CLASS OF 1972 | 2022 | SPRING ISSUE

I am writing this at an exciting time in our class’s literary history.  Paul Vidich’s latest novel, The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin, has been receiving rave reviews, and is indeed a great read. Geoff Rips’s latest novel, Personal Geography, is a most absorbing and skillfully written book. As I have mentioned frequently, I am totally in awe of the literary fecundity of my classmates and salute these two authors and all the rest of you. Paul has also been making the virtual bookstore circuit.

Mike Bober reports that Geoff Rips recommended some of the “oral history” interviews on the Wesleyan website to him:  “What I didn’t know about the place! The years before we got there, the turmoil of our own brief time, and the ongoing conflicts of the subsequent 50 years are described from various points of view by faculty members who saw it all and are now uniquely positioned to reflect upon it. We were lucky to have known many of them. I guess this means I’m looking forward to the reunion.” I, too, heartily recommend those faculty oral histories, which you can find at https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/object/wessca-ohp.

Mike hears often from Mark Gelber, whose last 50 years living in Israel and extraordinary travels over the world on behalf of Ben Gurion University would make for a very different “oral history.” Last Mike or I heard, he is unlikely to attend, which means he just might.

I’m sorry to report two classmates left us last summer. Rob Rich on July 31 and Peter Phinny on August 13. Our sincere condolences to their families and classmates. Their full obituaries can be found online at classmates.blogs.wesleyan.edu/obituaries.

I have been spending a LOT of time working on our reunion—working on the class book, planning events, contacting classmates.  By the time you read this, our reunion will have happened.  I do hope that if you made it, you had a great time.