Author: Caroline Liu '18

Jim Workman reported recently, “As I suspect is true with most of our classmates, we are traveling as long as we’re mobile.” I say, good point. They travel to the south of France, Florida and the North Carolina seashore. I’m happy to announce that he and his Green Bay neighbors have “largely gotten over the loss of the Packers to Seattle.”

How many of us from the class of 1964 remember our first week at Wesleyan and the symposium we were introduced to. I remember it well, as it was entitled “Mass Media, Mass Culture.” I recall how I was suddenly engaged in the topic when I found out what the word “media” meant. Television and the Internet would transform the culture, including the sports world.

Inside the modern world we live in, I would like to acknowledge Bill Belichick ’75. Super Bowl 49 was one of the most exciting and dramatic I can ever remember. I assert that the outcome was predictable to our fellow alumnus and his Patriot players, because preparation is the secret ingredient to success. Imagine a fellow Wesleyan product could very well be the most effective and accomplished professional football coach. I admire his calm demeanor and constant focus on the prize.

Garry Fathman, professor of medicine, Stanford, has been invited to give the commencement address at Washington University School of Medicine. Quite a nice addition to his career.

Arlene and Mark Dahl e-mailed me a copy of their Christmas letter. They are both retired, with Mark gradually spending less time keeping up with dermatological advances. They live around Scottsdale, Ariz., have a summer place in Minnesota, and a condo in Sun City, Ariz. They travel frequently, including Greece and Turkey last year, visiting biblical sites to enliven their Christian faith. Mark has journeyed to Chile on a number of trips including the Chilean Atacama Desert. They count eight grandchildren and all beyond the baby and toddler phase, including one a college graduate. No major health problems have been an issue.

Lou D’Ambrosio is enjoying retirement and ended his position as a reserve officer with the Indio, Calif., Police Department after six years. His daughter, Kara, birthed a boy in November, breaking a tie with one of each gender from before. Lou meets, periodically, with Wink Davenport and Jay McIlroy for lunch and they are well.

Ted Ridout and wife announced the addition of Rusty, “a totally charming and affectionate mini-long-haired dachshund.” The dog has plenty of energy but four feet of snow in the last 10 days has challenged his short stature. I’ve lived in Central Florida since 1975 and in 1977 we had about one hour of snow that was sticking to the cars. Not a flurry since that day when TV bulletins were telling people to stop making phone calls that were overwhelming circuits. “Hi, dear, hurry and look out the window. It’s snowing!”

If you’re on the road and come upon a 20-ft, 1979 Toyota minicamper it could be Henry Lanford and wife Ann traveling small roads, visiting small places and loving it. They are also busy as grandparents. He retired after 30 years in the yacht building business in Southwest Harbor, Maine.

Robert Maurer is working on publishing a debut novel, Passing Through (The Nineteen Sixties): On American Radicalization.

Surprising notification from Frank Sutterlin, who was with our class freshman year and is retired now after 44 years as a Presbyterian minister, working in insurance and recent employment as dental hygienist. Enjoying retirement with wife Lyn and finding opportunities not available in his working past.

TED MANOS, M.D. | ted_manos@yahoo.com

Error Message: Last issue, when I outed the Hon. Leonard Edwards as one who sneaks in at night and works secretly on a jigsaw puzzle, thus violating his marital vow (“We shall work on this together, not in secret, alone, whilst the other is asleep!”), I called Mrs. Edwards “Marcia,” when in fact she is the E.M.H. (Ever More Honorable) Margaret (or Margie) Edwards. My bad—or mea maxima culpa. Now that’s out of the way…

Not having any family members still living in the East, January of last year, Virginia and Steve Humphrey moved west to Napa, Calif., to be closer to their children. Their daughter and two children live there and their son, also with two children, lives in Denver. Their grandchildren are between 10–13 years old. Steve still plays a lot of golf but now plays more of the golf course than when was younger. Only one of his grandchildren, a 10-year-old, shows any interest in the game. He retired at the end of ’13 but still does some consulting with some of his former clients. When I talked to him he was relaxing in the sun down in Cabo San Lucas, having been there for several weeks. Along with golf he finds that Western wines, especially Cabernets, enhance his retirement. He and all the rest of his family are enjoying good health and most of the year, the weather in Napa is wonderful.

Richard Currie, retired in ’03, still enjoys volunteering as a driver for Meal on Wheels and coordinates the food bank for the area around Belle Vernon, Pa., where he and his wife of 49-plus years live. Both he and Sue have always been active in their church and both were certified lay preachers. But several years ago, Sue felt called to become a Presbyterian minister and after three years in seminary has become one and now heads a congregation of 150 people, so Richard now calls himself a househusband/chief-cook-and-bottle-washer. He has become quite good at both, especially the former, as he uses the Internet to get all sorts of recipes. He does not need the Internet for the latter. Due to the needs of her congregation, their ability to travel is much curtailed but Richard has long been interested in singing, which he does a lot—both in choirs and with the Westmoreland Choral Society. They have two children: a daughter, 45, who is a professional stage manager in D.C., and a son who recently moved out to Burbank, Calif., where he’s quite excited doing his work in computer animation. He and Sue are working on how to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, which is coming up soon.

Lee Hunt, who spent only his freshman year with us, is semi-retired but still does some consulting work with a number of construction companies. He recalled several friends at WesU, Jim Dooney, and two others who are now deceased, and while he’d expected to return, never did. He and his wife, Evelyn, married for 25 years, live near Richmond, Va. Lee learned woodworking from his dad and does a lot of restoration work—furniture, grandfather clocks, but mostly antique motor boats. His most recent restoration was of a ’55 Chris Craft Capri runabout, one of only 43 ever made. With a fellow restorer, he has just started working on another wooden boat, a 20′ Ancarrow “with a monster Chrysler engine” which was capable of going 90 mph when first built. The Ancarrows were well known for their great speed but he doubts that they will even try to get it up to that speed when they’re finished. He and Evelyn are planning to take a Viking cruse this coming September to Sardinia and the Mediterranean.

Also retired, Dick Ort and his wife, Mary Catherine, are living in Williamsburg, Va. They’ve been married either 36 or 37 years. (Depends on who I talked to and I talked to each separately. I suspect this paragraph will help get that question resolved.) But be that as it may…like the rest of us, Dick is getting older and his knees often curtail his running, which he enjoyed and would like to return to as soon and as much as possible. They also interfere with his playing softball, which he had enjoyed for much of his life. Dick, when with Chubb, had much to do with their initial sponsorship of Antiques Roadshow, a concept initially transplanted from its UK origins. Besides becoming a show much enjoyed by viewers (of which I am one!), he was often told by very grateful antique dealers that it helped drive the prices of antiques way up. However, they complained that it also made their job of buying so much harder, as now bidding at auctions is much more competitive with way more amateurs getting in with hopes of finding great, unrecognized treasure. Dick has always been interested in history, especially military history. He focuses on WWI and the Civil War. He defied me to mention a Civil War battle the location of which he had not visited. (Panicked, I could only come up with Gettysburg which he’s visited more than 40 times.) He has also visited WWI battlefields in France and Belgium, though not to the same extent. But over there he says the food is much better after hiking the terrain. He says he learns a great deal about military strategy—what went on and why—by looking over the actual sites.

Fritz Henn is “slipping more and more into retirement.” Though he has closed his lab in Cold Spring Harbor, some of his ongoing drug trials continue, trials of what he hopes will be a more effective antidepressant. One such trial is of a drug class he patented for which he won the Colvin Prize, the largest prize for work in mood disorder research in the world! (Check it out on YouTube.) Fritz and his wife, Suella, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by meeting up in Heidelberg, Germany, with their children—son Steve ’94 (married to Emily ’94) and their three girls; and their daughter, Sarah, her husband, and their son and daughter. As Fritz and Suella had spent 12 years living there, they wanted to show their family some of their favorite old haunts. The Henns now live in DC, near their daughter and her family. The grandchildren keep them busy.

From Lake Oswego, Ore., Mike Marble retired “slowly”—from ’95 on he gave up his private practice as an orthopedic surgeon, but continued to come in to assist in operations. There were two particular plusses in this: of course, the continued income. But it was also especially nice that if something came up later that needed more attention, he was not the MD called back in. He did other kinds of part-time work too. He would review matters involving accidents resulting in medical-legal arguments over surgery/payments. Mike has been married to Debra for 47 years and they have two daughters. Like Lee, Mike also likes woodworking and makes “simple, useful things, like tables or bookcases.” He enjoyed sailing and has a 20’ day sailer and did a lot of riding on a recumbent bike. However he fell last July and has spine issues and at the moment, partially limited mobility, which he hopes will be resolved in time with PT. Debra, a watercolor artist, has gotten a job in Federal Courts as a court room artist. She is employed by newspapers to do this. Due to the economy, such work is becoming scarcer. If the case does not involve a jury, some judges will let her sit in the jury box. But if there is a jury and it’s a “hot” case, she has to get there early and find a seat for herself. And no, she has not yet worked a case involving a particularly notorious villain.

Sad news: John E. Peterson, of Santa Cruz, Calif., died Jan. 30, 2014, of a rare brain disease. A well-written and extensive obituary can be found on Google. He is survived by his wife Mary, his daughter. Ingrid, and sons, Wylie, Price, and Webster. He and Mary have three grandchildren.

He was a member of DKE, very active athletically and also took up paragliding, which was not an athletic option at WesU in the ’60s. He also served in the Peace Corps in Ghana. If you would like to share condolences or good memories of John, you can do so at pacificgardenschapel.com.

BYRON S. MILLER | tigr10@optonline.net
5 Clapboard hill rd., westport, ct 06880

Robin Berrington spent three weeks last year touring castles in Japan, and attended an opera festival in Dresden, where he discovered that nearby Leipzig is a new “with-it” city. Back home, he took on new duties as a docent at the Washington, D.C., Freer-Sackler gallery, and became co-chair of the Freer Friends Council, in addition to continuing to serve on the boards of the International Student Conference and the Post Classical Ensemble. Each year he joins friends in the Hudson River Valley for the Bard College Musical Festival.

Bruce Corwin reports good health news—a new working kidney donated by his son, David. Bruce is active on the Board of the Martin Luther King Foundation, and is proud that they opened a new hospital in southern Los Angeles. He reports he is in touch with Jay Levy ’60, Dave Sherman ’61, Steve Trott and Rick Tuttle, “all of whom are doing well.” Walt Fricke reports that he is busy skiing, and continuing to both race and officiate at Porsche Club events. This summer he and his brother, Al ’66, are going to circumnavigate Vancouver Island.

Bob Gause is “still working at my first job, now going on 40 years, in pediatric orthopedics in Bangor, Maine.” However he has managed to avoid Maine winters by sailing a catamaran he keeps at Bocas del Toro, Panama, where he also has written four novels, and is working on his fifth. You can check them out on Amazon or Kindle. With daughter Kathryn’s upcoming May wedding in Montana, he and his wife Nancy “are doing the clockwise RV tour of the USA in a 24’ camper as a test of marriage.”

Bruce Menke and his wife, Karen, moved from Houston to Athens, Ga., to be closer to their two sons, both professors at the University of Georgia, and four grandchildren. He says that UGA has a very active program of Lifelong Learning Institute classes and activities for retirees. He says “our welcome mat is out” for classmates in the area, which is only an hour and a half from Atlanta. He can be reached at kbmenke@earthlink.net.

Charles Seibert, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, is teaching at the university’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Hank Sprouse is using his wood carving talents to help two groups of veterans: He conducts two wildlife carving classes in the Arts in Healing Program at the Veterans’ Hospital in West Haven, Conn.; and he carves Golden Eagle heads, which are placed on walking canes for the Wounded Warriors.

Steve Trott has been on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for 27 years. He’s now in part-time “senior status” but says he may “hang it up completely at the end of the year.” He notes that he performed his first same-sex marriage last November, and commented, “Did I ever think we would come this far this fast over the last five years?”

Richard Whiteley reports on continuing his work of “helping individuals and organizations rediscover their spirit,” which he says has included four sets of activities: writing books (four to date, #5 in progress); speaking to groups (over the years close to one million people in 30 countries); sitting on boards; and conducting a healing practice in Boston using the techniques of shamans. He said he is “blessed” that he and partner Catherine Gerson have “warm, caring relationships” with his three sons and four grandsons, all of whom live within 15 miles. Sports are still important, but he shares everyone’s lament that “results on the courts and courses are significantly diminished.” Richard revealed that for the past nine years, he’s been dealing with the presence of Parkinson’s Disease, but says that in his case the progression has been “glacial” and that he is looking to the future “with a positive attitude.”

Finally, a sad note. The wife of Peter Nuelsen, Joyce Morral, informed us that Peter passed away Dec., 31, 2014. Our condolences go to his family.

DAVID FISKE | davidfiske17@gmail.com
17 W. Buckingham Dr. Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971

“Time just keeps on clicking by!” reports Eric “Swede” Wilson, who claims he’s “still alive, kicking, and working. My daughter, Avery, got married three years ago, and is now living in San Diego, Calif., with her husband Conan. My son, Eric, his wife, Julie, and grandson Ethan live in Tuscaloosa, Ala., with us where he has a solo bankruptcy legal practice. He is a big Alabama Crimson Tide fan, and drags me along to a lot of the home games. My third son, Martin, still lives in NYC, where he is employed as a publicist with Harper Collins. He has just completed his second young adult novel, and it is undergoing editing. Health remains good with all of the family.”

“Well. We are a year older!” claims (or is it complains, or maybe proclaims) Bob Carey. He goes on to describe his “trips to Israel with some students to study boundaries and identity,” and his visits with the Littles and the Woodburys. Bob continues to explain: “I have become very much involved with a Lumina project here at Empire State College. It has to do with how we work with adult students who are finishing their degrees. Although very college specific, it raises all sorts of interesting questions about how we, in fact, come to know things. Of course, when I start talking about it, I find myself alone at the chip and dip bowl. Such are the vagaries.”

Here was an unexpected note from Brad Beechen, presented in his own words. “Brad writes regarding a small world encounter. His fraternity brother, George Kangas ’60, mailed him to say he and his wife had attended a program at their Bradenton, Fla., church where they listened to a highly enjoyed concert performed by ‘very accomplished musicians,’ a fellow named Jon Magendanz and Jon’s sisters, Donna Guarino and Felice Farrell. The program notes enclosed with George’s letter indicated the siblings have performed internationally.” In response to Brad’s encouragement for more explanation, your class secretary’s exposure to music has been lifelong, a result of being raised by musical parents. During attendance at Wesleyan, instruction continued, a benefit from a music scholarship, on the violin with three years study in Hartford and one year at Yale. Ensemble concerts were given at Honors College with my sister, Donna, and Ray Rendall, and, of course, there was the chamber orchestra and the pep band. That’s enough promotion, but do look for me at the 75th Reunion Parade!!!

An additional bit of Wesleyan history presented by Foster Morrison: “It was interesting to read about the renovation of that ancient 20-inch refractor at Wesleyan. I had some limited experience with it and other telescopes on Foss Hill, since I had three semesters of astronomy, an intro course and a research seminar with Prof. Thornton Page, and a summer job after graduation. He got me into Sigma Xi and as a co-author of a publication in the astronomical journal. I did dabble a bit in satellite orbits and satellite geodesy. In retrospect, I should have taken Prof. Eichhorn’s celestial mechanics course and learned programming on his first-ever-at-Wesleyan computer. I crossed his path again at the Army Map Service, where he had a summer sabbatical and I was programming a Honeywell mainframe and adding a curve-fitting capability to an obsolete satellite orbit theory.”

Congratulations are in order for Paul Dickson’s continuing accomplishments in the literary field. Rave reviews have been published in the UK’s Authorisms, The Guardian, and the Times of London, all which came out in the month of Paul’s 75th birthday. Also, with additional pieces later published in the Guardian and in the Daily Mail, as well as a promise of a second printing of his book, Paul was very excited about his 75th year.

Finally, on a sad note, the passing of Weldon John Smith Sr., on Aug. 5, 2014, is noted. Classmates are referred to the online obituary section of this publication for more complete coverage of Weldon’s family and graduate work.

Respectfully submitted,

Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205

Chris Campbell wrote: “I recently read a narrative about a young woman who slips and falls concussively against a large boulder. She is diagnosed as suffering from either mild aphasia or dissociative amnesia. The main result of this situation is that she has great difficulty in speaking normally. Her mind is alert, but in trying to express herself she tends to use a steady stream of synecdoche, a figure of speech which the Greeks described as using a ‘part’ for the ‘whole’ or vice versa. I was inspired by that odd condition, and began looking for everyday examples of synecdoche in contemporary English. A very common example of synecdoche is the use of ‘wheels’ to mean an automobile or ‘packing heat’ to mean carrying a firearm. These days we say ‘plastic’ when we mean a credit card. Hippies customarily said ‘threads’ to mean clothes. Most of us will say ‘pigskin’ when we are thinking about football. Now I am trying to build a large collection of modern-day examples of synecdoche. If any classmate can think of an example, I would be pleased to receive it at crc@navpak.com. If I am able to build a big enough list, I will write an article about this interesting figure of speech.”

John Berry wrote: “My wife, Mary, and I are just back from two weeks in Greece, with a week spent on Crete, where we stayed in a 500-year-old house in the ancient port town of Chania, built by Venetians when they controlled that part of the world. Our daughter, Clay, who is the Treasury attaché in the U.S. embassy in Moscow, was there with her husband, Bikas, the International Monetary Fund’s resident representative in Russia, and our two granddaughters, ages 3 and 7. After their two-year stint in Moscow, this summer they will be back living close to us in Alexandria, Va., where we have lived in the same house for 45 years. For months Clay has been traveling regularly to Kiev because of the U.S. involvement with the beleaguered Ukraine. Earlier we spent Thanksgiving in Seattle with our son, Michael, a senior software manager for Adobe Systems, and his wife, Catherine Berkenfield, a professor at Bellevue College.

“Mary, a writer, has also become an excellent photographer. Two years ago a portfolio of her pictures of the Salar de Uyuni, a huge salt flat in Bolivia, won first prize in the fine arts division of an international competition, the winners of which were on display for weeks at the National Geographic Society museum in Washington. Meanwhile, she continues to row competitively, both sweep and sculling, and did so in the Head of the Charles Regatta each of the past two years. She plans to be in an eight again this fall at an international masters competition in Belgium.

“I continue to write regularly only for a quarterly magazine, International Economy, but also enjoy occasional free-lance jobs as they come along, such as book reviews for USA Today. And I’ll be at our 55th in May.”

John Dobson wrote the following: “Nici and I continue to love Big Sky, Montana! In early September, however, we traveled to the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, Surrey in England, Normandy, Paris, and then back to the Connemara Peninsula, Ireland. Several days after our return to Montana, we ventured on to Kauai, Hawaii, for 11 days. In mid-October, we joined Caren and Dick Gorenberg in Durham, for our 50th Duke Medical School Reunion. Our fall travel was capped off by six weeks at our home in Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands. It seems like a lot of travel in a fairly short length of time, but we both thoroughly enjoyed each trip. We are now back in Big Sky and are fully embroiled in a great ski season!”

Jim Dover is active in the Bridgton Senior College, both as an instructor and board member. The highlight of 2014 for Jim and Sue was the trip taken to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. They visited Normandy, Brittany, and the Loire Valley of France for about two and a half weeks. They were then joined by two children and their spouses, along with three grandchildren, for a week in Annecy, their favorite town in the French Alps, and a final week in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Peggy and Dave Hale spent 12 days in Panama. In addition to transiting the Panama Canal on a small boat, they visited a number of places where traditional activities were happening. They made candy from sugar cane, corn, and cheese tortillas, along with traditional hats and dresses. They enjoyed a home-hosted meal in an Embera Indian village, where Peggy got a tattoo. Dave swam in the Pacific, kayaked on Lake Gatun, and briefly joined two traditional dance groups.

Wesleyan University: 1910–1970: Academic Ambition and Middle-Class America by Dave Potts has been published. It’s a sequel to an earlier volume that covered the period 1831–1910. Dave gives an unprecedented level of attention to the board of trustees and finances. These clearly related components are now introduced as major shaping forces in the development of American higher education. Extensive examination is also given to student and faculty roles in building and altering institutional identity. Threaded throughout is a close look at the waxing and waning of presidential leadership. All of these developments, as is particularly evident in the areas of student demography and faculty compensation, travel on a pathway through middle-class America. Within this broad context, Wesleyan becomes a window on how the nation’s liberal arts colleges survived and thrived during the last century. Dave says: “The fastest way to get a hard copy edition at the most competitive price is via the Wesleyan Press/University of New England Press website using the 30 percent discount code: W301.”

Stanley N. Katz, lecturer/professor, Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, wrote this review: “This superb follow-on to Potts’ first volume on the history of Wesleyan University maintains the exceptional quality of its predecessor. College histories tend to puffery, but this one is a solid, critical, and knowledgeable account. Potts here establishes himself as one to the finest historians of higher education, and Wesleyan gets the sort of history a great institution deserves.”

Oscar Lanford III died Nov. 16, 2013, after a battle with cancer, at the age of 74. After his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan, he received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1966 in quantum field theory. He began as assistant professor and later became professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. This was followed by professor of physics (1982-1987) at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France. He moved in 1987 to the department of mathematics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and retired in 2005. He continued teaching at the Courant Institute until 2012.

Oscar was an expert in quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, and dynamical systems. His publications were influential to the development of mathematical physics. He was the recipient of the 1986 U.S. National Academy of Sciences award in applied mathematics and numerical analysis and he received an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan.

Oscar is survived by his wife, Regina, and their daughter. On behalf of the Class of 1960, I express our condolences to his family and friends.

SAL RUSSO | salandjudy@hotmail.com
2700 Kentucky St., Bellingham, WA 98229