CLASS OF 1970 | 2019 | ISSUE 1
Aloha, everyone. Maurice Hakim and Carol are “glad to be back in Florida for the winter although we already miss being in our 1799 Cape in Clinton, Conn. We’ve made many improvements to the house. We’re now planning for the addition that includes a modern kitchen and sunporch.” Maurice is still working. His company manufactures ready-to-drink organic teas and lemonades for private-label grocery store chains. He sees Jeremy Serwer, Phil Dundas, and Charlie Farrow ’69. He’s in touch with Seth Kaufman, Jim Elston, and David Geller. Maurice is working with John Griffin on our 50th Reunion book.
Sadly, Maurice is “now afflicted with Type 2 Diabetes and its consequences, particularly neuropathy, probably as a result of my overindulging in Hostess Cupcakes and My-T Fine chocolate pudding since my early youth. I have started to take it more seriously by going to physical therapy.”
I think this is the first time we’ve heard from Mitch Grashin. Mitch’s daughter Merrily Grashin (NYU ’06), has written a wonderful book, a very funny, educational and useful, feminist cocktail book, entitled Women’s Libation! Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman’s Right to Booze (Penguin/Random House). It was the New York Times Editor’s Pick on Black Friday.
Coming out of retirement for the second time, Mitch “helped create and is working with a startup, White Eagle Insurance Solutions, located in the Bay Area, the epicenter of the new California Gold Rush. We are becoming, and will soon be established as, the de facto insurance provider nationally for the $30-plus billion commercial cannabis industry.”
Gene Legg wrote, “I am in the midst of my 40th year of teaching high school and still going strong! I see my buddy Elliot Daum occasionally at special events, and he is as wonderful as ever. I am forever grateful to Wesleyan for the incredible education we all received and to Psi U for putting up with my self-centered idiocy for four years. I have raised two wonderful sons (28 and 24 respectively) and managed to stay out of trouble for most of our 48 years since graduation. Since I went to Harvard to get a graduate degree, I feel qualified to compare these two bastions of education. I loved Harvard, but no comparison: WesTech is in first place in every category!”
Mark Geannette retired after practicing law for 45 years. He and wife Gloria have been traveling, most notably to French Polynesia and Sardinia. For his 70th birthday they went to Easter Island.
Colin Kitchens is “in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and three dogs. I have been writing and the narrative and my energy to pursue it are about to collide. In exciting news, classmates, I am looking for an alternative to death, and making some incredible headway. I will set up a GoFundMe page soon—you don’t want to be late for this train.”
Still a political leader, Steve Talbot, regularly posts thoughtful and informative pieces on Facebook. On a related note, you’ll want to get Bob Stone’s Trumpericks books. You can see samples on FB regularly.
As I write, Jeremy Serwer is speaking on a group call of the 50th Reunion committee exhorting folks to call classmates about the Reunion. (He’s chairman of the outreach committee.) If you know anyone who’s kind of off-the-grid, please let the committee know how to contact the person, or better yet, do it yourself!
Our 50th Reunion is May 21-24, 2020, slightly more than a year away. A robust Reunion committee (Alschuler, Bullard, Carter, Dachs, Daum, Davis, Diamond, Elston, Fain, Geller, Gottfried, Griffin, Hakim, Hazel, Heilweil, Johnson, Jones, Josephson, Kellogg, Knight, Krugman, Laitos, Murphy, Ossad, Policoff, Poritz, Saltzman, Sarles, Scherr, Serwer, Sheffield, Silvestro, Stone, Talbot, Tam, White, Williams, Woods) is busy reaching out to folks to collect up-to-date contact information, as we want as many of you to come back to Middletown as possible.
Work has started on a class book and programming ideas are already being discussed. Look for pre-Reunion regional events and if close by, attend! Want to get involved or haven’t heard from one of us? Contact Kate Quigley Lynch ’82, P’17, ’19 at klynch@wesleyan.edu or 680/685-5992. And, please check out wesleyan.edu/classof1970 for the latest news.
I’m happy to report visible progress on the never-ending building project here on Kaua’i. The elevated solar rack is well underway, and the house foundation is scheduled to be poured in a few days. I can’t tell you the joy! Speaking of which, I made my first trip to New Orleans at the end of December and loved it. For anyone interested, I posted a lot of photos on FB.
Russ Josephson | russ_josephson@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 1151, Kilauea, HI 96754