Art Geltzer’s research with new imaging equipment has looked at macular and retinal changes as an early marker for Alzheimer disease. He will travel to Naples, Italy, and Capri for vacation.
Kay and Bob Terkhorn are doing fine. They sold their Arizona house and will winter in Denver. Bob is amazed that it is 20 years since his retirement from Citicorp.
I received a long message from Randy Johnson, detailing 10 of the most colossal blunders of all time. Space will permit only the first. “When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up attempt, would-be robber John Elliott did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.”
Two e-mails from Dan Woodhead. The first is a bit of trivia regarding the architect Henry Bacon. He designed the Lincoln Memorial and Wesleyan’s 1913 master plan, which included Olin Library, Clark Hall, Van Vleck Observatory, and Eclectic House. And Bacon’s collection of books and papers is housed in Wesleyan’s Archives. Dan’s other note covers many bases, from his appraisal of Donald Trump to his admiration for Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey. He is also renewing his “Lefty O’Doul for Cooperstown” campaign. Any classmate who is interested in it and has ideas for promotion should contact Dan. Lastly he is proud of his grandsons, who are 16 and 14 and very promising water polo prospects.
Pirkko and Burr Edwards have re-established themselves in France after 35 years in Africa. They will still return to Africa for her decorating company and his assignments with the World Bank and governments.
Mel Cote reports that he and Allee and Geltzer walk the streets of Provincetown without walkers or canes. His wife, Polly, continues to sell her art. Their lobster traps have gone, but the three Wes men still fish from Art Geltzer’s boat.
Roger Turkington opens his note with the statement, “1958, one of the last great eras at Wesleyan.” He comments that his classmates are among the great, good people he has encountered since the years at Wesleyan. His second volume of 300 poems, Poetry of Passion, is becoming a best seller.
For the first time in 19 years, Toni and John Corkran met with his children and grandchildren to celebrate Thanksgiving at the home of son Tim ’90 in Lexington, Ky. John thanks all who participated in the Wesleyan fund and encourages others to do so.
Neil Springborn sent a long e-mail. Despite a few bouts of gout he is doing well and plays golf three times a week. He is involved with committees and boards and was just elected chairman of the Lawton Board of Review. A son, Jeff, is running the Houston Weather Service Office, and a granddaughter is playing varsity soccer and hopes to play for the US women’s soccer team.
The third of the P-town trio, Dennis Allee, is driving to Gulfport, Fla., for the winter with his partner, Annie.
Dave Schalk writes from his sick bed. He contrasts his current malady with the 39 years of college teaching where he did not call in sick once.
Kay and I are in good health. We cheat and work with personal trainers at least twice a week. Before Christmas we vacationed with our daughter and her family in the Canadian Rockies. Brutally cold, especially for a Florida guy, but a true winter wonderland. Still search for that elusive perfect golf swing and play at least three times per week. And it seems to be true that senior golfers lose five yards per year.
Greetings to the Great Class of ’59. We have news from several of you from whom we have not heard in years! Hopefully we will hear from more of you in the future.
Bob McKelvey, a great and long-term supporter of Wes, serving on our Board and numerous committees, is still working full time in the investment advisory business he took over from his father many years ago. He says he works because he has nothing else to do, although working with smart colleagues and clients may fill the bill. Has recently seen Hamilton and joins in singing its praises. Bob also praises the second volume of Wes history by Dave Potts ’60, which includes our years and President Butterfield. Bob says his interaction with Wesleyan is winding down, although he always makes spring Reunions and fall Homecomings. His main campus link is Alpha Delt, one of the few fraternities left and co-ed since the early ’70s. Bob is still active on the American Rhodes Scholar alumni group, which provides an interesting reason to connect with a group of smart young people, and is dealing with the “Rhodes must go” movement. An additional commitment is with his Oxford College, Merton, now celebrating its 750th anniversary. He provides context by reminding us that Merton was 500 years old when we were staring our Revolution. Lastly are a couple of local initiatives supported by Bob’s energy in his spare time. Wow!
Ted Fiske checked in, reporting on the month of October in London, where he spent time with Jack Lambert. Ted’s wife, Sunny Ladd, is on sabbatical from Duke and they spent time researching two inner London schools that have had great success educating low-income students. A paper will soon be published by the Brookings Institute, with some suggestions for U.S. policy makers. In addition, Sunny and Ted took in many of the multicultural events, including the Swan pub, which Sunny haunted 45 years ago as a student in London. She thought the stools were new but not much else.
Ed Murphy sends news of Bob Gillette’s new book about two teenage Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany on a Virginia farm. Ed also reports his own “escape“—from snow in northern Virginia to Colorado. On their return they will attend a Navy Change of Command Ceremony for their younger son. Lastly, Ed reports a D.C.-area tradition among the nine local members of ’59: a semi-annual lunch, next in April. Nice touch.
Tim Day has written us about his recent trip to Israel and Palestine. It was a combined cultural trip and a chance to spend some concentrated time with the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), including push-ups! How many is unspecified, but it sounded like lots! Rather than try to condense badly a fascinating report, the full story can be found BELOW, and we’re including a link to Tim’s Dropbox for pictures here. Thanks, Tim!
Dick Wenner’s wife, Maureen, passed away unexpectedly last summer while on vacation in the Finger Lakes. “2015 was a tough year for me, but I am hanging in there.” Dick is still singing bass in the church choir (since 1978), and has been their treasurer for almost 25 years. He says, “My new pursuit is genealogy, and am busy finding out about the Wenner Swiss and Alsace roots, totally fascinating! Don’t get back to the campus much. Never really recovered from campus life in the ’70s, and recent shenanigans have not helped.”
Katherine Thomas Graduation
Weg Thomas has recovered perfectly from a total hip replacement and is back hiking trails and working at the Conservation District. “Granddaughter Katherine Thomas graduated from TCU.TCU is not far from the Cadigans’, so we had a jolly dinner with them as part of the celebration. Some of you know that Katherine’s brother, Nick, died most unexpectedly on Easter Day. Their father, Sean, started life in Vet’s Village in 1959.” Nick and Weg were very close, as he was an environmental restoration specialist. In his honor a tree planting project was started. So far, more than 200 trees have been planted and the donations keep rolling in.
“The Chases and the Moodys joined me for an evening at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Washington to hear David Lough talk about his new book on Churchill’s finances, No More Champagne. Then on to a great French bistro dinner. A great story, as we do our retirement budgeting! Churchill, needless to say, was not a fan of budgeting, nor was his wife!!”
David Britt writes: “Spurts said, ‘Talk or else,’ so I’m spilling the whole ugly story of the last year. Do not read while operating heavy machinery.
“AARP counsels seniors to keep moving, so we did. Again. First, we sold our summer condo in Connecticut. Then, six years after Sue designed our dream house on the Intracoastal Waterway (our longest stay ever in one house), we sold it and moved 1.6 miles north on Amelia Island, to a more urban, walkable, ungated community. I’m still enjoying moderating two discussion classes on foreign policy issues. It’s like a time warp to see folks with very different views listen to each other, agree on some basic facts, and find areas of agreement as well as differences. Maybe someday the country will try it again.
“In November, we took a very long cruise from Hong Kong to Capetown, with a number of stops in Malaysia, Brunei (not invited to stay in Sultan’s 800-room palace), and Indonesia. The highlights were several stops in East Africa down to South Africa. We saw, over and over, unrealized agricultural potential, masses of unemployed young urban men, and young, young populations. For pure fun we visited the Italian lakes last spring—stunning scenery, great food, no George Clooney. And, after everyone else in the Wes extended family, we saw Hamilton, that astounding, wonderful, riveting reinvention of American musical theater. Miranda ’02 and Kail ’99 are kicking Royalist butt.”
Hugh Lifson writes: “I really appreciated Bing Leverich’s note about Carl Schorske. I never took a course with him, but had many discussions with the great man via Terry Frederick, who lived with Schorske for a while. Ditto Louis Mink, Fred Millett, William Coley, Richard Winslow, Robert Cohen, and many others—as only a Wesleyan student of the time was able to schmooze with our exalted professors!
“Schorske came to Cornell College twice while I was teaching there. I described the second visit in our 50th Reunion Book. The first was equally remarkable. In response to an odd question of mine, he discoursed for 90 minutes spontaneously and astonished all of my colleagues. We happy few would not have been surprised. I hope Wesleyan does something special about him.
“Fond memories also for Vic Butterfield, inspired by your recent article. He seemed to know us all!”
George Holzwarth, officially retired (emeritus) as a professor of physics at Wake Forest, works in mentoring undergrad research and the occasional honors thesis. Working with 18-to-22-year-olds is keeping him young! “On a whim, I bought Dave Potts’ new book, Wesleyan University 1910-1970, to learn a little about academic politics during our years in Middletown. It’s a fascinating book, filled with details about the battles for the soul of Wesleyan carried out between Vic Butterfield, the Board of Trustees, and the faculty, especially during our time there—1955–1959. Highly recommended!”
Bruce Dow is still working 20 hours per week as a community psychiatrist on Cape Cod, where he has a home near the ocean. He published his first book last year, Dream Therapy for PTSD (Praeger Press, 2015), and has a second book in progress, on the newer antipsychotic medications for schizophrenia. His partner, Rae Edelson (Barnard ’64), runs an art program (Gateway Arts) in Boston for people with mental disabilities. They shuttle between their two homes. Bruce has three grandchildren (in Seattle and Denver), and she has four (in Chicago and Washington, D. C.), so they travel around the country as well.
Rick Garcia is the current president of the Bolivian Academy of Economic Sciences (ABCE). See the Newsmaker for his update.
In February 2015, Peggy and Dave Hale escaped winter with two weeks in Chile and Argentina where they visited ranches, wineries, and a microbrewery. They heard interesting talks on a variety of cultural and historical topics, and took a tango lesson in Buenos Aires. In September they flew to eastern Europe where they boarded a ship on the Danube River to visit Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary. They experienced four folk dance groups, castles, cathedrals, and much talk about the miseries of life with communism.
Bob Mortimer wrote: “Mimi and I moved around quite a bit in 2015. We were in France for three months in the spring and then again in the fall. As our research interests center around France and its former colonies, we are always happy to see friends whom we met throughout the francophone world. It’s always a little bit ‘Afrique sur Seine’ for us (to quote the title of one of the earliest African films). In June our daughter Denise ’93 brought her kids (who are in a French-speaking school) to Paris to confirm that there really is an Eiffel Tower and no end of bookstalls filled with Tintin. During the fall we were too close for comfort to the terrorist attacks and the rise of the ultra-nationalist Front National. There was a Dickensian feel to our visits: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’ We also visited Jordan with its magical sites of Petra and the Wadi Rum desert, but the regional chaos and Syrian refugee crisis weigh heavily upon that country. Only Iceland, where we stopped off for a week in June on our way back to Boulder, seemed a refuge from the world’s troubles.”
Chuck Olton has published a book, Heroic Vision: A Story of Revolutionary Art and Politics. Anyone interested can learn more at heroicvision.net. Chuck and Barbara have been dividing their time between a home on Shelter Island (a community of 4,000 in winter and 25,000 in summer) and an apartment on lower Fifth Avenue, where they have lived since the early 1990s. They plan to sell their island house soon and will move to a retirement community, but they are not giving up on New York yet!
I am sorry to report that Bob Votaw died Jan. 26, 2016, in Farmington, Conn., after an extended illness. He majored in biology at Wesleyan and then received a Ph.D. in microbiology from Case Western Reserve University in 1964. He was a member of the faculty at Case Western until his appointment in 1966 as associate professor of biochemistry and director of Multidiscipline Laboratories at the soon-to-be built University of Connecticut Health Center. During his tenure with the UConn Health Center, Bob was instrumental in the design of the multidisciplinary labs and the medical school’s first microbiology curriculum. Later he also served as an assistant dean of medicine and led the development of the school’s first computer-based education program. After retiring from UConn, Bob was an alternate energy project developer. An excellent researcher and teacher, avid outdoorsman, gardener, gourmet cook, gun enthusiast, and historic preservationist, Bob lived for more than 35 years in Farmington. He was married to the former Joye Lynn Dickens in 1961. The couple divorced in 1988. He leaves behind his three children and his close friend Norma Hartley. On behalf of the class of 1960, I express our condolences to his family and friends.
Ann and Bob Williams are passionate about their involvement with The Highlands Chorale, which performed another December holiday concert with selections commemorating Christmas, Hanukkah, and the winter solstice. Bob has gotten increasingly involved in the MidCoast Senior College, where he both teaches (last fall’s offering was Six Spies in the Shadows) and serves on the board. He also edits their newsletter. His history of Topsham (Topsham, Maine, from the River to the Highlands) has been well-received. His most recent book (Stealing Van Gogh) follows the intriguing story of the painting “Night Cafe” from 1888 to the present.
Richard Corson sends word: “Having retired from my library directorship at SUNY Maritime College in 2001, I continue to live at my house in Forest Hills. After years of avoidance, I finally got a smartphone. I also activated my long dormant Facebook account. As a consequence, I am taking more photographs and exercising more care in their composition, and posting them. Once I had the smartphone, I figured why not get an activity tracker to keep me honest, so I waddle around Forest Hills on a four-mile circuit almost every day. From 2002–2010 I was a three-day-a-week volunteer at the office of the NYC Habitat for Humanity affiliate, first in Brooklyn Heights, then on John Street in the financial district.”
Following Richard’s wife’s death three days after their 49th anniversary, he became more active in his Congregational Church-in-the-Gardens, located in Forest Hills. He also attended theater events, encouraged by his participation in the Theater Development Fund (TDF)
“This past winter,” Richard continues, “I transcribed my maternal grandmother’s five-year diary from 1933–37, which resulted in connecting with my 88-year-old cousin, Joy, whom I had never met. It turns out that Joy and her husband, Michael, gave Harper Lee the means to take a year off from her work as an airline reservation clerk in New York to finish To Kill a Mockingbird. Who knew?”
More news from New York State by Tom Seward: “In July, on their way to Chautauqua Lake for a couple of weeks, Carol and Dave Denny stopped by Eve and Tom Seward’s cottage on Keuka Lake (N.Y.). Joyce Barney and her new husband, Kim Milling, joined them. We enjoyed meeting Kim. Over dinner we told some great John Barney stories. It was a bit like a mini Delta Sig reunion.
Last fall, Paul Boynton was reflecting about our 50th Reunion celebration: “Occasionally I think back fondly to that gathering. Then I leap further back to sort through memories from those years when we all got to know each other. (I just now paused to review the two sentences I wrote, which strike me as the musing of a verifiably old man. No matter, those were verifiably great times.)”He also sends updates: “I taught my last class at the UW in the fall of 2013, and miss that constant contact with students, but keep busy analyzing data and writing papers reporting the experimental gravitation program that my research group carried out over the past two decades. Barbara and I spent a few weeks with grandchildren in Europe in ’12, and a few more in China two years ago where I spoke at a conference in Shanghai, at university in Wuhan, and as we relaxed as guests of Beijing U through the longstanding academic connections of our oldest son. We take great joy in our growing family of six “kids,” 12 grandkids, and recently a spectacular great-granddaughter.”
Following their daughter’s June wedding last summer, Ernie Hildner and his wife, Sandy, anticipated traveling to the Galapagos Islands. “I walked into Machu Picchu on the Inca Trail 36 years ago (!), acclimating to altitude at the beginning of a month-long climbing trip, which culminated with a successful ascent of 22,200 feet. Standing on the summit of Huascaran, one is almost the farthest from the center of Earth as one can get and still have your feet on the ground. (Second only to the summit of Chimborazo, in Ecuador.) It will be interesting to see what changes have occurred in 36 years to a ruin about 600 years old. In late January, we go to Chamonix, France, for a week, to ski the great variety of areas on the north, east, and, south slopes of Mont Blanc. We’re very grateful that our health has held up—with the frequent aid of modern medicine—as well as it has.”
Your class secretary always appreciates a word from his former roommates. Emil Frankel writes: “Still active in transportation policy matters, serving as Interim President & CEO of Eno Center for Transportation, a small DC-based transportation policy think tank, ’til a new President is selected by the Board of Directors; serving on a couple of boards; and writing on transportation policy topics for various periodicals and organizations. Also, just completed service on a panel for Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, making recommendations on transportation funding for the State.”
Jack Mitchell sends his update: “Our family is very blessed—we are all are healthy and in harmony. Linda and I will celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary in June. My grandson, Lyle ’16, is graduating from Wesleyan in June and my granddaughter, Dana ’18, is a sophomore at Wesleyan. They both play lacrosse. I have three other grandchildren in college and two in high school.
We now have eight men’s and women’s clothing stores, coast-to-coast: Westport, Greenwich, Huntington Long Island, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Seattle, and Portland, Ore. I continue to travel and speak, and have done more than 225 motivational speeches on my Hug Your Customer and Hug Your People books, in addition to working on our selling floor as the chairman of our family’s men’s and women’s clothing business. I continue on the faculty of Columbia Business School, guest lecturing in family business and luxury retail, and am playing lots of tennis and loving it! Finally, I am proud to be on the Presidents Council at Wesleyan!”
Sandy McCurdy submitted a few words as follows: “Heard from Howard Morgan that he and Dick Arnold hang out with their families in Florida somewhere (no doubt not a slum area!) and things are well with them all. My thoughts have drifted back to some of our deceased classmates, Hank Hilles and Pete Odell in particular. What wonderful creatures they each were as we knew them, and remembering especially how Hank loved the lyrics (which I believe someone in our class made up) to that old spiritual: “He’s got the whole world, in his hands ….” redoing it as: “He’s got a great big banana—in his ear, he’s got a great big banana—in his ear…” Ah, the carefree days of fine nonsense.
Another classmate, Bob Folley, died a few months ago following an extended period of cancer therapy and treatment. Bob, a dental colleague, a graduate school roommate, a gross anatomy teammate, and Best Man at Jon Magendanz’s wedding, was an avid golfer who, much to Magendanz’s amazement, would compete in tournaments held days after the snow melted and would finish as the winner. He practiced general dentistry in the Navy for two years and then for 33 years in his Glens Falls, N.Y., office. A unique follow-through for Bob’s golfing experience and expertise was that after retiring from dentistry, he joined the New York State Golf Association as a course rater. This position required his evaluation of golf courses throughout the nation. As he would say, with a grin: “It’s tough work, but somebody’s got to do it!”
Coming up in the next Class Notes edition: Words from Bob Carey, guest preacher for the Martin Luther King Jr. service at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, and some philosophical thoughts from Foster Morrison and Ed McClellan. Stay tuned! Respectfully submitted,
Bob Gause sends greetings to everyone from his MaineCat catamaran in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, where he takes a “sabbatical” from January to May every year with spouse Nancy and Jack, the Jack Russell, from his Bangor, Maine, pediatric orthopedics practice and continues his fiction writing. Check him out on Amazon.com. He writes that he looks forward to seeing everyone in good health at our 55th Reunion next year.
Bob Saliba officially closed his law practice in July last year. In January he and Jenifer spent a few days in Washington pursuing their “passion for American art and history,” adding, “We spent a wonderful evening with Robin Berrington, who suggested we explore the Sackler Gallery, which the next day we did and discovered the Japanese art of Tawaraya Sotatsu (and others). Thanks to Robin for opening up a whole new world to us.”
And a sad note on the passing last December of Peter Nuelsen. After receiving a master’s in architecture from Yale in 1966, he had a highly successful career in a New Haven architectural firm designing and renovating healthcare facilities from New Hampshire to Philadelphia. We extend our condolences to his wife, Joyce, and his family.
Appearing for the first time in these notes, Tom Buxton, who lives on Whidbey Island, Wash., reports that he retired as director of program management at Boeing in 2000 after 32 years there. When he first started, he recalls that Boeing was “coddling along” the new 747 but wasn’t doing it well. Of course, the bugs got worked out and the rest is history. The last plane he worked on was the 777, “Boeing’s last metal plane; the newer 787 is plastic.” He has been married for 36 years to Tara Anderson, who had children from a prior marriage. Just in the last three years, they’ve gotten into grandparenting with the birth of three grandchildren. After Wes U, Tom went to Carnegie Mellon and got a degree in industrial administration. Then after a sojourn at Exxon, it was on to Boeing. Prior to his professional career, Tom easily “chose the Peace Corps over the war in Vietnam.” After training in the U.S. in creating agricultural cooperatives, was sent to Peru, in the Andes, east of Lima. The success of their team’s work depended on the presence of a strong local leader—which they didn’t always have. Tom did charitable work before retirement, which he still continues. He “nurtures” churches—helping with fund-raising to build, then flourish. He says he’d seen lots of good programs that focused on a specific problem but churches focus on the wellbeing of the whole person (and this he calls his “hobby”). Tara, is “big-time gardener” and, as they are both avowed “climate freaks,” they have sworn off travel, seeing it as leaving too big a footprint. So their travel is confined to the Cascadia region.
Living quite a long way from the Cascade Mountains, Bob Siegle in Philadelphia is not going to retire anytime soon. He loves his work as a pediatric radiologist and when I talked to him he was actually taking a 10-minute break. After Wes U he and Dan Hottenstein went through both their initial MD training and then their specialty training in radiology together. After his internship, Bob went into the USAF and served as a general medical officer at a base in Columbia, Mich. His focus was generally on pediatrics. His wife, Rita, is also retired, having worked as professional grant writer. They recently returned from a three-week trip to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Dale Henderson went to the London School of Economics (M.S.Econ.) and then on to Yale (PhD). During his career, he spent 34 years in two stays at the Federal Reserve Board, ending as a senior adviser. In between and afterwards, he was a professor at Georgetown He has also taught at a number of other universities, including Yale and Copenhagen and has been a visiting scholar. His research-support activities include cofounding the International Research Forum on Monetary Policy, which holds regular conferences. He has published widely in the his field and is currently working on what he says may be his “last” research paper, a comparison of alternative methods for analyzing productivity increases, which may be too specialized to be of interest to the general public. However, he has two items which might be more interesting: a public lecture he gave in ’09, “All the Wrong Incentives: A Financial Perfect Storm”; and a monograph coauthored in ’13, “Maintaining Financial Stability in an Open Economy: Sweden in the Global Crisis and Beyond.” (He would provide URLs to where they can be found). Dale is also doing some remodeling to the home where he and his wife Bonny live. They have a son and a daughter and are hopeful that grandchildren will follow.
When a freshman at Wes U, in order to get a good gym grade, Dale tried out for the freshman soccer team. While he did get the good grade, it was a uphill struggle for him, since he’d never played any high school soccer, However, “I did appreciate the chance to participate in sports including soccer, wrestling and lacrosse though I was not much good at any of them and dropped them all by my junior year. Thank goodness I was better at other things.” The summer between his third and fourth year, Dale went to Malawi with Operation Crossroads Africa. His US team, interracial by design, cooperated with a team of African students in building a sports team dressing room adjacent to a school and playing field. The small size of their project was due to the government’s lack of support.
Under the heading of “one thing leads to another,” Dale suggested I contact Bill Roberts, who also went to Africa with Crossroads, to see if he remembered others. Bill, who worked in Gambia while there responded, with the names of Jim Dinsmore, Russ Richey and Dave Holdt and suggested that Dave might recall others. Dave had worked for Crossroads in Somalia during the summer of ’62, but had had a very interesting experience while in Nairobi. He and a couple of Crossroads friends were in a bar and hit it off with a nice African lady whose last name was Kenyatta. She invited them to her house the next day to meet her parents. Quite excited, they reported their forthcoming visit to Crossroads authorities and the next day they visited and spent a wonderful time with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who was just out of jail and about to become President of Kenya. Dave reports Mzee was a wonderful host and gentleman, delighted to talk to them and very appreciative of Americans coming to his country to help out. After a few hours there, a bus load of other Crossroads volunteers pulled up in front of the house having been alerted by Operation Crossroads of this wonderful opportunity! Mzee laughed, asking if he was now going to have to spend the next couple of weeks talking to “lots of American volunteers.” Dave recalled another less pleasant experience in Africa. He and two friends decided to hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro to a lodge run by an American priest, spend the night, and return the next day. But they left late and had not gotten to the lodge when it got dark. Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by 12 African men with bows and arrows. Neither group spoke the other’s language and it was not looking good. Suddenly a 10-year-old African boy happened by and heard them talking English, which he spoke quite well. He intervened and then explained to the Africans what these white men were doing and led them to the lodge (followed by the 12 armed men). After knocking on the lodge door, they were greeted by the priest who had a .45 in his outstretched hand. It turned out that about three miles away was an African priest in a similar lodge, who had been robbed by African bandits the night before—which explained why suspicion abounded. The American priest was from Connecticut and was very happy to have been the one who had taught the 10-year-old to speak English. Dave is now leading a memoir writing group under the auspices of UConn. He finds it helpful in his own memoir writing, and he enjoys the participants, who range in age from 70 to 94.
Please feel free to send me the names of classmates you’d like to read about in this column. And I’ll do my best to contact them.
Well, guys. I’m in my recliner, NFL Network is on, and the Super Bowl is the topic. Roger Staubach is on the segment, which is appropriate for us, as he attended the Naval Academy around the time our class was at Wesleyan. It was an era where the service academies had top teams in college football, and it was an opportunity for top prospects to get a great education and enter the military as officers as opposed to grunts. Today, the service academies are not in the elite group of college football programs. Top prospects look forward to the NFL draft, and not the Selective Service draft that was the system we looked forward to.
Lou D’Ambrosio and wife Christy welcomed their eighth grandchild last year. Lou’s year included being out of breath from time to time and feeling a little dizzy. So: treadmill, nuclear treadmill, angiogram, stent, and angioplasty. Feeling great ever since. I was interested in cardiology in medical school but there didn’t seem to be enough doing, other than listening with a stethoscope. Fortunately, progress has been amazing and Lou’s experience is commonplace these days. If any of you have symptoms, don’t sit back and hope it goes away, but trust where cardiology is in the present.
Joe Miri writes, “I’ve postponed my retirement from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in order to continue to try to help New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware resolve issues with New York City and New York State over how to share the Delaware River, which supplies water to millions of people in Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.” Joe lives with wife Jan and granddaughter Edera in Lawrenceville, N.J.
Frank Sutterlin, an Eclectic, writes, “Can only say that after 46 years as a Presbyterian minister, including 18 years in the financial industry and 16 years as a dental hygienist, I have finally retired from seeking what I want to be when I grow up. I’ve appreciated being kept aware of Wesleyan growth and activities through newsletters and alumnus magazines. Sorry I didn’t graduate with my class of 1964, but I’ve been proud to promote Wesleyan in various conversations over the years.”
I set the notes aside and watched the Super Bowl. I predicted the Broncos would win because the NFC is basically weak, particularly the southern division where Panthers prowl. It is now Tuesday and the voters of New Hampshire have the floor. I’m fresh off watching the latest episode of The Bachelor and enjoyed the scenery of the Bahamas.
Ted Ridout gave up going south, moved to Northampton, Mass., with his spouse, and enjoyed downsizing. Lots of interesting culture, including Smith College, where my daughter, Jen, graduated from; I miss the trip to the area. I used to go see her on the weekend when Wesleyan football was across the river at Amherst College.
In contrast, Bob Rugg, and wife Sallie sent an update from southern California, where they were with her family celebrating her birthday. They spent time in China in 2015 and connected with a former student who is director of the Chinese Commission on Peace and Disarmament. They have a home in Virginia, so they are always in range of the white stuff that occasionally falls. Speaking of white stuff, I experienced a 49-inch storm in December 1969, while I was in my final year at The Albany Medical College. Albany, N.Y., is far enough away from lake-effect snow so the capital district was ill-prepared for the Northeaster that dumped such a blanket of snow. Tons of the stuff was carted away from streets and dumped in parks and the frozen Hudson River. The temperature didn’t go above freezing for the next six weeks, so the snow banks just sat there.
There was an update from Allen Ames, who I remember being in makeup for his love of theater. His health is good but there was a comment about “ever-advancing states of decrepitude.” His long-term memory is good but, with a blonde at his side, he needs her to guide him to their condo near the marinas of Clinton, Conn. (She has four short legs and fur.)
I continue to live in Mount Dora, Fla., with my wife Becky, and the company of two lady cats, Chloe and Tiggy. I’m a stay-at-home person but I recently became an expert resource for the website JustAnswer.com. I’m one of some ObGyn docs who answer questions posed by subscription members or non-members on a call-by-call basis and I receive pay based on a formula and customer satisfaction. If I don’t get at least three out of five stars, I receive nada. It has been a blessing for keeping my mind up-to-date, and the income has steadily increased as I sit in my recliner.
I’m still in my recliner and the MSNBC moderator said, “…1968, before any of us were born.” Democracy is the young, remaking or reinventing the wheel, and the older folks, who use the wheels and have families and relationships to tend to. Responsibility, integrity and accountability.
Class of 1965 35th Reunion Memorial Endowed Wesleyan Scholarship
Nadezhda Georgieva ’16, French Studies, Government
Dear Classmates, As noted in my recent request for information, Mark Edmiston and Hugh Wilson, new class co-conveners, are seeking input for class activities and advocacy going forward. The plan is to establish an infrastructure to sustain the energy and involvement created by our 50th Reunion. You’ll be hearing more about this from Mark and Hugh, but we’ve already decided to use the existing Reunion and Outreach Committees as means to jumpstart our efforts. Of course, everyone’s help and ideas are welcome! So, don’t hesitate to contact them (mmedmiston@icloud.com and hrwilson@yorku.ca ) with your thoughts.
Heard recently from Bill Trapp, who, with wife Marilyn, enjoys life in the great state of Washington (Lacey). Bill is a retired insurance executive and for years they lived in West Hills, Calif. An outstanding athlete and baseball player at Wesleyan, he is a big Cardinal baseball fan and he and Marilyn will travel once again to Tucson, Ariz., this spring to root on Mark Woodworth’s (’94) talented charges.
John Dunton writes: “The Reunion was “a terrific weekend, and I’m still amazed and astonished that Los Wombatos were awarded Joseph’s Robe—I could not have been more dumbfounded. That meant a great deal to me and to all the guys…. You can also offer the gratis services of Gary and the Wombats for nonpolitical fundraisers—we will go nearly anywhere nearly any time we can all clear our schedules to have an opportunity to play. I don’t know how many gigs we have left in us, but I was extremely pleased with our performance at Wesleyan and think it demonstrates we can hold our own for a while into the future. I’d like to continue to do this as long as we are all physically and emotionally capable of getting ourselves to a gig and getting people to tap their feet, get out of a chair and get sweaty. We just don’t want to do retirement home concerts….yet.”
John also wants us to know about Intervac, a wonderful program that involves reciprocal acts of hospitality with folks from other countries. John and wife Carol have hosted a number of families from Europe at their home near Boston and in 2015 they visited some of those families. They plan to continue to have the “favor returned” in the 2017. For more info: Homeexchange.com
From Ralph Jacobs: “We hope to be back on the East Coast in 2017, and will do our best to make connections with you and others from Wesleyan whose friendship we cherish.” Great news, Jake, and we look forward to seeing you! Jake and wife Holly live in Long Beach, Calif.
Dick Travis writes a very nice note: “Thank you for all you and others did to make our 50th Reunion so well organized and wonderful. Evelyn and I were unable to attend due to many diverse commitments including the culminating activities of our first grandson’s (Christopher) graduation from high school. But thanks to the blog and summary of activities, I feel that I was there. Christopher is now a freshman at the College of William and Mary, from which his father, Eric (my son), his mother Becky (daughter-in-law), and Erin (my daughter) all graduated. Just as when our children were there, we take every opportunity to visit Christopher in historic Williamsburg, as it is less than a three-hour drive from Harrisonburg.
“After retiring as a professor emeritus of health sciences at James Madison University, I took a two-year program to become an authorized lay preacher in the Shenandoah Presbytery. From January through June this year, another lay pastor and I are providing worship services to two churches in West Virginia. I leave a little after 7:00 a.m. for the 1.5 hour drive over three mountains to the Circleville (WV) Presbyterian Church worship service at 9:00 a.m. Then, I have a 25-minute drive to the Seneca Rocks (WV) Presbyterian Church service at 10:30 a.m. So they have told me to keep the sermons short. As I drive over these beautiful mountains, I have some quiet time to think about how we all have been blessed to have education and service opportunities in our lives. I am also reminded that we are the sum of our experiences and certainly those of mine at Wesleyan were very vital in my maturation process. Many thanks to classmates and professors at Wesleyan for being so important in my life.”
News from Dave Osgood: “After 25 years working and living in Egypt, I came back to the U.S. in July of 2013, retired, and settled in Nolensville Tenn. My four adult children are on their own and doing well, and I have two younger boys still in college. I’m finding retirement extremely enjoyable after years of work pressure. I have, however, been involved, on a part time basis, in interfaith activities since my return to the U.S.”
Fred Newschwander sends a list. He’s trying to wear out his hip prostheses; is a serious practitioner of YOLO; continues to add to his James Herriot stories before he forgets them all; and travels. Trips included Botswana, for a 10-day-on-horseback tent safari in June 2014, and Antarctica in December 2014, with five days in the peninsula region, where he ate meals with folks from the National Science Foundation in D.C., as well as from the McMurdo Station and a USCG icebreaker skipper. “Fascinating,” he says. His seven days last June in the Galápagos on MV Evolution were “also awesome!” He has two trips upcoming: Cuba in March 2016 and Iceland in June 2016 on a 10-day self-guided camper tour.
Tom Elliman has a good suggestion: “How about a mini-reunion in Boston or Portsmouth for us northern New Englanders? Maybe invite ’64 and ’66, too.”
My fellow classmates…when you read this our 50th will be upon us. Our Reunion Committee under the able direction of Rick Crootof (elmave8@aol.com) has worked extremely hard to make this experience a truly remarkable and wonderful event for all of us. Over the past months I have heard a number of reasons why some cannot come but, truly, if you have second thoughts because of expense or philosophical reasons, please reconsider. If finances are an issue, please contact Rick and if philosophy may cause barriers, please remember the Wesleyan of good times and academic vigor and the fact that we are all brothers in the ‘black and red’ Cardinal of our time.
Sadly, recently we received word of the passing of John E. Robinson, in June 2015. John and his wife, Judith (Morrissey), lived in Medfield, Mass. John grew up in Connecticut, majored in government, and was a member of Commons Club. A gentle and quiet man, John had a great reach at Wes: He participated on the track team, was a trusted member of the band, and was active in the school’s community tutorial, companion, and volunteer programs. After Wesleyan, John received his MBA from the University of Rochester and was a banker for the State Street Bank. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Judith and the children, Jonathan, Katie, and Meghan, and their families.
We are also saddened to report that we have received word of the passing of another of our classmates, Gary S. Chorba, on Jan. 17, 2015. Gary retired in 2004 after serving for 30 years as a supervisor with the State of New Jersey’s Division of Alcohol and Addiction Services. After Wesleyan he received his MA from Trenton State College and served in the US Army and saw action in Vietnam. At Wesleyan, Gary was a history major and member of Eclectic and gave voice to WESU. While at school, he received the Robert Rideout Award and was a Phi Beta Kappa. In his later life Gary was an avid fisherman and longtime soccer and lacrosse referee. We extend our aloha and condolences to his companion, Carol Czahur, and to his friend and former wife, Violet Harrison, and to his children and their families and grandchildren.
The month of February brought our fellow classmate Gifford Lum and his wife, Audrey, back home to Hawai`i. It was wonderful seeing them again, and we had some time to visit the Hawaiian double-hulled sailing canoes, Hikianalia and Hawai`iloa, and to listen to a performance of the Royal Hawaiian Band, the oldest municipal band in the nation, formed when Hawai`i was a kingdom under the reign of Kamehameha III in 1836.
Gifford reported: “After 33 years at the VA Boston Healthcare System in Boston, Mass., I retired on April 3, 2015, having served in the pathology and laboratory medicine service as associate chief of clinical pathology in charge of the blood bank and a state-of-the-art clinical chemistry laboratory. I also held an academic appointment as assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. I live with my wife of 40 years, Audrey, in Newton, Mass., and have two children, Elliot and Deirdre. Elliot graduated from Columbia and has an MBA from Sloan MIT School of Management. Deirdre graduated from Dartmouth, has an MD degree from UCSF, and is a gynecological laparoscopic surgeon and assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford Medical School. Thank goodness they are now off the payroll!! In December 2013, we welcomed our first grandchildren, twins, Malia Lum Markman and Aaron Lum Markman, born at the Stanford Packard Hospital in Palo Alto. We try to visit California twice a year to see them.”
Gifford has shared some of the memories from our fellow Beta classmates, which we include online at classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/class-of-1966/:
It is a great gift from the hand of providence that we all be able to gather again on our 50th to renew our friendships and stories—for it is from those stories that all of us find new life from the shared experiences of living.
E lei no kakou i ke aloha! (We wear our friendship as a wreath, i.e., the friendship of our classmates for each other!)
Classmates: I head from Karl Furstenberg, who had this to report: “Charlotte and I are still in Lyme, N.H.. Great place to live after many years as dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth. Retired several years ago, as did Charlotte, from research at Dartmouth Medical School. Now busy with granddaughters (Lizzie and Alice), who also live in Lyme. Daughter-in-law Emily teaches at Tuck School at Dartmouth and Eric does kid care and furniture building, as well as part time teaching at Dartmouth in econ. Great to have the entire family so close by. I’m plenty busy with some educational consulting, maintaining our old farm, coaching youth XC skiing, hiking and running, and an informal role at Dartmouth. Life is good in northern New England, if we ever get winter. Look forward to seeing folks at our 50th!”
Some of you responded to my e-mail, asking what courses you wish you had taken at Wesleyan. Bob Runk (after assuring me that it is not too late for me to take an economics class, but cautioning me to make sure that Paul Krugman is not the teacher) said there were many courses he wishes he had taken, especially more history. Bob continues to make music, including a music video that he describes as “a hip-hop/rap thing called La Playa Walk.”
Michael McCord wrote “I wish I had taken the Shakespeare survey course and maybe a course in music or art, though I certainly valued everything I did select.” Michael and his wife, Elisabeth, have lived in the same house on Beacon Hill in Boston since 1974. He is the headmaster of The Learning Project, a K–6 independent elementary school with about 120 students. Elisabeth is the business manager at the school. Retirement? “We anticipate retiring at some point, but there’s still satisfying work to do and, fortunately, we are in good health.”
Walter Beh wrote that he “retired from the practice of law in Hawaii after 45 years of fun and sun.” He now spends his time “going to the beach, watching the youngest of my nine grandchildren, and taking naps with said grandchild.” He did not identify a class he wishes he had taken, but he did remember one that he was glad he took: “I always remember with fondness my time at Wes, especially my freshman year in French class.”
A few people remembered (quite clearly!) classes they did take that they wish they had not taken. Jim Vaughan, for example, wrote this: “I’ll tell you what I wished I hadn’t taken….calculus. Got pneumonia the first semester of sophomore year, missed a lot of classes, and drew a blank on the final. Big “F”!! Put me in the academic doghouse, and the dean made me move out of the Psi U house (thankfully, in hindsight, because I eventually made up the lost ground and graduated on time). Should’ve taken an incomplete.” After Wesleyan, Jim was the supply officer on a U.S. Navy destroyer, went to Columbia Business School, and then worked as an investment banker, concentrating on the healthcare sector for the last 20 years. He now lives in NYC and Oyster Bay, N.Y.
William Vetter still regrets that he was not allowed to take calculus (maybe the same class Jim Vaughan was in) because he had previously taken a calculus class in high school. Instead, he was placed in a physics class he didn’t like, and then a linear algebra class, and then a multidimensional calculus class….all of which convinced him to drop out of science and math and go into the COL. After Wesleyan, he went to Stanford Law School, and then to Vietnam, and then back to Stanford Law, graduating in 1972. Over the next 35 years, he worked as an attorney, first with a small firm, and then in house for some large corporations (mostly for Martin Marietta and Rockwell International). He and his wife, Agi, who grew up in eastern Hungary (as Bill explains, “she escaped, got asylum in Germany, and eventually got refugee status in the U.S.”) have two children, both of whom live in Denver. Bill and Agi now live in Greenville, S.C., but their house is up for sale and they are planning to move to Denver (“If we’re successful, a place in Denver will be our seventh home in 38 years”).
I also heard from Dave Garrison. He and his wife, Suzanne, live in Dayton, Ohio, where Suzanne teaches commercial law at Wright State University. Dave taught Spanish and Portuguese there for 30 years but retired in 2009, and now spends his time “writing poetry, reading, playing golf and tennis, and sailing in the summer.” As for which classes he wishes he had taken, he had this to say: “I wish like everything I had taken a class with Richard Wilbur. Here was one of the most famous poets in America and I never signed up to work with him. A great opportunity lost.” [Note from your class secretary: I did not take a class with Richard Wilbur. However, thanks to Joe Reed, who put Richard Wilbur on his team in a student-faculty charade match we had in the fall of 1966, I did play charades with him once. He was quite charming. Their team also included Paul Horgan, so they were a tad more literate than we were.]
As Karl Furstenberg mentioned in his e-mail at the top of these notes, our 50th Reunion is coming—2017. Weird but true (seems like we just had the 45th). I hope you’ll be able to come back to Wesleyan for it. For those of you who have not been on campus for a while, there is a lot of new stuff to see, and, hopefully, a lot of old (and getting older) classmates…
