Class Notes | 1960s

Foster Morrison has regularly updated your class secretary with a variety of subjects. This Class-Notes edition is dedicated to Foster for his continuing support and creative delivery of timely news bits ranging from science to math to religion. One recent topic was based on the NASA studies on warp-drive technology, as reported in the Sigma Xi SmartBrief (8/21/2013): “The dream of warp-drive technology in space travel may become a reality, thanks to research at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. In small-scale experiments, the scientists imagine a football-shaped spacecraft encircled by two large rings, which would contract space-time in front of the craft and expand it behind it. These experiments are the first step in determining if these concepts can be applied practically, according to NASA physicist Harold ‘Sonny’ White. Space.com (8/21)” Foster queries: “Will this work? Does it explain UFOs, which already have it working?”

On a later theme, Foster writes: “There are at least three kinds of logic in current use in math, so it certainly is not the case that the ‘truths’ of mathematics cannot be erased. Math must be used carefully. For example, rational and irrational numbers have very different kinds of ‘existence’. You can keep approximating the square root of 2 for as long as you wish, but you will never get it right. God knew this, so He made the universe out of discrete particles so he could get the job done in six days.”

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

Robin Berrington continued his international travel with trips to Japan, the Baltic Republics and Slovenia. He saw the area in Japan devastated by the earthquake and tsunami and commented, “Sadly, much remains to be done there.” He also said, “The other two trips were in the fun category and I encourage all of you to consider them when thinking of European travel. Slovenia in particular was quite something—clean, orderly, and with friendly people all of whom speak English very well. But Lithuania was also a revelation to this old cold warrior. So parts of East Europe are just not what they used to be!”

Bruce Corwin reports that he took his two sons back for Homecoming to be there in person to watch Wesleyan’s football team beat Williams to win the Little Three “for the first time in 43 years!”

Jim Gately also noted the success of the football team in this year’s Little Three championship. Jim may have set a class record for retirement—three times from the company he worked for his entire career. After his first retirement from the investment company Vanguard, he was pressed back into service to launch Vanguard International and helped oversee its growth in many countries around the world. (He passes on this “Note to Robin Berrington: my course with Professor Abosch on Japanese culture and history paid big dividends some 45 years later!!”) Following his second retirement, he was then asked to return again to serve on the Board of the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, a donor-advised fund organization. In September, he offered his third retirement from the company. He said he and Kay intend to remain engaged in several non-profit ventures in the Philadelphia area and try to keep active with “travel, family, and the like.”

Naftaly “Tuli” Glasman retired as professor emeritus and dean emeritus from the University of California, Santa Barbara, after 44 years of teaching, research, and publications, including the just-finished My 75 Years of Managing Mental Disorders and Coping with Life. He volunteers at the Center for Successful Aging in Santa Barbara, which provides counseling services “to seniors who are facing the challenges of the aging process,” and is on the Board of Advisors of the Rieger Foundation, which offers scholarships to Israeli students studying in clinical academic disciplines. He also says he is active in helping his grandchildren coach soccer.

Bob Hunter is now senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was just made an “Honorary Anciens,” (a sensitive term for classmates now well past our 50th college Reunion!) of the NATO Defense College in Rome, and serves on Secretary of State John Kerry’s International Security Advisory Board. Shireen continues to teach at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and has just finished her 16th book.

Scott Lowden has published a comprehensive guide to U.S. customs law and import practices, Import Transactions and Customs Compliance.

Steve Trott reports on a trip east where he spent time with Cathy Burnett in Providence, and Marion and Steve Butts in New York City. He noted an unsuccessful attempt for them to go to Carnegie Hall because the stagehands were on strike. Steve commented on news reports that the stagehands struck despite earning $400,000 per year, and offered an editorial comment that he “may have discovered a great way to burn off student loans. Join the stagehands union for four months, work at the hall watching from the wings, and you’ll be debt-free and full of culture!”

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

From Schenectady, N.Y., the one-time Deke, Peter Tobiessen is appearing for the first time in this column! He has been married for 45 years to Joanne who, like Peter, has retired from Union College, where they both worked. She was an administrator and he taught in the biology department for 36-plus years. Their son is a playwright who has written three plays, each of which was produced in different cities around the country, one off Broadway in the Big Apple. John, still an ardent biologist, has written a book well reviewed in nature/ecology/outdoor circles titled The Secret Life of a Lake, The Ecology of Northern Lakes and their Stewardship (Graphite Press, 2012). His goal was to help lake users and lovers and non-scientists to understand how a lake works, stays balanced and how to keep lakes that way. Not just a good wordsmith, he was also part of a group of hands-on history buffs in the Albany area who built from scratch a 52-foot, 29-ton white oak replica of the first covered deck ship built in what we now call Manhattan. Named the Onrust, it was finished in time to join a fleet of 15 historic vessels and countless private and commercial boats that all joined in a 140-mile reenactment of Henry Hudson’s trip up the Hudson River, 400 years after his journey. The Onrust also took part in a renewal enactment of the 400th anniversary of Two Row Wampum Treaty, which was the first treaty between white settlers and America Indians, in this case the Haudenosaunee. Some of the simple, hopeful words of that treaty are: “As long as the grass is green, rivers run down hill and the sun still rises in the East and sets in the West…” There are many interesting pictures and write ups about it on the Web, as there are about Peter’s book.

For 35 years Dick Donat worked for Marshall Field’s, eventually becoming manager of their flagship store in Chicago after being very successful in increasing the income of Marshall Field’s stores in smaller cities. Dick says that when he arrived in Chicago, the flagship store was very conservative, with very little diversity in its staffing and customer base. This he worked hard, and with considerable success, to change. One result was that the store that had made a steady $1,000,000 a year from ’36–’84, started growing its income to $5,500,000 a year over the next eight-and-a-half years. Dick was in Chicago during a period when the downtown business hub went into a terrible decline, eventually reversed as the Millennium Park development brought business back to the downtown area. Dick and his wife, Charlotte (who also worked at Marshall Field’s, where they met), have been married for 35 years and have four children, two from a previous marriage and two from their marriage. They are now very involved taking care of their aging parents and one son who is disabled. They live in the Glencoe suburb of Chicago and Dick is quite interested in studying the history of changes in the Chicago headquarters of Marshall Fields, where he worked for so long.

From Walt Donaghy: “Jim Mattson passed away quietly in his sleep on July 22, 2013. He was with his family (children and grandchildren ) on a family vacation in North Carolina when he died. He will be missed by all of us

“Jim and I were roommates all four years at Wesleyan. We were members of Sigma Nu/Kappa Nu Kappa and lived on the top floor of our fraternity house for our second, third and fourth years. We’ve been friends ever since the fall of 1959, our freshman year, when we were assigned to a double room in Andrus Hall on Foss Hill.

“Jim (‘Matt’) played football (#22, halfback and punter) freshman year through senior year. A few years ago he told me that he held the punting record at Wesleyan until very recently. Of course Wesleyan had to have some serious losing games in those years to establish a punting record! Too many ‘3 and outs.’

“Matt wrote a nice, brief and modest bio for our 50th Reunion Book. He couldn’t make it to our 50th Reunion because his grandson was playing in a very important baseball tournament that weekend. As always, Matt had his priorities right. Family comes first.”

John Driscoll ’62 adds: “A call to our sports information office yields the following: Jim established the record for punting average in a single game against Middlebury in his sophomore year (1960) with an average of 44.5 yards, a record that stood for 37 years , until the ’97 season.

“I remember a tall, rangy and talented teammate who was known for his poise and performance, more than noise and excessive emotion.”

Walter Pilcher has also written a book: The Five Fold Effect: Unlocking Power Leadership for Amazing Results in Your Organization. And in mid-November he appeared on The 700 Club TV show to discuss his book. In the book, he draws on his and others’ church and business experiences to lay out the steps that could help create highly successful leadership teams. Walt’s wife of 49 years was a RN student at the nursing school in Middletown, which is where he met her. (And no, he did not meet her on one of our freshman panty raids on their dorms. So put that thought right out of your heads!) They have three children. After graduation they both attended Regents University in Virginia Beach and later for 12 years they were involved with its board of trustees. He has been retired from “gainful employment” but is active on the Board of Global Awakening. Walt also writes short stories and songs that he sings for groups while accompanying himself on the guitar, which he has learned to play. Recently he and Carol took a river cruise in Europe from Budapest to Amsterdam, which was very relaxing with plenty of good food and local wines.

For 44 years Jerry Berka has practiced law. He has a general practice, so he’s handled a very wide range of cases. At Wes he had started out pre-med but changed his mind along the way and has had no regrets about that. He is quite pleased that one of his daughters, after studying clinical psychology for two years, has switched over to law and is now on her way to becoming a partner in her firm. She has been attached to Family Court, where her psych background is very helpful. He and Mary Ann, his wife of 45 years, have a second daughter who is a veterinarian in California. Mary Ann was a professor at Nassau Community College for 44 years and still works part time. They live in the small village of Brightwaters, a small enclave of Bayshore, N.Y., on Long Island. They have had a house in the Adirondacks on Schroon Lake for 30 years. There was a time when Jerry did a fair amount of mountain climbing, but those days are past. They like to sail and have been “all over the Caribbean” and along the West Coast. And for 40 years he’s owned a motor boat on Long Island Sound. After law school, he entered the USN, one of only 41 law school graduates selected by the USN for JAG that year. Lt. Berka served from ’66–’69. He thinks that his frequent pre-Wes summer jobs on Long Island ferry boats helped his prospects with the USN, as they might have felt that unlike most other law school graduates, he was already somewhat used to “the sea” (if that term can be applied to Long Island Sound). Jerry feels that public service is very important. He has worked long and hard on school building funds projects and served many years on the Bayshore Board of Education, and he was a long time chair of the Student College Aid Fund. Apparently his work was noticed and there is now a Jerry Berka Building at the public school.

If any of you know of anyone who has never appeared in these notes, or of whom you have not heard in many a long year, please contact me and I will try to track him down.

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

The heat and humidity finally broke here in central Florida and the cool dry breeze felt good to this old Brooklynite. November also brought the undefeated Wesleyan football team facing Williams at Homecoming. The Cardinals were looking to capture their first Little Three football championship since 1970. I watched the game over the Internet and was delighted with our 16–14 triumph.

Wesleyan’s accomplishment came on the heels of the Boston Red Sox victory at the World Series, as the Sox clinched the crown at Fenway Park for the first time since 1918. I was thinking of Michael Palmer and his passion for the Sox at the end of the game. I was devastated to learn that he passed away from a stroke and heart attack on the evening of October 30th in New York City as the last out was recorded. He will truly be missed.

Russ Messing has just finished and self-published his first book of poetry, A Convergence of Unanticipated Consequences. I quote from his e-mail: “I am quite proud of and happy with it. I will soon start on my next book. Having been a ‘secret’ writer for many, many years, I finally decided to come out of my dark room and take the plunge into the light. It was a humbling and exciting experience. I love the focus, the whimsy, the challenge, the hard work, and the finished product.” It is available on Amazon.

David Skaggs reports that after leaving Congress in 1999, he worked in DC for several years on democracy-building, political reform, and civic education issues. David and wife Laura moved back to Colorado in 2006, sharing a small farm north of Niwot with a Scottish Highland cow, several chickens, and assorted vermin. The intervening years have included a stint as head of Colorado’s department of higher ed. for Gov. Ritter and, now, teaching and practicing law and co-chairing the Office of Congressional Ethics. He hopes to see a bunch from ’64 at Reunion in May.

Allen Ames has been retired for a few years and lives in Clinton, Conn. He still boats (now with a 31-foot trawler) and sings in a local church choir.

David Townsend communicated that he is happily retired in Chattanooga, Tenn., with wife Gale and their two Shelties. After having both hips replaced, his athletic activities center around swimming and bicycling. They have made several bike tours with Vermont Bicycling Tours and the last one touring the vineyards in California. They have also done the Dolomites, Hungary, and Slovakia, and Costa Rica. Last year he reestablished contact with Paul Eschholz and visited him at his home in Naples, Fla. It had been over 25 years since they last contacted each other.

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

Dear Classmates, Members of our class gathered on campus over Homecoming weekend and had an enjoyable and productive two days. Attending were Dave Dinwoodey (and Mary Ellen), Rob Abel, Bob Barton (and Prudy), Jay Clapp, Win Chamberlin (and Lee), Mark Edmiston (and Lisa), Bill Knox (and Carolyn), John Hall, Kirt Mead (and Susan), and Hugh Wilson. We had a pleasant Friday dinner in the spacious and attractive Usdan Campus Center, a wonderful addition to the campus. For those of you who haven’t been on campus lately, Usdan is located just beyond center field of the baseball diamond. On Saturday morning we met first with the Alumni Association and heard from several faculty members and President Michael Roth ’78, who spoke about Wesleyan’s involvement in a new online education initiative, Coursera, which offers courses from many leading universities. Coursera gives people of all backgrounds and ages from around the world the opportunity to learn from Wesleyan professors and gives the university positive global exposure.

We then met for several hours to discuss early planning for our 50th Reunion (May 20–24, 2015). In that regard, please e-mail me if you’d like to be involved in the Reunion in any way or would like more information about opportunities to help with the Reunion itself, class seminars, outreach, publicity, our class “book” or gift, etc.

Following our meeting, we all enjoyed the football team’s exciting victory over Williams to capture the Little Three Championship! Mike Whalen ’83 has done an amazing job of building the football program in the four years he’s been head coach. The team finished 7-1 and, despite a disappointing final game loss to Trinity, shared the NESCAC championship with Amherst and Middlebury who were also 7-1.

Earlier in the day, there was a well-attended ceremony at which the Phi Nu Theta (Eclectic) House was named a state and national historic landmark. Dave Dinwoodey and other loyal Eclectic alumni were in attendance.

Further news: Hugh Wilson writes: “Well, I’ve finally taken the plunge. As of Jan. 1, 2014, I have decided to become professor emeritus, the academic equivalent of retirement. I get to keep my university office and lab, but I will no longer have to teach or serve on university committees. Thus, I’ll have a lot of time for research plus time to write and travel extensively. The Centre for Vision Research (of which I’m former director) held an international conference in my honour last June. The speakers included my wife, Fran, (a scientist in the same field) and colleagues including two former students who are now professors at Columbia University and Glasgow, U.K. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, including a hilarious roast by one of my closest colleagues from Vanderbilt. Hope to see everyone at our 50th Reunion in 2015.” Congratulations, Hugh!

Bedford Bonta is professor, division of neonatal medicine, at Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City, Tenn. Bedford is a graduate of the Medical Center of Vermont and previously at the naval hospitals in Portsmouth, Va., and San Diego.

Ellen and Ted See sent a welcome and informative card and family letter early in the year. They are busy and happy in their Connecticut and Rhode Island communities: volunteer and church activities; racquet and water sports; travel to visit their four grandchildren in Seattle; birding trips (Ellen had 80 sightings in Arizona) and a visit to Nova Scotia. Ted reconnected in Gabon (Central West Africa) with a Peace Corps buddy with whom he served 45 years ago. They built a school, teachers’ houses, and a brick kiln. (Ellen saw some photos of them at the village and remarked that they were certainly “hunks”!) Their children are doing well: Kevin is restoring salmon in the Columbia River basin; Virginia is pursuing her master’s in speech therapy while working for an environmental consulting firm; Greg is building and restoring various structures in Seattle; and Tyler is teaching at a Quaker-based alternative school in Nevada City, Calif., that focuses on global awareness, peace studies, and sustainable living.

A recent seminar at Wesleyan, Narrative in the Age of Distraction, featured Molly Barton ’00, daughter of Prudy and Bob Barton. Molly is global digital director for Penguin Random House. She leads digital business relationships with global partners for Penguin and oversees their digital publishing efforts, including apps, deluxe eBooks, and more. She will teach a course in Wesleyan’s Writing Certificate program this spring.

Steve Badanes continues to be in the news as he was featured in a new movie about Seattle’s Freemont Troll, known as one of America’s “five strangest roadside attractions.” It’s a great example of unusual public art (a huge troll under a bridge) and is typical of Steve’s cutting edge and witty creations. (For more on it, simply Google “Freemont Troll.”)

PHILIP L. ROCKWELL
860/693-1832; prockwell@wesleyan.edu

Aloha, all. Well, we are now on the upwards swing towards summer and hope that your winter months were not too bleak.

First, all of us in the class take our hats off to Essel Bailey and his wife, Menakka, for the wonderful support they have given Wesleyan this past year. Thank you, Essel. There will be many Wes men and women today and in the future who will benefit from your generosity and whose efforts will impact us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Congratulations, also, to Coach Mike Whalen ’83 and the Cardinals this year, with 12 of his players being named to the all-NESCAC team for 2013… and, of course, the Little Three Championship. Needless to say, the Williams and Amherst alums here in Hawai`i have a new appreciation for us folks from Middletown. Also, I need to put a plug in for the webcasts from Wesleyan for all its sports programs. It’s almost like television and it has no commercials. Wonderful for us old folks who, on weekends, enjoy looking in on campus sports activities… my advice to you all is try it if you haven’t done so already.

A fellow Punahou alum, Gifford Lum, wrote me and gave me a wonderful update on his family. He noted: “Our son, Elliot Lum, is presently living in Manhattan where he is vice president of strategic marketing for Columbia Records. He completed an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management before joining Colgate Palmolive in New York and then migrated to Columbia Records, a division of Sony. Elliot was married in Sept. 2011, in New York at the Museum of Natural History, followed by a reception in New York City at the Museum (Powerhouse) and a reception in Singapore, the home of his bride, Denise Lee. In 2011 we traveled to Singapore from Boston for the reception and then continued on a tour to Southeast Asia, visiting Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar (Burma). Our daughter, Deirdre Lum, is presently living in Palo Alto, where she is clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford Medical School specializing in minimally invasive gynecological laparoscopic surgery and responsible for the fellowship program in that speciality at Stanford. In addition she is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology. Deirdre married in Sept., 2007, in Hanover, N.H., where she and her husband, Daniel Markman, both graduated (Dartmouth College). Audrey and I continue to live in Newton, Mass., and I continue on the clinical staff at Harvard Medical School while Audrey enjoys her time at Harvard Neighbors, actively involved in its art and calligraphy programs.”

Some final thoughts: All of you should have received my letter for this year’s Wesleyan Fund. Let’s all try to get as close as we can to making our goal. Finally, we’re only a few years away from the Big 50, so start planning now. t would be wonderful to see all of you again on what now is Corwin Field, the site where our post-Wes lives all began.

And a Hawaiian proverb to close: E kanu mea `ai o nana keiki i ka ha`i. (Plant edible food plants lest your children look with longing at someone else’s.) We have all been so fortunate to have eaten from the Wesleyan garden!

Hardy Spoehr

hspoehr7@GMAIL..COM; 808/944 8601

As I explained in my last set of notes, about two weeks before those notes were due, I sent an e-mail out to those on the Wesconnect 1967 e-mail list asking what was up with them, and I ended that e-mail by asking who their favorite Wesleyan professors were, and why. I included the first batch of responses in that last set of notes. Here’s what I learned from others who responded.

George McKechnie moved to Berkeley following graduation from Wesleyan, where he received a PhD in personality and environmental psychology. After a few years of teaching at Arizona State and then back at Berkeley, he left academia and launched a high-end audiophile business in SF (his clients included Boz Scaggs, Francis Ford Coppola, and Ray Dolby). In 1980, he moved to the Monterey Peninsula, where he practiced clinical psychology for two decades. In 1999, he and his son, Loren, launched Axiom Home Theater, which George still runs. He retired from psychology practice in 2005, when his wife, Dee Davis, also a psychologist, took down her shingle. He recently launched SyncMyHome.com, a consumer guide to home automation.

“In answer to your question about favorite Wes professors,” George wrote, “for me it would have to be Karl Scheibe. I would also like to nominate Ted Sarbin (Karl’s mentor), even though his connection to Wesleyan was tenuous; he spent a year at the Center for Advanced Studies a year after we graduated. I suspect that you, too, have fond memories of Karl [I do indeed. Could not be fonder]. He visited Ted in Carmel a few weeks before Ted’s death at 94 from pancreatic cancer and brought Ted by my home for a final visit. I must say it was a most bittersweet occasion.”

Pat Weinstein is still in the beverage business, running the family Pepsi-Cola franchise in Wenatchee, Wash. He writes: “The business is still exciting to me, combining major financial decisions, e.g., investment in a co-op production facility for 10 bottlers in the Pacific Northwest with local, very personal decisions, e.g., scholarships to the local community college. My wife, Susan Landon, has been asked to give the commencement speech at one of the community colleges in part as a result of our efforts to support the school.” One daughter (Eileen) just graduated from the American University of Paris with a master’s in international affairs, and is working (from Paris!) in the family business (in Seattle), doing IT and HR work (the wonders of the cloud). Another daughter (Emily ’97) is a project manager for Bridge Housing in San Francisco and was recently appointed to the Oakland Planning Commission. One of their sons (Matt) is the administrative director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, and the other (Andy), who created his own digital marketing company in New York, recently moved back to Seattle and he, too, is working in the family business doing sales and marketing. And, most impressively, Pat is still playing basketball. His team won the United States national championship held annually in Coral Springs, Fla., and then went to Torino, Italy, to defend the world title at the World Masters Games (they won again, but Pat came away with a torn meniscus; as of October 2013, he was recovering from the surgery he had in late August).

Bill Klaber’s newest book, which he started over a decade ago at a Wesleyan Writers Conference, The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell, was published in June 2013. It’s the fictional memoir of a woman who lived in the mid-19th century, a real woman who, one day in 1855, cut her hair, changed her clothes, and went off to live the rest of her life as a man. She did it to earn men’s wages, but the changes went far beyond anything she had imagined. As Bill explained in his e-mail to me, “True story, fictional memoir.” The early reviews were so encouraging that Hudson News decided to put it on the front table in all its US airport stores in the summer of 2013, and it was nominated by the American Library Association for the Over the Rainbow Award. For more information, check out MissLucyAnnLobdell.com.

After graduating, Charlie Green received his law degree from the University of Florida and has been a lawyer in Fort Lauderdale since 1970. He started a firm in 1980 that is still going (Green, Murphy & Murphy). He and his wife, Nancy, have two sons and four grandchildren (three girls and a boy): “Our second son graduated from Wesleyan in ’95 and met his wife there. Hopefully, there will be a third generation at Wes.”

In June, 2013, Jim Kates read translations at the Longfellow House in Cambridge, Mass. (their fair city). He was filling in for Franklin Reeve, who was ill (and who subsequently died later that month) and he read alongside his former teacher, Norm Shapiro, suggesting once again that everything that rises must converge.

Peter Waasdorp wrote, as he put it, “from across the decades—late as usual.” Here’s what he had to share: “I’m in Falmouth on Cape Cod, where I settled in 1997 with my wife, Tinker Cavanagh, after a year of sailing to the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas and back. Still doing carpentry part-time (with an ever more complaining body) and still doing political organizing. Occupy Falmouth is going strong, with more than 200 members and very active foreclosure, anti-nuclear power (the Pilgrim plant is in nearby Plymouth), climate justice, Citizens United, and other committees. Thanks to the help of the ACLU this past year, I mediated my case against the Town of Falmouth for wrongful dismissal from the Conservation Commission (with a withdrawal of charges and a $32,000 financial settlement). See Fred Freije annually or so, and just missed a 50th reunion at the Hill School with Phil Miller because it conflicted with my Northfield/Mt. Hermon 50th.”

Richie Zweigenhaft
rzweigen@guilford.edu

Jim Corrodi sent the following: “Gladys and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in August by renting a villa in Tuscany for a week, joined by our three children, their spouses, and seven grandchildren—15 of us altogether. It was terrific, but the hill towns were a bit exhausting for Pop-Pop. I slept well.”

Eliot Glassheim has written a book, Sweet Land of Decency, to “tell the story of American history as it illustrates centuries of struggle to move from darkness to light, from selfishness to common good, from exclusion to inclusion, from control by wealth to control by reason, from evil to good.”

Dave Major writes: “In Vienna recently for a Technical University review panel, I was delighted to have lunch with Sasha and Harald Kreid. Harald, an international student who was with us during our senior year and had many friends in our class, is now retired after a distinguished career in the Austrian diplomatic service. It was a pleasure both to catch up and to remember fine times at Wesleyan.”

Gus Napier writes: “In July, Margaret and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. Our daughter, Sarah, and her family came from Concord, Mass.; our son, Mark, and his family from Albany, N.Y.; and Julia and her family arrived from Buenos Aires. Including our six grandchildren, there were 14 of us for a week of hiking, canoeing, swimming, and team cooking. We had a great time together—the way we usually do, but enriched by our awareness of time’s fleeting passage.”

It is with sadness that I report the passing of Tad Bartlett on Aug. 6, after a three-year battle with cancer. After graduating from Wesleyan, he worked as a special agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency. He married the love of his life, Frances Matko, in August 1969.

Tad worked for W. R. Grace and lived in Europe before joining Chemical Bank in New York City. As a vice president he opened the first Chemical Bank branch in Calgary, Alberta, and lived there with his family from 1980 to 1983. While in Calgary, he loved to attend the Calgary Stampede and purchased one of his most prized possessions, a pair of cowboy boots.

After Calgary, Tad and his family moved back to the U.S., first to New York and later to Maine. Tad loved Maine and enjoyed many summers at their home on Southport Island. He and Fran moved full-time to Boothbay Harbor in 1995, where he was famous for his lobster dinners and blueberry pancakes. He worked as a realtor there.

Tad’s passion was music of all kinds, particularly classical and opera. He was very active in Lincoln Arts Festival, where he was a board member for over 15 years and served as president for two terms. He sang in the Lincoln Festival Chorus and Sheepscot Valley Chorus, as well as with the Our Lady of Peace choir and the Methodist Church choir for many years.

Tad is survived by his devoted wife of 44 years, Fran Bartlett; daughter Jennifer Valerie Bartlett and her partner; and son Philip Loomis Bartlett and his girlfriend. On behalf of the Class of 1960, I offer our condolences to his family and friends.

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

Jeff Talmadge has done something quite remarkable: after working in very responsible positions in a humongous computer company that managed to go belly-up, he created a job for himself with a website—weneedavacation.com—which gets folks vacation rentals on the Cape and the Islands. Well, Jeff’s cottage industry has been going and growing since 1997 and, at this point, Jeff is easing himself out and passing the business on to the next generation. Jeff’s daughter, Becky, and stepson, Jimmy, are taking the lead, and a grandson is afoot at work some days. Jeff and Joan have renovated their East Orleans summer home for living there full time. And a holiday letter gave me the distinct impression that there is not a golf course Jeff does not like.

Though Amby Burfoot has retired as the editor of Runner’s World and moved to Mystic, he continues writing about running-related issues. He was 7/10 of a mile from the finish-line when the bombs went off in Boston. Unbelievably, it has been 25 years since Dave Pryor died from Agent Orange. Bill Nicholson fondly remembers rooming with Dave before Dave concluded that “this arrangement was not going to lead to anything but weekend mischief and mediocre grades.”

Jeff Bell traveled to Russia where he saw the places to which Professors Greene and Pomper had introduced him. So much for the enduring value of a liberal arts education. Wig Sherman’s youngest son, Jonathan, was a lacrosse captain and an economics major at UConn. His post-graduate plans are to secure gainful employment. In August, Paul Spitzer gave Judy and me a fascinating tour of the Connecticut River’s estuary, and we also visited Dave Losee’s exquisite cottage in Isleboro, Maine.

Dave Gruol, Jacques LeGette, Steve Horvat, Ray Solomon, Craig Dodd, Ted Ahern and Pete Hardin got together for their annual golf retreat, which took place this year in Madison, Conn. Dick Emerson was also there, but a back injury limited him to lively conversation and walking the round of golf they played at the Yale golf course, helping to keep up the spirits of those who struggle at this frustrating game.

As my regular readers know, the crew has stayed in touch and active but there has been one notable exception—Joe Kelly Hughes ’67—who until recently was unaccounted for. It turns out, he was drafted out of law school, ended up a Navy SEAL officer and qualified for underwater demolition team training. After two combat tours, he spent three years as a naval adviser to Bolivia. (“I can’t tell you how radically all that affected my mindset.”) Leaving the military in 1975, he moved to the Mexican Caribbean and was involved in many recovery projects. For some years, Joe has been Atlanta-based, developing industrial automation equipment and watching our country move from an industrial to a service economy. A FEMA responder, he spent many long days in New York after 9-11 and Sandy, and in Mississippi after Katrina. “My wife of 15 years and I travel, and I read to expand my knowledge of art and history which began in the COL. I hike with my dog through the Appalachian mountain trails, build and restore ship models, and am a director of a museum of underwater history in Mexico that I helped establish.” His son, a well-known hunting and fishing guide, lives in Bozeman, Mont., with his wife and son.

As the crew has stayed so close over the years, sorrow over the passing of Sib Reppert ’67 in August (of the same kind of liver cancer that Steve Jobs had) was tempered only by the realization that he had lived such an extraordinarily full life. Study at Oxford, service aboard a nuclear submarine and Harvard Law were followed by a Boston-based career as a litigator involved in patent-related and other complex cases including the national asbestos property damage litigation, breast implant cases, and professional malpractice cases. While a life-long competitive oarsman who competed in hundreds of regattas, sailing was Sib’s passion and he was never happier than at sea. Indeed, in 1995, Sib and his family sailed through the Panama Canal to New Zealand aboard their 37-foot sloop. And, in 2001, he and his daughters sailed from Cape Town to the Windward Islands aboard their 42-foot catamaran. In October, several of us celebrated Sib’s life with his wife, Christine Veztinski, and daughter, Victoria ’04, in an event beautifully orchestrated by Will Macoy ’67. Victoria reflected that he had gone quickly—he had been rowing just weeks before his death – and “at the top of his game,” so we needn’t feel bad. Though as Davy Crockett ’69 noted, we all thought he’d be the last man standing and do.

Finally, in July, we lost Alan Nichols to a brain tumor. His regimen of daily exercise strengthened his physical and mental well-being, which his doctors said enabled him to sustain his fight against the tumor as long as he did. A Bethesda-based golf nut, Al wrote for an urban daily and on the environment before focusing his journalism on travel and golf-related subjects for a number of major outlets. A low-handicap player, he was also an occasional amateur tournament participant and a life-coach whose teaching was designed to have an impact on more than your game. Al was especially close to John Carty, who remembers his presence and kindness at some of life’s bigger junctures – like the present he gave John’s first-born. If you put “Alan B. Nichols” into You Tube, you will find some wonderful videos of Alan puffing on a cigar and reflecting wryly on his life and the world. And that is probably how we should remember him.

LLOYD BUZZELL
70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405
203/208-5360. LBuzz463@aol.com

Mike Terry retired from investment banking and is active in tobacco and smoking control. “Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the US. Big Tobacco spends $10 billion a year on promotion.” His father, Surgeon General Luther Terry, issued the legendary report about tobacco dangers in 1964.

Harry Nothacker’s wife teaches English to immigrants. Son Keith developed and sells a breathalyzer that interfaces with an iPhone. Son Brian is a web architect at Vanguard. “I continue to enjoy Ironman training and competition—inspired by Jeff Galloway ’67, Amby Burfoot ’68, Bill Rodgers ’70, and Silas Wild.”

Now retired, Phil Wallas is “interested to see what identity I have outside work.”

Tony Mohr, vice chair of the ethics committee of the California Judges Association, says: “I preside over civil trials: personal injury, eviction, malpractice, and asbestos. I married Beverly Page last May and had an essay published in The MacGiffin.”

Jim Adkins attended his 40th med school reunion in DC. “Saw family and friends. To Manchester, N.H., to see son. Drove up Mt. Washington, spectacular foliage. Continue to work part-time, play trombone, and wonder where the time went.”

Jeff Richards produced an acclaimed revival of Glass Menagerie. “Upcoming, a musical, Bridges of Madison County, and an LBJ/Civil Rights play that vividly re-creates a time we are all familiar with.”

Doug Bell founded and operates Grasslands, a major farm and land appreciation investment in Uruguay. “The best priorities are family, friends, and keeping our health.”

Jim Martello wrote, “Gail, daughter Jennifer, and I are fortunate, well, and live in Vernon, Conn. I taught/coached 33 years and now operate a paint/wallpaper business. We own a place near Sarasota, where our son and his family live. Remember, 66 is the new 46.”

Howie Brown, fully retired, visited India and Hawaii recently. “The arts scene in DC is such that one could go to two performances daily forever—reminds me of London’s music scene in the ’70s.”

David Siegel is chief of medicine for VA Northern California Health Care System and professor of internal medicine at UC, Davis. “Last son at Albert Einstein in NYC. No retirement plans.”

Tom Goodman: “I’ve been in Philly for 35 years. One daughter, Mara. I taught photography at UT San Antonio and Philadelphia College of Art. Check out tomgoodman.com.”

Mike Fink said, “Daughter Jennie graduates in December and Katie in 2018. We see the light at the end of the tunnel. Still love my work as a real estate developer, so no retirement plans.”

Peter Cunningham is an independent photographer in the publishing field. “I’m re-issuing some old rock and roll photos and creating a book, One Word Poems, which matches photos of words with images that echo their meaning.”

Tom Earle’s married daughter Inga lives in Bangalore. “Her first child made me a first-time granddad. Tempus fugit.”

From Larry Feldman: “I’m reasonably healthy, kids doing well, working full time. I was honored by a group who deal with hazardous waste sites, a field I’ve worked in for three decades.”

Darius Brubeck’s granddaughter Lydia Elmer ’17 and Nathaniel Elmer ’14 continue the Wesleyan tradition. “I’m touring the UK and South Africa.”

Steve and Dave ’72 Knox’s family reunion in Seattle included both their daughters named Caroline. On Steve’s side, the children are involved with medicine. “Saw Sam Davidson’s [’68] famous art gallery in the heart of downtown.”

Eric Greene wrote, “Jeanne and I live in Greenfield, Mass. We love our online mineral business and have no plans to retire. I have fond memory of Joe Peoples’ Geology 101.”

John Mihalec saw Steve Darnell and David Burke at a Wes/Williams soccer game before watching Wes beat Bates in football 35–7.

John Wilson is back in Ann Arbor after Coda, an electric carmaker, went into Chapter 11.

John Crigler wished “the government would take more time off, so I could catch up. Work involves public radio, TV stations, and their Web-based spinoffs. My psychologist wife jokes that only one of us is in the caring profession.”

Charles Elbot reconnected with Al Wallace ’70 and Barb Watson ’70. “Eclectic holds many fond memories. I’m now an executive leadership coach for Denver Public Schools, have two sons nearby, and travel with my wife, Barbara.”

Charlie Morgan had dinner with Rick Cram, a fellow Gamma Psi, who also lives in Bonita Springs. “Any other Wes grads in the Fort Myers/Naples corridor? I research family history, do some consulting, and play tennis.”

From Paul Melrose: “Son Ian and wife Cindy have Maddy and Jersey. Wife Sue will retire from the ministry around Reunion. I do executive and clergy coaching. See Marge and Barry Checkoway and heard that Lanny Schiller survived Boulder flooding but house damaged.”

Dave Dixon helped develop a post-Katrina master plan for New Orleans that celebrates the city’s relationship with water and uses water-management strategies to solidify neighborhoods. Dave, who works for Goody Clancy, spoke at NYIT in New York City and was billed as “a leading thinker, doer, and visionary.”

Rameshwar Das wrote, “Two events came down the pike this past summer, one life-affirming, the other life-shattering. On June 15th our 14-year-old daughter, Anna Mirabel Lytton, was run over on her bike and killed in our hometown of East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y. On August 1st, my second book with Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror, was published. Enjoy every moment.” Please look at ’83’s notes for a remembrance by Anna’s mother, Kate Rabinowitz ’83.

We need to add David Sullivan, Bill Lewis, Margorie Daltry Rosenbaum, and Anna to Ed’s list.

Think Reunion.

CHARLIE FARROW
1 Cold Spring Rd., East Haddam, CT 06423
charlesfarrow@comcast.net