CLASS OF 1975 | 2023 | SPRING ISSUE
Emerging from COVID lockdown has brought lots of news—three times what fits the printed magazine, but the full scoop is here with some photos to boot!
This is the column where I notice the balance of employed and retired classmates has dramatically shifted now that we are approaching the end of our seventh decade. To illustrate that point, I’ve separated these notes into two sections.
At Work
I successfully relaunched my nonprofit consulting practice in 2021. Last September, Bob and I spent most of our time on the road exploring the Southwest. We were on our way to a family wedding in eastern New Mexico and decided to drive via as many national and state parks as we could hit in Utah (nine) with stops at Mesa Verde and Aztec National Monument on our way through New Mexico. We picked up our son and daughter in Albuquerque en route to the wedding, and they made the return trip with us by way of Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, and the Grand Canyon. We did a combination of tent camping and hotel stays and had an amazing trip despite some too-hot-to-hike weather. On our way home, we all had lunch with Joe Antolin ’76 who moved from Chicago to Albuquerque a few years ago. Thanks to Brian Steinbach for letting me know Joe was there. Thanksgiving weekend brought Martha Faller Brown, Bruce Paton, and Tim Brown ’72 to my house for leftovers brunch. Whenever Tim and his wife, Rosie Piller, come to the Bay Area—usually two or three times a year—we all get together for a hike or a meal or both.
Nancy Lippincott works at The Meadowbrook School, a progressive K–8 independent school in Weston, Massachusetts, as the school accountant and doing classroom work on literacy development with the youngest students, Junior Kindergarteners. “After successful sequential careers in human resources, then fundraising, and now elementary education, I am divorced and live outside of Worcester,” she says. “My three kids have finally all launched—two reside in Massachusetts and one in upstate New York—no grandkids but plenty of ‘grandpets.’” She managed to avoid COVID as of October 2022 and otherwise was enjoying an active life with her dog who is her best friend.
David Leisner says, “Right now, professionally, I’m on fire! So much going on. I have three albums coming out within a few months of each other. October saw the release of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, in my arrangement for guitar, with baritone Michael Kelly, on the Bright Shiny Things label (on Spotify, Apple, and all streaming platforms, as well as for download and in CD form). November features the release of Letter to the World, a recording of four of my compositions for voice and various instruments, on the Azica label. The same label will release my latest solo album (digital only) in early 2023, with 19th-century gems for the guitar. This summer I wrote two commissioned pieces, one of which is a concerto for guitar and full orchestra, called Wayfaring, commissioned by guitar legend, Pepe Romero, who will premiere it at the new Hamptons Festival on Long Island next summer. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, I commissioned five excellent, well-known composer friends to write short pieces for me, and these beautiful pieces will be premiered on April 20 at the Morgan Library’s beautiful Gilder Lehrman Hall in New York, in a concert that will also include excerpts from my upcoming solo album. So, life is good on this end.” It was good to hear that things are going so well for David!
Another New Yorker, Don Perman wrote that he is delighted to have a job at The New York Times. When I asked what he did, Don explained he’s with the group that moderates readers’ comments about articles. He sends best wishes to everyone.
Meanwhile on the West Coast, Jeff Morgan and his wife Jodie continue to operate their urban winery in Berkeley, California: Covenant. They have two adult daughters also working in the industry; one at Covenant and the other as the publicist for a celebrity chef and restaurant group. Covenant’s wines are distributed from Tokyo to California and the continental U.S., Canada, the U.K., Israel, Mexico, and beyond. Jeff invites anyone visiting the Bay Area to come visit their 9,000-square-foot winery right in West Berkeley’s “drinks district” at 1102 Sixth Street. On another note (pun intended) Jeff mentioned, “During COVID, I noticed my tenor saxophone was pretty dusty. (I hadn’t touched it for over 20 years. And my last gig in New York was at Gotham Bar and Grill in 1995.) So, I started practicing again. And now I’m playing out a bit, starting with a quartet at our winery’s jazz series last summer. Really nice for this Wes music major to have rediscovered the joy of playing music. Speaking of which, I’ve been in touch with Oliver (Ollie) Griffith ’76 who has retired from his day job as a U.S. consul abroad. His last post was in Paris, where he’s living today and playing his saxophone too.” For a few photos and an article on Jeff’s latest debut, see https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/07/01/jeff-morgan-covenant-wines-jazz-west-berkeley
Another classmate still working while balancing his day job with music, is Bruce Weinraub. He is continuing his private internal medicine practice despite the rigors of dealing with COVID on a daily basis and says, “I’m a dinosaur in that realm” of not following the wave out of private practice. Bruce adds, “I’m having the privilege of studying with blues piano master Eden Brent from Mississippi via Skype. Check her out.”
Cathy Gorlin updated me that her son Ross has now graduated from medical school and started his residency in family medicine at Swedish Hospital in Denver. Their daughter Lauren lives and works at Google in D.C. During her “spare time” she’s working on her master’s in counseling and being mom to her son who is in first grade at the local Jewish day school. Cathy can’t believe he is already six years old. She makes lots of trips to D.C. and Denver, and she works remotely in Naples, Florida, from January to April, escaping from the cold Minnesota winters.
Corinne Kratz is on the move in early 2023. She spent January in a writing residency at the Bogliasco Study Center for Arts and Humanities in Italy working on her current book. Then she’ll head back to South Africa in March for the annual African Critical Inquiry Program Workshop. This year it is on the theme Archiving Otherwise: Sound Thinking and Sonic Practice.
At Play (Otherwise Known as Retired)
Janet Brodie reports that her regular Zoom calls with Risa Korn and Jane Hutchins were “a rare upside of the COVID pandemic.” Janet recently retired after 33 years as a creative arts therapist in the Psychiatry Department at Yale New Haven Hospital. She admits she “couldn’t walk away, so is still working two days a week.” Speaking of Risa Korn, she retired in early 2022 and welcomed her third grandchild, Robert James (Bobby) Neenan, born in October to her daughter Melanie and Ben Neenan. Risa’s youngest son, Sam, practices medicine in Washington State and is engaged to be married in 2023. Risa and I had a wonderful time together on her way back to Boston from seeing Sam and visiting Jane Hutchins in Vancouver, B.C. We hiked, hung out, ate well, and had gorgeous California weather the entire time.
Jeff McChristian writes, “After 45 years practicing law in various firms in and around Hartford, I am ‘hanging up my cleats’ December 31, 2022. I have enjoyed it immensely and will miss the intellectual stimulation and many deep relationships I have forged with clients and colleagues, but it’s time to kick back and enjoy my ‘golden years.’ Retirement plans include catching up on traveling my wife Pat and I missed during the last 2 ½ pandemic years. We have already planned a cross-country road trip in January along the southern route, to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where my son Tyler and his wife Liz live. My daughter Erin and son-in-law Stephen, based in Greenville, South Carolina, are digital nomads who have spent the last three winters there working, living with, and skiing with Tyler and Liz. We’ll share a late family Christmas. So far, no grandbabies, and I’m jealous of classmates who are enjoying wonderful connections with theirs. In early February we’ll head to Guatemala, where Pat participates in her third community mosaic project in San Lucas Toliman, a largely Mayan community on the shores of Lake Atitlan; then off to Italy (Rome, Florence, and Tuscany) for three weeks in April; a self-guided cycling tour in Denmark or Provence in early June; an 11-day tour of Morocco with Erin and Stephen in October; and a two-week tour in Patagonia in January 2024. Gotta make hay while the sun shines, right? In between I’m sure I will find things to keep me busy around the West Hartford house we have lived in for 31 years, and plan to remain in for the foreseeable future (Dave Rosenthal’s sister, Diane Thomas ’78, is one of our many fantastic neighbors). Also on the list: remodeling our master bath, hanging out drinking coffee (and stronger stuff) and playing music with some of my buds who are already retired, and generally loving life. I really can’t wait!”
Russ Munson, living in Chester, Connecticut, retired last year after two decades in practice as a family physician there and two as a physician executive at hospitals and health plans in the region. He and Deb, married 45 years, spend a lot of time in traffic traveling to visit their daughter on New York City’s Upper East Side or their son in D.C., and the three grandchildren they have produced. Retirement allows Russ time for thrice weekly tennis and catching up on a backlog of nonmedical reading he’s been wanting to do. He keeps in touch with Roger Weisberg, Karen Freedman, and Harold Horowitz. For the past 40-plus years, Russ and Deb have spent most Februarys on Sanibel Island, which was devastated in the fall by Hurricane Ian. Russ reflects, “As sad as I am about likely missing a year or two, I feel very sorry for the folks who live there year-round and have lost a little piece of paradise . . . at least for the short term.”
Recently a number of our classmates ventured to New Hampshire as guests of the gracious Vin Broderick. According to Joe O’Rourke, “We had a terrific time reliving the good old days while catching up with our current news. It was great fun, but Vin made us hike to the point of exhaustion.” As you can see in the photo, the crew included Paul Margolin, Steve McCarthy, Dave Rosenthal, Joe, and Vin. J. D. Moore and Mark Flinchum had hoped to join this outing but were unable to make it.
Brad Kosiba has found beekeeping “intense this summer, as we tried to step up our game getting higher quality queens into our hives. Mercifully the church construction project is now complete and fading into memory and I am back to just leading maintenance. My house manager experience at Delta Tau has served me well!” By the way, Brad and Dorothy married off two of their three sons in the spring of 2022, so it was quite a season of celebration for their family.
June Jeffries skipped a mid-October reunion planning meeting with the message, “Greetings all from the Mississippi Delta!” She was riding around, going to sites associated with Emmett Till, then to the B.B. King Museum. Her mother is from the Delta, and June has been going there for her whole life but has friends who had never been to Mississippi and were afraid to visit, so she became their tour guide and had a great time. On December 1, she topped that by attending President Biden’s welcoming ceremony for French President Macron in the Rose Garden. I insisted on pictures so she sent me one of her and the event swag, one of the two presidents mounting the podium, and a shot of the Bidens’ German shepherd romping in his fenced yard with a woman who she later realized was Jill Biden in exercise gear. June thinks her invitation to the event was due to her penchant for becoming a pen pal with presidents, starting with emails to Obama and most recently with one to Biden about the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, to which he responded with a very nice letter in July. Stay tuned for June’s continuing adventures—after the Rose Garden visit, she wrote to Joe requesting to visit the Oval Office for five-minutes so she can see the bust or Rosa Parks that is there. Rosa Parks was a close friend of June’s, and June attended the National Gallery’s ceremony unveiling the bust.
Becky Peters-Combs is retired from teaching but she continues to direct plays (the count is up to 154 shows in the last 47 years). Becky relishes her time with her husband of 40 years, her four adult children, and her one grandson—all in Denver. Her other passions include her three koi ponds, gardening, tennis, travel, gratitude, and keeping in touch with her former students.
Ed Van Voorhees announced, “I must own up to another granddaughter born two weeks ago. I think this is the last. Linda and I are doing well and traveling more—France, Barcelona, and lots of domestic destinations.” Meanwhile, John Tabachnick has been retired for a year now and says that he loves it. “Got to spend time with kids and grandkids. Doing some volunteer work and reading for enjoyment instead of medical journals. Not much travel yet but hope to do more this coming year.”
Richard Hume sent in a longer note. “I’m in my 40th year on the faculty of the University of Michigan, in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Development Biology. I just finished a nine-year stint directing our undergraduate neuroscience major, which graduates about 200 students a year. I’ll be phasing into retirement soon, with my final semester of teaching and university service in the winter term of 2024. Still active in research, with a major paper relevant to Parkinson’s disease published in Cell in June 2022 and just starting a new short-term project with a colleague.” In retirement, he and Lesley are looking forward to more travel, including visits with their daughter Rebecca ’01 in Brooklyn and their son Michael, an attorney in Chicago who shares custody of their two grandchildren, Jackson, 10, and Olivia, 8. Michael remarried last fall, and his second wife comes from a large family, so it sounds like Richard hopes more grandchildren will be coming. Richard is looking forward to being at our 50th Reunion, which will also be a family affair, as it will be the 40th for his cousin Daniel Katz ’85. Daniel and his wife, Molly ’87, will also be there to celebrate the graduation weekend of their daughter Elizabeth who is named for Richard’s now-deceased younger sister. She succumbed to cancer at age 37 and started as an undergraduate at Michigan the year Richard joined the faculty. Richard recently endowed several awards for students in the University of Michigan honors program in her memory.
Rachel Hayes is delighted to report that she and her husband finally returned home after an 18-month displacement due to a major fire in their house. Although they were still living with daily visits to wrap everything up, they’ll probably be through even that phase by the time you read this and will be left with the joy of being home in their beautifully rebuilt home. With their son, Spencer, having completed his degree from Marist College, she can now sigh and say, “All’s well.”
Carl Cavrell retired from teaching eight years ago and began working as a substitute teacher at his son’s school. Five years ago, he got divorced and is raising four sons. His oldest just started at Bryant University doing track decathlon, his youngest plays Premier soccer, and “the middle two boys unfortunately are playing football. Neither will end up with Belichick, I have to say!”
Ellen Kabcenell Wayne, who we haven’t heard from for years, took time to write from Alexandria, Virginia, tracing her path since she departed our class in 1974. Her entire story follows.
“I left Wesleyan a year earlier than most of you because I was in a big hurry to get married to Charley Wayne ’73, who had already graduated and was studying law at the University of North Carolina. From my current point of view, it seems like a silly thing to have done; I should have enjoyed all four years at Wes and then moved on to marriage, new location, etc. On the other hand, it’s hard to feel too bad about something that worked out in the long run. I spent my first year in Chapel Hill in a typing pool at the UNC Institute of Government (can’t say I liked it, but it was a good life lesson), overlapped with Charley in law school, then graduated and we moved to Alexandria, where we still live. I got a job in the employment section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice while Charley worked for a law firm in D.C. It was a great place for me to learn to litigate, but eventually a change in government administrations seemed likely to block us from doing the work we had focused on previously. So, I moved to a private firm that allowed me to continue the kind of litigation I enjoyed and valued.
“Life went on. Charley and I had three sons (two of whom are now Wes grads). I felt I’d spent enough time practicing law and decided to get a master’s in conflict management at George Mason University. After graduating from there, I got a challenging and fun job teaching graduate students at the University of Baltimore. Then a colleague I’d met while at the University of Baltimore called to tell me about a position in the General Counsel’s Office at the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA). A friend of hers was looking to hire a lawyer with expertise in conflict resolution, and I was well qualified. DoDEA oversees the K–12 schools serving the children of DoD employees stationed overseas and on some of the U.S. bases as well. The office was 10 minutes from my home, and it also offered the opportunity to travel to the schools to provide trainings, etc. It gave me a chance to see places I might never have seen otherwise. I have now retired. We are fortunate to have two of our sons and their families living in this area, which gives us lots of opportunities to see them and the three granddaughters. Our eldest son lives with his wife and his son in Rotterdam, which is a lovely place to visit. I’m looking forward to our reunion and hope to see many of you when it comes around!” We’ll be glad to see you too, Ellen!
Condolences
Ann Dallas sent me sad news. Her husband, David Ringold, died quite suddenly in early October. After 38 years of marriage, it’s been quite an adjustment for Ann. “But,” she says, “retirement has many benefits, including more time with our son’s family, and time to consider what the next steps might be.” Ann has a one-year-old grandson, who I hope brings joy and light into this difficult time.
David Weinstock has been in Vermont since 1995. He is semi-retired, but reports on theater and opera productions for the local paper. He also leads the Otter Creek Poets weekly workshop, formerly a strictly local group, but now meeting in “hybrid” Zoom mode (email david.weinstock@gmail.com if you’d like to join or visit). David’s poems will appear in Captaincy from Finishing Line Press in 2023. His wife, Ann Jones-Weinstock, retired from fundraising for Middlebury College, her alma mater, and is now working postretirement as executive director of the Trout Lily Foundation. Their older son Benjamin, 30, lives in Portland, Maine, pursuing digital art and working on a farm. In April, their younger son Daniel, a material science graduate student at Cornell, died unexpectedly at age 27. David says with poetic economy, “We are getting through that, each in our own way.” We wish David and Ann comfort.
Our class lost Jamie McNiff in May 2021. Wesleyan found out and notified me just this past fall. Thanks to Bill Devereaux for sending this memory: “Jamie was the epitome of a student-athlete. A good hockey player who played for the enjoyment of the sport, but an even better student. You could always count on him for an astute and often humorous observation of the absurdities of life.”
If you want to know what it’s like in Middletown these days, check out the November article in The New York Times that waxed almost poetic about our beloved and photogenic “Friendly and Reasonably Affordable” college town. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/realestate/middletown-connecticut-housing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Better yet, mark your calendars now for our 50th Reunion weekend, coming May 25–28, 2025. It’s snuck up on us quicker than we could ever have imagined. We already have a committee hatching plans for a fabulous time, and we’re counting on a strong turnout. Don’t Miss It!