more than ‘holds up.’”
John Barlow’s life was celebrated in April at San Francisco’s Barlow Memorial Weekend—his graduation from meatspace.
John Boynton, whose twin, Ralph, died last spring, is a principal at The Townsend Group, raising capital for investment products that reflect his global vision.
Maurice Hakim ’70 and wife Carol are restoring an historic home in Clinton, Conn. We do something together almost every week.
John Mergendoller ’68 visited as part of his 50th. He has retired from educational consulting to pursue musicmaking.
Celebrated 49th anniversary. Will never catch Gordy and Dona. Wes is where it began. Can’t/wouldn’t change anything. Eggs Benedict at Mersina’s. Cut flowers in odd vases for condo friends. So glad summer is here.
Love to all,
Charlie Farrow | charlesfarrow@comcast.net
11 Coulter Street, #16, Old Saybrook, CT 06475