Class Notes | 1960s

Alex Knopp wrote: “I recently completed six years as president of the Norwalk, Connecticut, public library board and continue to serve as a member of the Connecticut Law Tribune Editorial Board and the Connecticut Retirement Security Advisory Board. Very proud that my wife Bette just had her fourth book of fiction accepted for publication (two novels and two short story collections). I recently had a gratifying opportunity to get back in touch with Steve Talbot ’70 who is working on a PBS documentary about how the Vietnam War peace movement succeeded in preventing President Nixon from vastly escalating the war during the fall of 1969. Steve and I were part of the group of Wesleyan students who sought to block military recruitment on campus in 1968–69. He’s been a PBS Frontline documentary filmmaker for the past 30 years. As our 50th class reunion seminars demonstrated, it’s quite amazing how much the anti-war movement and the Vietnam intervention has linked so many of us together even after so many years!”

Ron and Chryssa Reisner’s 2022 dance card had them traveling all over the eastern U.S. It felt daunting to read: March: Wesleyan for NCAA basketball game and same-day lacrosse game; April: Durham, North Carolina, for Duke law 50th reunion, with a side trip to Pinehurst for golf; May: NYC for one-year wedding anniversary and Middletown again for the men’s basketball golf outing “with the ‘sixties dekes’ tee sponsors—Richard ‘Blade’ Emerson ’68, Jack Sitarz, Steve Knox, Andy Gregor ’70, and me)”; April, May, and October: New Orleans, Baton Rouge (Chryssa’s son is a sophomore at LSU); August: summer vacation in Boston, Maine (Rockland, Vinalhaven, and Ogonquit), Saratoga Springs (racetrack), and Poconos (Chryssa’s vacation home).

Rip Hoffman is having fun as pastor of St. Michael’s Lutheran Church, New Canaan, Connecticut.

Darius and Cathy Brubeck published Playing the Changes. He said, “Cathy and I have finally submitted the manuscript of our co-authored book, Playing the Changes, which we began in 2017, with publication planned for May. In February we will travel to LA for two performances of Dave Brubeck’s The Gates of Justice, and for related panel discussions and teaching at UCLA. (https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/event/music-and-justice-concert-featuring-dave-brubecks-the-gates-of-justice). Our grandson Nathaniel is getting married in New York in June (I like it). Meanwhile, The Darius Brubeck Quartet is still busy in the U.K.”

Tom Earle read The New York Times report on Middletown’s rejuvenation. “Was it run down in our era? Chas Elbot and I did bail on a Main Street rental.”

Tony Mohr’s memoir, Every Other Weekend—Coming of Age with Two Different Dads, is a Koehler Books imprint.

Jeff and Cheryl Powell “have eldest granddaughter east from Wisconsin. She’s a freshman at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Summers we cruise the coast of Maine in our island sloop.”

Stu Blackburn’s new book is All the Way to the Sea. “Just back from Delhi; our son lives there. Nice, warm, but the pollution is terrible. All the best.”

Jeremy Serwer ’70 revealed that Michael Roth ’78 played jazz keyboard and sang at Reunion. Check YouTube. Jeremy’s commercial real estate company is based in East Woodstock, Connecticut.

Rich Kennedy ’71 rides his bike daily. “Golf often. Have writer’s block. Imagination on vacation. Reading Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. Next is Worth of Water. Rabbits, crows, slugs, and elk still haunt last year’s garden.”

Ken and Visakha Kawasaki deliver food to the needy and sick in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Maurice (’70) and Carol Hakim continue to polish an antique home in Clinton, Connecticut. Some consider Mo Connecticut’s resident gadfly.

Steve Currie wrote: “Shey and I are still happy in Vermont. I retired in 2005 and we came back home to Vermont, to Rutland. Golf, skiing, motorcycling and Vermont outdoors in general, along with many various community services, have filled our time over the last 17 years. Currently I’m in my second year as president and rules chairman of the Vermont Golf Association. I’m also a USGA Certified Expert rules official/referee and I work VGA, NEGA, and USGA tournaments and events all over New England. Still reasonably healthy although a replaced knee and total hip replacement has slowed the skiing down a bit—as well as just getting a bit too old (maybe a bit fearful?) to ski the steep terrains as aggressively as I always have when younger. . . . So, we are beginning to think about moving south when my VGA term and responsibilities are finished. We sometimes see classmates and other Wes alums up here in summer for golf and winter for skiing.”

Jim Dreyfus “went to Homecoming and saw Wes beat Williams 35–21. A new building is going up near PAC and Olin, as well as a science one near Shanklin. A developer bought Beta House, though his plans are not yet public.”

Dave Dixon is “an urban designer for Stantec, Boston. I’m optimistic about the future of city planning. My husband and I divide our time between Boston, Brooklyn, and Salisbury, Connecticut.”

John and Linda Andrews “reside in Crosslake, Minnesota, about 150 miles north of Minneapolis. Having left the local city council, I have more time to visit family in Florida, Texas, and California.”

Mike Fairchild “still teaches elementary school. I’m a freelance photographer and lead history book discussions at the library. Son, Scott ’00, is chief of staff for Senator Masto, Nevada. Glad tidings to all.”

Pete Pfeiffer wrote, “It’s painful to watch the lights go out for our classmates. This was probably my last winter logging campaign. A new book, Solastalgia, is available at Levellars Press and Amazon.”

Wayne Slitt played pickleball with Bob Ziegenhagen ’68. “We spent time at a time-share in Cabo with KNK roommates Charley Ferrucci and Bob Tobias and their wives. We live near Tampa and spend summers in Connecticut. I coach a girls’ travel softball team and referee youth ice hockey.”

Fran Dickman wrote for Paul, who “retired from Phoenix Children’s Hospital, April 2021. He attended his 57th high school reunion, has two nieces at Wes, and works on a textbook of pediatric bone, soft tissue, and joint tumors.”

Steve Hansel “settled into a far smaller house in New Orleans. Back playing tennis after a long layoff.”

Fred Coleman said, “A good year despite COVID—we stayed safe most of the year with great care, vaccines, boosters, masks, care about activities. Then got COVID two weeks ago and are recovering with increased sleep and tiredness. . . . On better notes, worked with and attended our 10th Easy Africa Mental Health Conference in Uganda (missed the Ebola areas). We went back to a combination of in-person and online hybrid model. It was great to see good friends and colleagues. Hiked in the Adirondacks, Rockies, Sedona with various people. Two Viking cruises. A two-year delayed southern France-Lyons-Avignon-Rhone River- and Paris [trip] with my wife, and a likewise delayed Prague-Elbe River-Berlin [trip] with best friend.

“The new year will bring a grandchild (youngest daughter), first child for her and for us [our] third grandchild. We lost my brother-in-law to cancer and various friends and colleagues to COVID.

“Life is short. Live well and be with the ones you love!”

John Wilson anchors life in Ann Arbor.

John Bach’s wife’s cancer battle has brought him enlightenment.

On my desk is a pen and ink of the arched bridge over the Concord River. Young, in Boston, I walked the storied venues of the American Revolution so much they entered my dream life. Dressed as a Minute Man, I hid behind stone walls as musket balls exploded around me. When the British were too close, my arms became wings and I hovered over the skirmish.

Next is a print of Childe Hassam’s Summer Evening. A red geranium, a window frame, a young woman in white. What does she see in the flatland stretching to the horizon?

See a studio portrait of my sister Kate. We meet at shoreline restaurants and laugh at the silly, terrible things that preoccupied our parents. And photos of the grandchildren—Eloise, Benton, and Ozi.

Cornered Joel Lang, author/journalist (four decades at the Hartford Courant), now semiretired in Bridgeport. One of his last projects at the Courant was a special, 80-page section on slavery in the North, which sounded like a precursor to the NYT, Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project. Became a book, Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, which was both critically acclaimed and given four or five stars by 95% of its Amazon readers. Joel researched 19th-century logs of the British Navy’s pursuit of illegal slavers at Olin. Acknowledged indebtedness/inspiration to professors Richard Slotkin of American Studies and English’s George Creeger. Noted Middletown was a busy port in the slave trade and home to a large population of enslaved people.

Dave Losee observed you have to have something to retire to, not simply from: An attorney still working one big case, he is now a beekeeper—30,000 new friends in his backyard (in Camden, Maine) is how he puts it. Chris Thomas, a retired family doc in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and an astronomer, “feels very much at one with the night sky . . .  who often stops to think someone in that galaxy is in my eyepiece looking back at me.” His son shares his passion. Wallace Murfit rowed in two of the world’s greatest regattas: England’s Royal Henley Regatta and the Head of the Charles in 2022.

John Carty (a self-employed attorney and businessman) agrees with Trump on one point— “When you retire, you expire”—and is redoing his house to age in place. Lives near Villanova where he participates in their Senior Enrichment Program and various cultural offerings. A heart surgery graduate who, if he’d known how much fun grandchildren were, would have skipped children completely. Wheelchair bound, Lloyd Buzzell has been in assisted living well over a year now. Pleasant enough if you don’t think about what you’d rather be doing. Like you, playing the cards he’s been dealt as best he can. Karl Norris reported his programming experience in the College of Quantitative Studies led him, when drafted, to a computer research group and on to a career in corporate IT. Retired and in Bloomfield, Connecticut, enjoying the blues harmonica, online courses, one indulgent wife, two daughters, one granddaughter, and five “grandpets.” He plans to move to Edinburgh if things get much crazier here. Stuart Ober’s son, Alexander, is a member of Wes’s class of 2026. Lovely lunch with Chris and Gary Wanerka ’62, a retired pediatrician. Going strong: They went on a Memphis-to–New Orleans cruise.

Good chat with Rich Kremer ’69: Wonderful kids and grands spread around the world—North Carolina, Denver, London, and South Korea—so he is somewhat cuddle deprived. We laughed: When Andrea retired from Dartmouth, her department gave her the august title of “visiting scholar” (so she can use the library). He’s been part of a religious discussion group for 18 years, via Zoom of late.

These notes appear months after I write them, so my coverage is always dated but: Ken Kawasaki ’69, after time in France and some teaching in Japan, has, with his wife Visakha, long headed the Buddhist Relief Mission in the hill country of Sri Lanka and reports their area suffers from “serious shortages of petrol, cooking gas, rice, other staples, and medicines . . .  regular power shortages. On top of this, inflation is rampant. People, hungry and angry, are protesting every day.  Because COVID-19 is still spreading, we are basically staying home, but still connected with good folk, who are helping us provide dry rations and basic medicines for those who are in great need.” For information on their work, contact kawasaki@brelief.org.

The boys in the boat—John Lipsky, Wallace Murfit, Coach Phil Calhoun ’62, MALS ’69, Bob Svensk, Nason Hamlin, Harrison Knight, Karl Norris, and myself—celebrated restarting the crew, and enjoying more success than we had any right to, by reuniting in Middletown in October. Sandy See lost his son Karl, 51, in September to cardiac arrest. Karl was a charming, loyal friend and colleague with an endearing sense of humor who had a fulfilling career in development for nonprofits and loved all aspects of New England’s outdoors. Our condolences. Terry Fralich is “doing well on this little piece of paradise that surrounds our home” (in Saco, Maine). I have visited and that is an accurate characterization of his place. Has two homes on the property, one for Terry and Rebecca, the other for his sister and her partner. Semiretired, Terry, informed by Tibetan Buddhism, counsels half-time and teaches at a mindfulness center.

Sometimes I worry about my adolescent enthusiasm for Wes Tech. Passed up some big names when I chose Wes because I thought I would be treated with more respect and kindness there. And I wasn’t disappointed. Got you guys—the most diverse, interesting, and accomplished group of characters with whom I’ve ever associated—as a bonus.

Classmates,
Sad news.  Len “Bergy” Bergstein died Monday, October 17. His sudden death was apparently caused by a heart attack.
In 2002, after attending our 35th Reunion, I wrote my first set of class notes. A week or so later, I got an email from Bergy that began, “Richie—somehow, during the weekend I missed the point where Pat Dwyer and you did a body exchange . . . well they say miracles happen at events like this. I truly enjoyed the chance to get re-connected.”
He then caught me up on what he had been up to since our graduation: “As for me—I moved to Oregon in ’72 after completing NYU Law School. I joined Legal Aid and got involved with an urban political crowd . . . this led to political involvement as a campaign manager for two Democratic candidates for statewide office. When my candidate for governor won in 1974, I went to work for him in the statehouse—probably due to poor staff work, he only lasted one term. Five years later I was working for the Portland mayor, Neil Goldschmidt, when he was asked to join the Carter cabinet as U.S. secretary of transportation—so I joined his staff in Washington, D.C. In 1981, I headed back to Portland and set up my own public affairs company, called Northwest Strategies, which I have been doing ever since. It’s a nice mixture of government, media, and community relations for clients with complex issues. No two clients are the same . . . I have helped site large scale projects with challenging environmental issues [modern landfills, gravel mining reclamation project, etc.]; helped a Native American tribe establish a positive image to offset the negatives of casino gambling; have gained public approval of development projects and ballot measures; and currently am assisting a large-scale agriculture and dairy enterprise become established on 93,000 acres of land in Eastern Oregon. Oregon’s relatively small population and reputation for livability/quality of life issues makes this an attractive place for me to practice . . . .”
When I learned that Bergy had died, I looked online and found that he had become very well known in Oregon, not only for the active role he had played in political life throughout the state, but also because he was a frequent commentator on local television in Portland, known for, as one article put it, his “wit and wisdom.”
The accolades rolled in, from both senators (one, Ron Wyden, said, “Len was instrumental with my start in public life”) and from various other prominent Oregonians (if that is what they call themselves). He clearly was well loved and well respected. One of Len’s obituaries, with photos, appears here: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/10/longtime-oregon-political-strategist-len-bergstein-dies-at-76.html.
He is survived by Betsy, his wife of 38 years, two brothers, three children, and four grandchildren.

(Poaching alert!)  Brian Frosh (Walter Johnson High School, ’64, Wesleyan, ’68) was in the news again, this time in an article that included his (stern but distinguished looking!) photo in The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/us/baltimore-priest-sexual-abuse.html). The attorney general of Maryland—Brian—filed a request that a judge release a 456-page document based on a criminal investigation that Frosh’s office initiated in 2019. It details decades of sex abuse of more than 600 victims by clergy in Maryland. According to the filing, “The sexual abuse was so pervasive that victims were sometimes reporting sexual abuse to priests who were perpetrators themselves.”  The Times writes that the report “is one of the first major investigations completed by a state attorney general on sexual abuse in the Church since a scathing report on six dioceses in Pennsylvania shocked Catholics across the nation in 2018.”   Brian was scheduled to leave office in January 2023.

“A bit hard to digest that it was 60 years ago that we started at Wesleyan,” begins this inspirational update from Dave McNally. “The 1960s were a different world, exciting like an erupting volcano, and I for one am extremely grateful to have come of age in that era. I am also grateful for the innumerable learning opportunities Wesleyan offered—in the classroom and beyond—although I regret not having taken advantage of more of them. Like many of you, I suspect, the older I get the more often I think about friends and experiences from years ago. I recently have happily reconnected with several friends from elementary school with whom I had no contact for nearly 70 years. And I have reread with pleasure the journals I kept on world travels over many decades. One of the innumerable benefits of retirement for me is having time for such reflections.

“Despite being afflicted with an unusual variant of ALS that has caused me to lose the use of my arms and hands—and which will inevitably spread and lead to my demise—I am a very happy camper, due to my incomparable wife, best friend, and (increasingly) caregiver, Michelle. We love our Williamsburg-style home outside Alexandria, Virginia, though we spend much of our time at our log house deep in the woods of the West Virginia Panhandle. There Michelle has created what I call ‘Mount Palomar East,’ an observatory with a 22″ Dobsonian telescope housed in its own dome. After three years and prodigious technical assistance from the Cumberland (Maryland) Astronomy Club, Michelle finally got the telescope and dome working perfectly just before Thanksgiving. The views may not quite compare to those from the James Webb Space Telescope, but they are pretty awesome.”

Though Barry Thomas and Connie’s “return to Burundi has been delayed until 2023, the good work continues there. A well-integrated set of programs—with focus upon nutrition and food security, early childhood education, keeping teenage girls in school, and women’s entrepreneurship—are now well established. The very dedicated Dreaming for Change staff are being challenged by the day-to-day requirements for preparing and serving cups of porridge to 400 children and mothers, tending to 147 children in the preschool and first primary grade, supporting 125 women engaged in the Savings and Loan Program (a type of microfinance), and working with over 225 families who participate in the Kitchen Garden Program. On top of the daily challenges, the leadership is really being challenged by the rigors of finding funding to cover the now ongoing and growing operating costs for this broad array of service programming.

“I will give specific mention to the Acute Malnutrition Program that was started in November 2021. We had become aware that the daily porridge and the other family nutrition programs were not doing enough for the children suffering from an acute level of malnutrition. The level of under-five child mortality is improving in Burundi, but it remains among the worse in the world. With kind and generous support from a couple of our Wesleyan classmates along with support from a local church in Boone, North Carolina, we were able to put together a more intense program for these really destitute children and their families. The Dreaming for Change nurse administers the program. Our U.S. organization provides funding for the food and the specialized medicine. Personnel from a nearby government health clinic provide medical diagnosis and oversight as well as referral when necessary. There are over 60 families in the program. Community women who have been responsible for cooking the daily porridge have now received additional training and are going out to identify and serve families that live greater distances from the village center. They are called ‘Light Mothers’ in French. It is quite an innovative way to bring a basic level of care to the more remote rural population. Of course, the current state of global economics and geopolitics, ultimately, cascades down to affect the very poor, such as, in Burundi, most severely.”

Tom Pulliam writes: “Granddaughter Madeline is settling in very nicely at University of Hawaii, studying marine biology and surfing in her spare time. My wife Alice and I will eventually visit Oahu to see her and connect with our classmate Hardy Spoehr. Madeline’s younger brothers have begun playing MLS Next soccer, the highest level of youth soccer in the U.S. It is sort of the same game they have been playing for years, but the level of skills of all players is amazing as is the pace of play. In September our Pleasantville High School class reunion convened in Healdsburg, California, and it could not have been better: incredible energy from a couple of dozen senior citizens who remembered events from 60 years ago as though they just happened (though remembering what they ate for lunch that day was more troubling). Just finished making plans to head to Vancouver, Canada, in March for HSBC Rugby 7s World Series event there and will be joined by one of my original Stanford teammates. I am still thoroughly enjoying helping coach Stanford women in rugby and coaching 11-, 12-, and 13-year-olds in rugby for the San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club. I started rugby at Wesleyan when my fraternity brothers insisted I play at Williams because they were short a player. I resisted mightily (anticipating my 130-pound carcass would not survive) but they prevailed. That decision turned out well over the years.”

Phil Shaver attended “my 60th high school reunion in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month. I hadn’t been back for years. Of our class of 1962 (about 300 people), a third have died. Of the living, many have lost a spouse to death or dementia. So even though I had just undergone knee surgery for a torn meniscus, I felt grateful to be alive, generally healthy, and mentally sharp. My main research collaborator and I have two new books in press. My wife is still a full-time workaholic professor, in good mental and physical health. Our 26-year-old twin daughters are thriving. I’ve been taking watercolor painting classes for a couple of years and am enjoying it and getting better. I’ve actually sold a couple of paintings and had one on display at a local gallery. We’re all concerned about the unhealthy state of our country but can’t figure out what to do about it.”

Another high school reunion and more, Bob Dearth writing that the “Post COVID-19  lockdown lifestyle reset is proving a challenge. Our plans for a visit to Portugal gave way to a higher-priority hip replacement surgery for my wife Barbara to correct both a stress fracture and arthritic deterioration in her right hip, which I understand is a pretty common surgery these days. Recovery is in progress. Have downsized vacation properties in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, moving to a modest three-bedroom condo versus the big custom-vacation property with pool. So far, not a bad trade-off. Anticipate hosting one son and grandkids this coming December after Christmas. Will continue to enter the smaller of the billfish tournaments in early October this fall, weather cooperating. Have traveled to Lake Erie for walleye and smallmouth bass fishing recently. Lots of fun and fresh fish fillets to share. Sixtieth high school reunion in June was fun too but too few attended.”

This autumn found Essel Bailey and his wife, Menakka, in California, “having finished the harvest in Knight Valley and our Knights Bridge wines are on the lees! We came out from Ann Arbor after beating Michigan State in The Big House and listening to Wynton Marsalis and his jazz group in three separate presentations. Moving around still and enjoying it!”

And this update from Barry Reder. “I retired from the practice of law (helping businesses of all sizes, ranging from banks and insurance companies to chefs and entrepreneurs with a dream) at the end of 2006 and have not figured out how I maintained a seven-day/six-night law practice while doing all the ‘stuff’ that endlessly has kept me busy ever since. Ann has struggled with the afterlife of getting two new knees simultaneously more than a year ago, and we walk most days to try to improve things. Each of our two daughters has a boy and a girl and live in San Francisco. After 43 years in a wonderful house in the Richmond District (a suburb in the city), we downsized last spring into a wonderfully urban, quite new three-bedroom apartment. It took six months to clear the house out but only two days to sell it. When it was completely empty, it was strangely devoid of the emotional content I had expected; when empty, it was just a house, no longer the home where we had raised our kids and celebrated holidays and life. We spend half the year in the city apartment and the other half on our wonderful acre and a half on a hill in Sonoma with five table grapevines, a meadow, a putting green, and a pool. My handicap had its nadir at 9 and, despite diligent practice almost daily, is now 20+. Though nearly every weekly calendar has at least one medical entry, we feel endlessly fortunate and hope to enjoy stasis for a while.”

We end with two celebratory notes. Jeff Nilson’s grandson, Isaac Ostrow, Wesleyan Class of 2026, has become a member of Wesleyan Crew. Rick Crootof and Linda celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary on September 4, 2022.”

Dear Classmates,

This column will be devoted to reporting on our class’s well-attended Homecoming gathering on Friday, November 4, and Saturday, November 5.

Kudos to Hugh Wilson, Mark Edmiston, Bob Barton, and to the other members of the committee (and to Mark Davis ’96 and his Wesleyan colleagues) who made it all possible.

On Friday, we met at the new advancement office in the former post office on Main Street. (Just another example of Middletown/Wes collaboration, along with the attractive Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore on the next block, north.)

After a nice buffet lunch provided by the college, we were treated to presentations by Hugh Wilson and his wife Fran Wilkinson (Optimizing Cognitive Fitness during Healthy Aging), and Steve Halliwell and Wes professor Peter Rutland (Update on Russia and Ukraine). Very fine remarks, followed by a lively question-and-answer session.

Bob Barton then led an “open-mic” Wes65 Real Stories centering on comments around climate change and our democracy at risk. (Articles by Jerry Melillo and Phil Russell regarding climate change—its causes and what we can do about it—were provided as well. They can be emailed to you. Just let me know.)

We then got down to “serious business” with an enjoyable wine reception hosted by Fran and Hugh. The class then went to an excellent new Middletown restaurant, Esca, for dinner (hosted by Wesleyan and some generous ’65 classmates).

On Saturday, many of us went to the celebration of John Driscoll’s (’62) life in Memorial Chapel. John’s legendary service to Wesleyan and to our alumni was recounted by a number of speakers, all of whom highlighted the reasons he will be long and fondly remembered.

Later that day in front of a large crowd on Andrus Field/Corwin Stadium, the Cardinals beat Williams in an exciting game for the Little Three title (Wesleyan beat the Mammoths in overtime at Amherst in October).

To cap off the day, Rich Smith led a Gary and the Wombats recorded celebration of melodic memories with pizza and dancing. Once again, let the good times roll!

Those in attendance (in addition to those already mentioned) included: Donna and Clyde Beers, Jim Bernegger (and his brother Lloyd), Bill Blakemore, Lee and Win Chamberlin, Georgeanne and Marsh Cusic, Mary Ellen and Dave Dinwoodey, Lisa and Mark Edmiston, Joe Garrison, John Hall, Anne Halliwell, Carolyn and Bill Knox, Jeff Lea, Mary Anne and Mike Maloney, Alex and Major Moise, Cynthia Rockwell MALS ’19, Elizabeth Smith, and Mary and Gary Witten.

Finally, we all agreed that those of us who can make it should gather every Homecoming and make plans at that time.

And we all agreed it was wonderful to be back at alma mater.

PHILIP L. ROCKWELL | prockwell@wesleyan.edu

Nick Puner penned a follow-up to David Skaggs’s note from the Fall Issue. He said, “Indeed, I did miss the POSH (the fictional law firm of Puner, Oleskey, Skaggs, and Howard) reunion at Jim Howard’s in June. But, nothing daunted, OSH insisted on another such event, this time at Steve Oleskey’s in Brookline. And so, it occurred, October 30 to November 2. Among our activities was a trip to the JFK Library and Museum. Oh, how that brief moment in our history, both of our youth and of our nation, still plucks at my heartstrings.  

“Somehow, we POSHies have stayed cohered—to the point where our next event is already incubating.”

Matthys Van Cort wrote a tribute to Chris Wallach, who died on June 4, 2022, in hospice in Orange Park, Florida. Matthys said, “Chris was an amazing human being. Brilliant, ever curious, incredibly funny, a wacky polymath. Although we were COL colleagues starting in the fall of 1961, I got to know Chris better only after I moved to the John Wesley Club in the fall of 1963. I had a six-string guitar and a couple of Lightin’ Hopkins records. Chris had a 12-string and introduced me to Lead Belly, Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and other blues greats.  

“After Wesleyan, he continued to read broadly. At our 30th Reunion in 1994, Chris was the only one, to my knowledge, who had actually read Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, the book that lead to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa against him. Twenty years later Chris suggested that I might benefit from reading Epictetus.

“Chris and I had a number of adventures while we were at Wesleyan and then during several years after graduation, after which we were out of touch for a time. In his last years we emailed intensely if not steadily. I will miss him terribly.

“In 2017 Chris wrote to me:

‘I’ve spent a lifetime failing to find out what to do with a lifetime, and in the process have been a race-car mechanic, small business owner, software developer and programmer, data-logger inventor and manufacturer, and so on. I retired in 2004 for a liver transplant, and discovered in the years following that I wanted to be just an inventor and fiddle around with stuff.  I patented an idea for a wind turbine, but have sinfully procrastinated on finishing a working prototype. https://patents.google.com/patent/US8410622B1/en.

‘All in all, I find myself more content than I ever thought possible, proof again of the power of shit luck.’

“Bruce Kirmmse, CSS class of ’64, had been for years in very regular contact with Chris, including almost daily emails and Chris’s visits to Bruce’s summer house in New England. On June 4, 2022, Bruce wrote to tell me that Chris had died. Among other things, he said: ‘He was a good, witty, and thoughtful friend, and my life is seriously diminished without him. Chris had for some months been in a care facility in Orange Park, Florida.’”

A few words from classmates:

From Jim Dresser: “I am still living in Salisbury, Connecticut, where we sold a large house and built a small bungalow in the backyard just before COVID hit. It is indeed better to be lucky than smart.

            “I spend most of my time trying to build affordable housing in this expensive enclave of Connecticut, which got more unaffordable after the pandemic influx from NYC.

            “I was honored that Gina asked me to be one of the speakers at John Driscoll’s ’62 celebration of life in the chapel at Homecoming. I then got to sit in Corwin Stadium in shirtsleeves and reflect on John, Wes’s most ardent football fan, while the Cards beat the Ephs handily to win the Little Three.

            “I continue to be amazed by the time and effort required ‘to alleviate the many ills to which the flesh is heir,’ but I am defying the odds so far.”      

John B. Jarzavek wrote: “I was pleased to see that there is a memorial challenge to remember our classmate, Colby Andrus. As was our wont in the ’60s, most of us knew only our fraternity fellows and course classmates. I got to know Colby our junior and senior years when we were both on the Board of House Presidents. He was always soft-spoken but full of energy and suggestions. After graduation we kept in minimal contact. However, his son John enrolled in the Rivers School (’96) where I had been teaching since 1965. I taught John in art history, in which he continued at Wesleyan after he graduated from Rivers. While he was at Rivers, his mother Alice was a school trustee. I got to see the Andrus family regularly, and we became close friends. We discovered that we were all Italophiles. Norman and I bought our Italian apartment in 2001—we sold it in 2021—and Colby, Alice, and we met often in Italy in those years. Colby and Alice and their two boys had also lived in Italy for a year in the ’80s. His Boston business was importing and selling Italian furniture. We traveled Italy together and ate great food over the years. My closest Wesleyan friends were fraternity brothers Bob Martin, Bob Sloat, and my fraternity “big brother” Hill Panitch ’62. Thankfully, Colby joined that crew. I can still see his smile.”

David Landgraf contributed: “Ten plus years into retirement and haven’t had yet to return to paid employment. Have kept my law license active just in case. Have kept busy with church work, yardwork and gardening, catching up on casual reading, and providing unsolicited advice to children and grandchildren. Am still living in the house in Southern New Jersey (greater Philadelphia area) to which my late wife Linda and I moved with two small children in 1977, but it is becoming an increasing burden. My son and his family (two children, ages 11 and 9) live about an hour away near the New Jersey shore, and my daughter and her family (three children, ages 17, 15, and 9) are in Frederick, Maryland, about three to four hours away by car. See both frequently. I have been trying to take one or two trips each year, but that schedule was interrupted by COVID-19. My middle brother and I did take a Rhine River cruise, which included a performance of the passion play in Oberammergau, Germany, this past summer.  Looking at a possible family trip next summer, if kids’ sports schedules and the college entry and visits for the oldest allow.”

 And from Frederick Taylor: “Visited Lew Whitney and his wife Yoli in LA in early September. He is well and still sailing. It was great to see him and trade memories, some of which may have actually occurred. We exchange book ideas and discuss the various authors we enjoy. We plan to see each other annually as Carole and I travel from New York to see our daughter Liesl and family in Manhattan Beach and perhaps a granddaughter in college on the West Coast.”

 

John Driscoll’s celebration on November 5, in a packed Memorial Chapel, was attended by classmates Robin Cook, Bob Krugman, and Hank Sprouse. Robin, who remembers John as “one of the most affable and good-natured individuals I have ever met,” regretted only the absence of speakers from our class who knew him best at the very beginning of his Wesleyan career. Hank, who had been close to John, found the memorial “truly moving for me—spiritual, loving, powerful, gentle, and meaningful.” For anyone interested, John left an extended oral history interview about his Wesleyan history, including his earliest days when we were there together; a transcript of this is available online at https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/object/ohp-53. 

Ken Landgraver has moved into a retirement community in Portland, Oregon, which allows him and his wife more time to travel: Morocco for two weeks in March and April; hiking the Camino in Spain where he got COVID and “had to spend two delightful weeks in Madrid until I tested negative”; and a week each in Santa Fe and Pismo Beach. They also “spent time at our beach place watching the whales, where they come in so close, we can hear them.” They have been using an old VW Westfalia van for camping throughout the Northwest and exploring Vancouver Island, while also adding two great-grandsons to the family. 

Bruce Menke and his wife Karen continue to be highly active politically in Athens, Georgia, supporting Democratic candidates and causes. They have hosted or co-hosted more than 20 fundraisers and candidate meet and greets, and recently organized a major Get Out the Vote effort. Bruce further reports, “Fortunately, our extended family has made it through COVID without serious illness. Our oldest grandchild is now a sophomore at Duke. Two others are high school sophomores and the youngest is in sixth grade. My interest in languages continues, with a focus on reading contemporary books in the Romance and Germanic languages and, to a lesser extent, Russian.”

Len Wilson writes that “after celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary and catching COVID in Europe last summer, there’s little to top that news. Joyce and I are heading back to our condo in South Philly after spending over two years ‘staying safe’ at our barrier island home on the Jersey shore.” Len remains active with his YMCA retiree groups and is helping plan a Christmas luncheon/fundraising “where I continue to be the auctioneer, squeezing all the giving I can get from my friends and [their] spouses. I will also continue my favorite activity (pickleball) indoors in the Philly area.”

Chuck Work reports that Hurricane Ian “did not hit us as directly in Naples as it did Fort Meyers and we were fortunate in that we live several miles from any water and so the surge did not reach us and we sustained no damage. But it will be a slow recovery for much of Southwest Florida.” He adds that he “went door-to-door for Democrats in our county making almost no difference.”  

Bill Wortman writes: “As everyone discovers when they retire, staying busy is no problem. There’s so much to do, in my case this past year six hiking trips with Road Scholars to national parks (Acadia, Big Bend, Glacier, etc.), local volunteer and civic activities, reading (most recently Joyce’s Ulysses, which I first read with Wilbert Snow in my sophomore year), and fitfully hacking away at invasive species on my small property just outside Oxford, Ohio, which is good therapy.” Sadly, Bill’s wife Sue Howlett (Mt. Holyoke ’65) died two years ago after nine years with lung cancer, but he has three grandchildren all doing well; two in Denver about to graduate this coming spring (one from high school, the other from college), and the third in St. Louis with still “a ways to go.”

Finally, many of you who were chemistry students will remember Tony Santonicola MA ’61, who as a master’s student was a teaching assistant and lab instructor during our freshman and sophomore years. It turned out Tony enjoyed interacting with brats like us more than mixing chemical reagents and moved on to the graduate counseling program at Harvard. He and I became roommates there in 1963 and consolidated a lifelong friendship in which he became “Uncle Tony” to my kids. He served for many years as director of counseling at the University of Hartford and has recently moved to a cottage in a retirement community near there where he tends to two garden lots and confounds everyone who can’t believe he is 92. He recalls his Wesleyan years with great fondness and extends best wishes to all who remember him.

Russell Mott writes: “Another summer at camp in Amesbury, Massachusetts, teaching ceramics, and livin’ the dream back in New England. Presently I am running a gallery with my partner, Joyce, and moving from throwing to altered and sculptural forms with the kind assistance of the finest active potter in the country (in my opinion), Steve Hemingway of Minnesota. It is a fascinating and terrifyingly wonderful excursion. For those interested in the final collapse of South Vietnam in ’75, a friend of mine has written a book about the chaotic evacuation of Saigon, something in which I was also involved. Getting Out of Saigon, Ralph White, Simon and Schuster, April 4, 2023. It’s a hell of a tale.—Que tenga buen dia, Jon.” Muchas gracias, Russell.

A bit of poetry from John Alexander:

“Over many years, believe I’ve shared enough.

But if desperate, try usual comments on health, aging and family stuff.

Trying each day to remember pills, appointments, friends, and names,

Especially before the body and mind succumb to increased pains.”

A few words from Jack Mitchell with a bit of promotion tossed in: “Linda and I continue to have a wonderful marriage for 61 years—four sons, seven adult grandchildren, and two step-grandchildren. Our Mitchells family of stores in seven locations is very healthy, with constantly improving sales over previous years. We are probably the largest independent family-owned luxury men’s/women’s/lux clothing and jewelry establishment in our country. Presently, it’s a third generation of Mitchells working in our stores—three of our sons and three of my brother Bill’s, moving soon into a fourth generation, two of whom went to Wesleyan! Healthwise, my days include tennis or walks with Linda, or providing motivational lectures on my three HUG publications. I give credit to my dad who claimed that Wesleyan inspired me to open The New York Times to the editorial page rather than the sports pages! Happy, healthy, and safe Wes hugs to all!”

In August–September, Nici and John Dobson traveled to Ireland, London, and lastly Malaga, Spain, where John attended a formal meeting of the Duke Hand Society.

Michael Jay Levine died on October 30, 2022, surrounded by his loving family. Mickey ran a private medical practice in Holyoke, Massachusetts, for more than 40 years and was adored by his patients for his manner, sympathy, and kindness. He and his wife Marilyn were tireless travelers who made it to every continent. He is survived by his wife, daughters—Naomi, Erica, and Devorah—and six grandchildren. My condolences to his family and friends.

Jim Meyerhoff and co-authors wrote a review article on the brain-unique equivalent to the lymphatic system that was published in Military Medicine. Also, their microdissection of mouse brain into fundamentally and anatomically different regions was filmed by the Journal of Visualized Experiments.

In August, my companion Tish Geehan and I took a ferry to Orcas Island where we climbed the tower on top of Mt. Constitution (elevation 2,407 feet) and had a magnificent view of the other San Juan Islands and the Cascade Mountains to the east.