CLASS OF 1973 | 2019 | ISSUE 2
Our Wesleyan Argus Editor-in-Chief Steven Greenhouse has an update. He says, “There are difficult times, and there are good times, and lately I’ve been feeling blessed.” His daughter Emily ’08 gave birth to their first grandchild, “a beautiful boy,” Eli, on March 20. He says, “Emily also landed an impressive job that shows that a Wes education can pay off—a College of Letters grad like her Dad, she was named co-editor of the New York Review of Books.”
Steven says he is proud that his second book, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, will be officially released by Knopf in August. “It seeks to serve as a history of labor unions and worker power in America while also examining modern-day efforts to lift workers, including the fight for $15 and the #RedforEd teachers’ strikes.” he says. He also had the honor of moderating a presidential candidates’ Forum on Wages and Working People. It was held in Las Vegas on April 27 and included John Hickenlooper ’74, along with Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Elizabeth Warren. “It was quite a thrill, and made my think that my double major in government and COL at Wesleyan wasn’t a waste,” says Steven.
He says he sees a lot of Wes folks, including our classmates Kirk Adams, Jon Siegel, Paul Baumann, Jon Raskin, Nancy Troy ’74, Claudia Catania ’74, and Vicky Bijur ’75. (Vicky is his literary agent.)
We also have some news from Rabbi Bob Wolkoff. He says that he and his wife, Ruth-Ann, were recently honored by their central New Jersey congregation for his 40 years serving as a rabbi (in Michigan, New Jersey, Sweden, Wisconsin, Georgia, and again in New Jersey). “Join the rabbinate, see the world. Who knew? A day does not go by that I do not think of my Wesleyan experience, my wonderful friends and fraternity brothers, and especially my teachers Rabbi George Sobelman, and Professor Philip Hallie, of blessed memory, and Professor Jeremy Zwelling, may he enjoy long life, all of whom offered so much in shaping my world view,” he says. He will be spending a few months this summer in Israel with his family, taking some much needed time to “trace and retrace my spiritual journey (otherwise known as ‘. . . what a long strange trip it’s been’).”
He’ll also be looking for some serious spiritual inspiration and rejuvenation, since his wife has been fighting valiantly against Stage IV cancer and he says that does take a serious toll on them. “My children Ethan, Joseph, and Dahlia are 16, 16, and 12, respectively, and the boys at least have started looking at colleges,” he says. “My daughter, who wants medical school, won’t finish until I’m 82. G-d clearly has a wicked sense of humor. As Jay Rose wrote to me a long time ago, I’m ‘going to be working a long time.’ Ain’t it the truth. But I love what I do, so it isn’t really work at all.” He sends his warmest regards to everyone.
Michael Edwards has had a satisfying career in developmental neuroscience for 20 years after Wesleyan. “A PhD in physiology from University of Utah, postdocs at Women’s Medical College in Philly, and at MIT,” he writes. Then he had a 10-year sojourn as a researcher at the E.K. Shriver Center for Mental Retardation, including production of 26 publications and appointments in neuropathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. Later he moved and held many odd jobs before a 20-year stretch in public health and grant writing.
He retired in March in the face of terminal cancer, which is “thankfully now in abeyance with effective treatment.” He now has plenty of time to enjoy the seashore with his dog at his old farmhouse with ocean vistas and he spends a lot of time reading widely and reviewing on Goodreads, where he recently passed 1,000 reviews.
From Alaska, we learn that John Bocachica’s acting is leaving a memorable impression where the Anchorage Press says his role in the Anchorage Community Theatre’s The Giver brings the title character “to life.” The reviewer says John’s “physical look is beautifully chosen for this role but it is the slow emphasis he puts into the delivery of his lines that draws you in.”
All goes well here. I’ve been reporting for WFOR-TV, the CBS-owned station in Doral since September of 2007. It’s been a challenge keeping up with the much-younger, scrappy reporters but fortunately my longtime sources have continued to come through on numerous stories. I have been traveling some weeks to Denver to see my youngest daughter, Holly, and her husband in Highlands Ranch, where she’s an artist and wildlife biologist, and oldest daughter, Jennifer, and her husband and two granddaughters in Gloucester, Va., near Williamsburg, where she’s a marketing guru for her church and a nurse. My oldest granddaughter is going to be a junior this year at Old Dominion University and is planning on a career in teaching.
Peter D’Oench | Pgdo10@aol.com