It’s never too late to keep learning: Rachael Adler just graduated with a master’s in marriage and family therapy from the Wright Institute in Berkeley and is now training at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Richard LeComte recently received an MA in arts administration from the University of Kentucky, where he works as a writer. Congrats, both!
If you’d like to learn more about screenwriting and storytelling, check out Liz Keyishian’s calltoadventure.media, a writers’ development company. She’s sourcing a bunch of her mentors for upcoming writers’ retreats from her friends at Wes, including Peter Blauner, Dan Greenberger ’81, Cary Bickley ’82, and me (Laura Fraser). She’s planning on tapping a lot more Wes talent “because they are the best people I know,” she told me from her apartment in Melbourne . . . and she’s offering a friends and family rate for Wes grads who’d like to attend her workshops in Breckenridge, Melbourne, and other great locales (contact liz@calltoadventure.media).
Fresh off his smokin’ solo performance What They Said about Sex, Steve Budd has a new show, Seeing Stars, that premiered at the San Francisco Fringe in August, which explores family dysfunction, mental illness, and father-son relationships. He also published a piece of creative nonfiction that connects baseball and Judaism in The Under Review, https://www.underreviewlit.com/issue-8-summer-23/remove-contents-and-pray.
Cheryl Stevens has semiretired and traded in her litigator card for the role of a neutral, arbitrating disputes and labor and employment cases for the American Arbitration Association. She says her new role has given her more time to create mugs, plates, and other things in clay—though not satisfied with puttering as a potter, she agreed to become the president of the board of directors for the Berkeley Potter’s Studio and editor of their member newsletter. When not up to her elbows in clay, she sings backup with an R&B band of mostly lawyers, a developer, and a judge–the Coolerators.
Emilie “Bunny” Attwell has retired from her job with the state and is working remotely with the Local Mental Health Authority in Houston, as well as writing psychiatric reports for the Texas Medical Board.
After 33 years, Larry Selzer is still with The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit that buys land for conservation. They recently completed their 4,000th project, protecting 9 million acres across all 50 states!
David Brancaccio, who hosts public radio’s Marketplace, recently revealed that his inspiration for getting into radio was not CBS legend Edward R. Murrow, but, as he wrote in a Wall Street Journal essay for the 50th anniversary of the George Lucas movie American Graffiti, Wolfman Jack. David is also having fun with a streaming video series, Skin in the Game, looking at what video games can teach us about the economy, personal finances, and tech careers. (If you want to know what video games can teach you about the possibilities of love and creativity, read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zavin, a book Liz Keyishian recommended to me).
Kim Traub Ribbens is scaling back her massage practice, but still working on a 102-year-old client she’s seen for 20 years, which probably explains her longevity. She traveled in New Zealand and Australia with Marcy (Neiterman) Maiorana, who was at Wes for two years, and spent time meeting people in the Maori community and learning about their culture. She also recently had dinner with Gene and Tamara (née Haigh) Lanza when they came to Savannah, catching up on each other’s lives.
Among his other pursuits, including being a councilperson in Denton, Texas, Paul Meltzer has a podcast, Turn Up the Yummy, about making delicious food while avoiding everything your doctor wants you to avoid . . . . Susan Smythe is also active in her local government, serving on her local borough council again after her previous term ended in 2016. Her husband Robert Smythe is about to open a bakery, Pastry Pants, featuring everything yummy your doctor wants you to avoid.
My husband, Peter Eckart’86, and I ventured down the peninsula for a delightful dinner with Christian Vescia and his wife, Lucia Sanchez, as well as my class notes co-conspirator, Michael Ostacher, and his wife, Laurie. Christian has retired and created an amazing rose garden, and Lucia is still working as a pediatric physical therapist. Peter and I are excited that we’ve successfully lured Michael and Laurie down to Mexico for Thanksgiving to eat some pavo and a bunch of other things your doctor wants you to avoid.
Greetings from Brooklyn! Welcome to the digital edition of the Class Notes, with lots of pictures! Thank you for all the pictures.
I write this in August. You know by now that it was hot. And fires. Lots of fires. And, of course, Maui, where my wife and I honeymooned right after 9/11, is well, at press time, authorities were still trying to find the missing and the dead. Tragic.
Greg Davis and his wife moved to Maui in 2021. He wrote this summer:
“We live in South Maui, and the devastating fires that destroyed buildings and homes in Lahaina and Kula were in West Maui. Maui is a very small island, so nothing is very far from anything else, but we were not directly impacted by either of those fires.
“There was, however, a third brush fire in Kihei, where we live. It’s not the first time we have had to contend with smoke, road closures, and power outages from brush fires in our area, but it was the first time we had to evacuate our home. The flames from the Kihei fire came very close to homes that are a few blocks away from us. And flying embers can set homes on fire when the winds are as strong as they were on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We evacuated our home on Tuesday night with our seven cats. When we got the evacuation notice, we tossed the cats into their carriers and then drove to the evacuation center we were told to go to, but when we got there, we learned that the center was being shut down because the fires were too close. So, we got back in the car and drove south, away from the fires, until we found an empty parking lot at an upscale shopping center in Wailea where we could spend the night in our car. The security guards there told us that management had told them to let people stay in the parking lot and in the public areas of the shopping center, and to keep the bathrooms open. We watched the news all night and saw what was happening in Lahaina but couldn’t get any news about our area. So, when the sun came up, we decided to drive back to our house to see if we still had a house.
“Fortunately for us, the winds had shifted after we left and the fires stayed in areas of vacant fields. There was no damage to our house or to any of our neighbors’ houses.
“The damage, death, and destruction in Lahaina is apocryphal, however, and it will take many, many years for Maui to recover from that. Many, many people have lost their homes, businesses, and their jobs, and at least 93 people have died from the fires [as of his note on August 14th].
“Right now, we are just grateful that we were spared. We are trying to stay out of the way of rescue efforts so that first responders can continue to do their jobs. The fires around Lahaina are not out yet. Eventually, we will try to find a way to help those who have lost so much.”
On a happier note, Lisa Greim retired from Xcel Energy last November, and has been doing contract writing and editing for them and others since then. “Telecommuting for two pandemic years spoiled me—I still want to work, but not the way virtual work expands into your whole 24/7 life.”
Lisa Greim and Chris Varner
She adds, “It’s been a good compromise so far and has allowed me and my husband, Chris Varner, to scuba dive in Fiji, river cruise in the Netherlands and Belgium, and ‘festivate’ at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. We had the perfect pandemic wedding in August 2020, featuring a masked appearance at the courthouse to do the paperwork and a wedding picnic with our grown kids, boxed charcuterie, cupcakes, and canned beer.”
Lisa in her scuba gear.
She saved the important part for last: “Chris is a lovely human being, my kids are both fledged, and life is sweet. Since photos are allowed, I’ll attach one from wreck diving in Sint Eustatius in 2021.”
Luis Taveras has a new book, The 90 Day CIO. “Available on Amazon. All proceeds go to charity. Thanks.” Congrats to Luis!
Brenda Zlamany is excited to announce, as are we, that she is “The winner of the Worcester County Mechanics Association’s competition for the monumental portrait of William Brown and Martha Ann Tulip Lewis (Brown). William was a successful 19th-century businessman in Worcester involved in the Underground Railroad, and Martha was his partner in life and abolitionist work, as well as a community leader. This painting is one of three portraits of impactful Black Americans of the 19th century commissioned for the awe-inspiring Great Hall Portrait Gallery.”
This photo by Jenny Gorman shows Brenda with her research and the winning drawing for the Worcester County Mechanics Association’s competition.
“I am thrilled,” she adds, “to be a visiting artist at the prestigious American Academy in Rome for the month of September 2023!”
Brenda also had a series of Group exhibitions this past spring:
—A Painting is a Painting is a Painting, April 15–June 4, 2023, at Artport, Kingston, New York
—Undue Burden: Privacy, Protection, and Politics, March 18–April 18, 2023, at City Lights Gallery, Bridgeport, Connecticut
—Five Points: A Convergence of Dreams, April 6–29, 2023, at Equity Gallery, New York, New York
Mark Saba has a new book of poetry, Flowers in the Dark, which was published in January by Kelsay Books.
At the end of 2022, Mike Trager became a retired partner at Arnold & Porter, where he had been a senior partner and part of the firm’s leadership. Mike began his career as a U.S. government attorney but spent most of the past few decades in private practice in Washington, D.C. And, thanks to a presidential appointment, Mike has returned to government, where he is vice chair of the Department of State’s Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and a member of its Executive Committee. The board has the statutory responsibility for independently supervising the global Fulbright Program. Led by the U.S. government, in partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide, the Fulbright Program promotes mutual understanding among the peoples of the United States and other countries to provide for a more secure and peaceful world. The comprehensive program is a primary means for facilitating international cultural diplomacy and soft power.
Mike Trager (center) at the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, June 2023.
Mike is thoroughly enjoying retirement with his bride of 36 years (Mariella, who is Washington Circle Chair of Refugees International). They are the proud parents of Nick ’11, who has spent the past seven years living in London while working for State Street Global Advisors, and Alex, who lives in NYC and works for Microsoft. His parents, Ina and Phil Trager’56, Hon. ’08, are doing well. In this picture, taken in June at the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, Mike is in the middle, joined by embassy staff, the executive director of the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange, and MACECE board members.
Alison Williams writes that she had a great time traveling to Togo, West Africa, in January for two weeks. “I stayed in Notsé, spent a lot of quality time under the mango tree getting to know the neighbors, did some science labs/workshops with high school students, and really immersed myself in Togolese culture. It was wonderful. I took the plunge and am now an independent diversity, equity, access, and inclusion consultant, working with schools (secondary and higher ed), civic groups, trade organizations and nonprofits). I’m ‘up for hire’ if anyone would like to inquire! I’m managing to play my oboe a lot—a good antidote to the mad times we live in. I’ve been fortunate to have been in touch with lots of classmates in the past six months—too many to list and feel grateful for the friendships that have stood the test of many decades since our student days.”
David P. Miller sent some wonderful photos, including this amazing shot. “In late February, my wife (Cathryne) and I went on a cruise to Northern Norway, to hopefully see the aurora borealis. We were joined on this trip by the Benjamins (Kathryn Moody ’82 and Lee Benjamin). We had three nights of good aurora viewing, over a week of great meals, and a generally wonderful time. The photos below show the aurora over Alta, Norway, and the four of us at dinner.”
The northern lights over Alta, Norway
The Benjamins (left) and the Millers (right)
In July David went to Omaha, Nebraska, to visit “my good Wesleyan friend, John Lyden. John is now chair of the Religion Department at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. I got to spend several days with him and his wife, Liz, who I found out graduated from Brown in ’82 (we know several people in common). Omaha seems like a wonderful place and I also got to see ‘the greatest office in the world.’ The photo below is of the three of us in Memorial Park in Omaha.”
From left to right, Liz and John Lyden, and David Miller
David adds, “I also regularly see Linda Hornby Schogren ’83. She’s a regular attendee of our monthly Zoom SF book club. I also see Bob Seiler ’82 regularly on our biweekly retired engineers Zoom meeting. One (perhaps the only one) good thing to come out of the lockdown was a massive improvement in video conferencing. I wish Wesleyan continued it today for seminars and updates—for those of us not in traveling distance to Middletown.”
I will leave you with this: stay safe, stay cool, stay out of harm’s way, and may the road rise to meet you—unless you live over a fault.
THANK YOU, fellow alums from the Class of 1980!!! In response to my August ’23 request for submissions for this next Wes magazine (which will only be an online version for this issue), I’ve heard from a couple of completely new 1980 alums (YAY!!!!) and some of my stalwarts as well (YAY!!!!). Thank you all! I noted the following in my request: You don’t need to be a Nobel Peace Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner. I’d love to hear from you about you and your families and alum friends. Please send in your news on marriages, babies, graduations, retirements, publications, ideas, surprises, thoughts, concerns. Whatever you’d like to share. And PLEASE, those of you who haven’t written in for a while or haven’t yet taken the plunge, go ahead and make a stab at sharing. We’d love to hear from you! Also, what do you all think about President Roth’s elimination of legacy admissions? Send your thoughts in about that as well.
The College Art Association CAA Committee on Women in the Arts chose Family Tree Whakapapa as an April 2021 pick with this summary:
“This exhibition brings together the artwork of four sisters living in different parts of the globe and focuses on the related but distinct ways they engage with the arboreal imagination. Tangled into their photographs, paintings, life histories, and political commitments, the trees in their artwork are intricate lines, bold shapes, diffuse traces, and stylized patterns. Defying the ease with which the genealogical and botanical connect in the figure of the family tree, the Slavick sisters make it a thing of wonder: rooted in the ground and multiplying in our imaginations, family trees are botany and biology written with longing, hope, history, and loss.
“As curators, painters, photographers and writers, we all have incorporated images of trees in social, political and environmental conditions—trees that stand as refuge and livelihood, consumed and consuming, under assault and triumphant, as historical record and as harbinger of things to come. The exhibition offers perspectives both unsettling and soothing as nature increasingly reflects salient issues of our times.
“In its beauty and bounty, nature is often regarded as benign and apolitical. We do not expect a tree to assume an editorial stance or embody ideology. The conceptual, analytical, and sensual intersect in Family Tree Whakapapa with works that probe the multitude of relations within and between trees and humans. Branching out to, and from, the world, the artists address a variety of concerns.
Anne’s book cover
“A faculty member at Lesley University, Sarah Slavick lives in Jamaica Plain with her husband of 30 years.”
Anne Hanson: “My new book, Buried Secrets: Looking for Frank and Ida, is the true-history detective story about how I discovered the hidden past that my grandparents, Frank and Ida, took to their graves. When I finally unearthed their real identities, I learned that their tales were lies invented to conceal disturbing facts.”
Some blurbs for Anne’s book included: “It’s a page-turner that will captivate readers from beginning to end. A great read!” according to Elaine Tyler May, Regents Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Minnesota. And “Buried Secrets is as suspenseful as a detective novel,” the Akron Beacon Journal wrote on January 1, 2023, “an intriguing journey through the world of genealogical sleuthing.” Also, it was the Twin Cities Pioneer Press “Literary Pick of the Week” for January 22, 2023.
Find out more about Anne and Buried Secrets here: https://annehanson.com. The book is available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Ken’s book cover
Kenneth Miller: “After nearly four decades as a journalist (www.kennethmiller.net), I’m publishing my first book in October 2023. The title is Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep. It’s a history of sleep science, told through the lives of four pioneers who helped shape the field.
“The project grew out of an assignment for Discover magazine on slumber’s central role in regulating our physical and mental health. While I was reporting that story, everyone in my family began having serious sleep problems—and soon after it was published, my 87-year-old father dozed off at the wheel of his Prius and plowed into a tree. (He survived, despite serious injuries.) By then, I’d become obsessed with sleep science. And when I learned that no one had written a book for lay readers on the discipline’s evolution, I decided to do the job myself. I hope some of my classmates will find a place for it on their nightstands.
“On the domestic front, I’m hunkered down among the oaks, chaparral, and rattlesnakes in Topanga Canyon, California, with my wife, Julie Ries. We’ve got two kids—Leo, who recently graduated from UC Santa Cruz, and Samantha, who’s starting her sophomore year at Bard. Happy to report that both are guitar players, and that (in addition to whatever Gen Z bohos are digging these days) their tastes run to much of the same great stuff my Wesleyan pals and I were jamming to when we were their age. When they’re home, the strains of Dylan, the Dead, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Robert Johnson, the Stones, and Fairport Convention come wafting from the living room, delivered by a pair of scruffy youngsters with good hearts and interesting minds.”
John Singer: “A couple of things to contribute. On the Wes front, Karen and I spent a long weekend with Daryl Messinger and her husband, Jim Heeger, at their lovely home in the Berkshires. We spent a couple of nights at Tanglewood and another at a revival of Cabaret and [also] went up to MASS MoCA [where] Karen and I stopped at the Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield on the way to the Berkshires. Went somewhat spontaneously to Philadelphia to meet Brad Moss for an Orioles versus Phillies game. Ever the gracious host, Brad arranged for an O’s victory.
“On a personal note, our son Charlie got engaged in April. He’s been dating his fiancée, Kelly, for about four years and we’ve come to love her almost as much as Charlie does. Kelly conveyed me with an incredible honor and requested that I bake their wedding cake. Lots of practice baking in the Singer household. I view this a bit like the Apollo moonshot project with the goal of a soft landing of the cake on the cake table at the wedding!”
Jeff Green: “I continue to work ER shifts in Milwaukee and Ashdod. We spent the summer with our Australian grandchildren underfoot and nothing could be finer. Playing a lot of music and working on my oud skills. This is how I want to spend my golden years. I’m practicing now.”
An oud
Peter Scharf: “I’ve mostly recovered from my back injury last December. I just finished teaching the intensive first-year Sanskrit course in the University of Wisconsin’s South Asia Summer Language Institute. We also had a student in The Sanskrit Library’s intensive summer Sanskrit course. This fall The Sanskrit Library is launching programs to teach Sanskrit digital humanities.”
Dan Connors: “Regarding legacy admissions, I’m all for getting rid of those. Legacies have enough advantages already. Hope Wesleyan’s commitment to diversity holds out for the next generation.
“As for me, I’m still writing and reading books to grow my brain . . . now up to 400 books read and reviewed on Goodreads. Find me there or at my blog, authordanconnors.com.”
Scott Hecker: “I just returned from a very Wesleyan reunion of our bands Praxis and Urban Renewal from back in the day. For several years running now, we’ve had an annual gig at The Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. We gather on a Wednesday, rehearse for three days straight, and perform to a (usually) sold-out house on Saturday night. It was a blast! Attaching a picture; shown are Paul Spiro, Matt Penn, Joe Galeota MA ’85, Bryant Urban ’81, CarlSturken ’78, Dave Samuels ’79, BillyHunter ’78, Robert Levin ’81, and myself. Also in the picture are non-Wesleyan ringers Liz Queler (a Tufts grad who knows Wesleyan folks through ultimate Frisbee) and her son Joey (both are professional musicians).”
Praxis and Urban Renewal bands perform
Alan Jacobs: “My youngest of four, Guy, graduated from the University of Oregon in June, ending a streak of thirteen consecutive years with at least one child in college. So, for me, it was more like a Bar Mitzvah.
“As for President Roth eliminating legacy admissions, I applaud it. In my experience, and from what classmates have told me, Wesleyan always seemed ambivalent about accepting children of alumni unless the family made a major donation. Three of mine applied Early Decision, all as recruited athletes, and only one was accepted—which is pretty much the same rate as the general ED population at Wesleyan. This will help manage expectations.”
I haven’t written my own news for a while so here goes from me and my husband Andrew McKenna and our two daughters. Jacquie just drove down to St. Petersburg, Florida, to bring our younger daughter, Juliana, to Eckerd College. Juliana transferred from UCSC and is looking to major in marine science as a sophomore. Now being right on the water (not a 40-minute bus ride away), amongst 2,000 instead of 19,000 students who seem much friendlier, in sunny weather instead of nonstop rain, fog, and cold is already working much better for Juliana. Very empowering to recognize when something doesn’t work and daring to make the change. Jacquie heads back out at the end of August to drive with our older daughter, Xan, to Williams for her senior year. Xan spent her junior year in Madrid, Spain, and Santiago, Chile, having amazing experiences. She’s majoring in comparative literature and studio art (examples of her artwork: https://www.redbubble.com/people/xanmckenna/shop?asc=u). Andrew continues to run the services and flight school at the Boulder Municipal Airport, finding a bad bureaucrat can hamper one’s best-intentioned dreams. And finally me: I’m at a crossroads, wanting to leave the world of international development finance (after 40-plus years of working all over the developing world in project finance, focusing on renewable energy and sustainability) and not sure what the next chapter holds—open to ideas! And about eliminating legacy, we both think it’s the right thing to do at this juncture in Wesleyan’s history.
Heidi Mastrogiovanni reached out with the following note about a recent honor:
“I’m delighted to have been named co-ambassador for the Los Angeles chapter of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization for published writers.” Congrats, Heidi. Great news!
Michael Livingston shared this news with us: “Retiring and adjusting.”
Jake Walles reports:
“I’ve been retired from the State Department now for about six years. I keep myself busy as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, writing and commenting on Middle East affairs. I stay in regular contact with Jim Sheehan and Al Spohn ’80 and look forward to catching up with other Wesleyan folks at our reunion next year.” Sounds like an interesting and enjoyable way to keep engaged and still be able to enjoy retirement, Jake!
And last but certainly not least, this news from our former class secretary, Gary Breitbord.
“He’s baaack. Just when you thought you’d never have to read another Breitbord Bloviation, I have submitted the following for your reading (dis?) pleasure. My wife and I are enjoying our fully retired life in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Living in paradise where every day is Saturday. Or as my cousin says, ‘Every day is blursday.’
“There have been many gatherings of the DKE brethren and other assorted cohorts. Had a great Red Sox opening day and Bruins game extravaganza with George DuPaul, Peter Campbell, Frank Hauser, and Jeff Gray ’77. A great time was had by all. I have seen the aforementioned Dr. DuPaul and his lovely bride many times, even got to meet his new grandson, Colin. They purchased a wonderful place right downtown in Falmouth Village. Perfect spot to venture into town to partake of the library, many fine shops, restaurants, ice cream parlors as well as numerous summer events. We had another wonderful ‘boys’ gathering at the Breitbord abode that included George, Jack Buckley, Bill Conley, and the Grays. The weather cooperated, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
“Had a great round of golf with Messieurs Dave Thomas ’77 and Paul Fichera ’77 along with Wesleyan’s head football coach Dan DiCenzo. (As an aside, Dan has graciously accepted the role of faculty advisor to the undergraduate DKE brothers.) It was a gloriously beautiful Cape Cod day filled, of course, with many stories of which some, I believe, were actually true. I’d like to say my golf game held up to the level of fun we had, but ain’t no way that could happen.
“The true highlight of the summer was our trip with the Buckleys to Montana to visit with the estimable Jeff Laszlo ’78 on his ranch near Ennis. We all agreed it was a trip of a lifetime that we plan to do on a regular basis. Jeff was the consummate host, taking us on tours of the remarkable 15-year (and counting) restoration project he has completed and continues to improve every day through his diligent stewardship of the family’s 13,000 acres. The Granger Ranches have been in his family for four generations. Laz took over the operations from his mom. He has managed to use modern ranching techniques—it is a working ranch with over 450 head of cattle, coupled with extensive wildlife preservation techniques including humane fencing and shared grazing. On any given day, you can see true diversity of flora and fauna. To get a glimpse of this massive effort, the largest restoration project in Montana, check out Stewardship with Vision as well as some pictures below.
2,000 acres of Jeff Laszlo’s restored property
Laz’s house half way into the property
Jeff Laszlo ’78
“Many more summer and fall events planned (Jono Cobb we will get together) after I write this, but that’ll have to wait for another time.”
Thanks, Gary, for a fun and informative update!
That’s it for this issue. Thanks for all the submissions! Be safe and happy.
If you’re reading these notes, then you successfully found our “online only” Wesleyan Class Notes for Fall 2023. Hope you are well and enjoying a beautiful autumn wherever you are. Here’s what several of your classmates are up to:
Susan Southard, author of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War (Viking, 2015) writes that she will be traveling to Taiwan and Japan for a five-city book tour in mid-October through early November. In addition to the United States, Nagasaki has been published in England and in translation in Denmark, Spain, Taiwan, China, and Japan. This trip, her lectures will be in Japanese. While she’s in Nagasaki, Susan will give the keynote address at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall. She suggests that if you ever have a chance to visit Nagasaki, the Peace Memorial Hall is an exquisite architectural structure—inside and out, every inch designed to honor the memory of those who died in the Nagasaki nuclear attack and in the decades since.
Kate Probst and her husband moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, in August after living in the Washington, D.C., suburbs for over 35 years. She describes it as “an experiment with no decisions beyond living there through June 2024.” They rented a furnished apartment that allows cats and dogs, and rented out their house in McLean, Virginia. They are enjoying their new life with all their errands on foot (which has greatly increased their daily step count) and only using a car sparingly. They also enjoy being a 10-minute walk from their daughter and her fiancée, walking and eating—the two major NYC pastimes—as well as going to the theater, museums, and walking in Prospect and Central Parks. They are much closer to friends in the Northeast, so have many visits planned. And while they miss their friends in D.C., so far don’t miss living there.
Ralph and daughter, Cassie
Ralph Rotman was recently recognized on Forbes’ 2023 Top Financial Security Professionals “Best-In-State” list alongside his daughter and business partner Cassie Rotman. In 2018 they started Power 10 Advisory Partners, a premier wealth management and financial planning firm in Boston. With a unique blend of intergenerational insights, the Rotmans have successfully merged traditional financial wisdom with contemporary strategies. Ralph included this photo of he and his daughter.
Bruce Phillips is happy to report that he retired in August 2022 from 36 years working as a family physician and delivering babies in Plainville, Massachusetts. He had a wonderful career and is very appreciative of his patients and colleagues who trusted him for so many years. He enjoys retirement doing all the same things he did while he was working: yoga, gardening, tennis, biking, developing his spiritual practice, and enjoying time with his family. Now he just has more time and space to do all these things. This fall he will teach new medical students one afternoon a week the basics of being a doctor, including skills such as listening, expressing empathy, and learning how to do a physical exam. Bruce enjoyed visiting Wesleyan for our 45th Reunion. He found “being on campus created a nice warp in time.” Bruce added this recent photo of he and his wife, Judy Kaye.
Bruce and Judy
Please keep in touch! We love receiving and sharing your news, photos, and updates.
Our latest class updates range from Hawaii to Paris (France) as well as points in between. Folks are clearly making up for lost COVID time by traveling the globe. Starting in Paris: Arlene Lappen, Joan Goldfeder, Joe Tringali, Nancy Milburn, and Wendy Giardina met up for what was, for most, a reunion of their “junior year abroad.” The photo below was taken by a hotel receptionist in Paris.
From left to right, Arlene, Joan, and Wendy
As I could well imagine, the gathering was a mix of great food and drink coupled with stories past and present. Joan is visiting Boston for a wedding, at which time we have plans to dine at one of my favorite French restaurants. In this way I get to feel like I was one of the earlier Parisian participants.
Wendy writes further that she had dinner with freshman roommate Lou Roberts (Mary Louise Roberts). She is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. They’ve met a few times over the years when Lou comes to Europe—as she is frequently in Paris doing research.
Wendy’s summer included a week-long residency with an eclectic and eccentric group of artists/musicians/ academics/writers in a tiny town in Piemont, Italy, where the author of the book she translated lives. The book is an “objet d’art” of limited edition (Poutresse by Jérôme Karsenti), so she got to see the finished book as well as do some readings of her own writings.
John Fink made an East Coast swing in first quarter of this year, allowing for the opportunity for a nice time in Boston, where he got to see old pal Bruce Springsteen in concert with Jim Udelson, dined with Jim and Jeff Shames, and then dined on consecutive nights in New York City with Peter Guenther and Rick Dennett.
John Fink and Jim Udelson
Cathy Compton Swanson writes that she and her husband, both retired, have been enjoying their lake house in northern Michigan, which was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1953 and that has been in the family for 70 years. They are hard at work maintaining the house as well as enjoying the lake.
David Dranoff retired after 40-plus years as a finance attorney at Goldberg Kohn in Chicago. He will remain with the firm in a counsel capacity, primarily to conduct associate training sessions, but otherwise is heading off into the employment sunset. The big plans are to visit his kids in San Fran, New York, and Chicago. He is doing some volunteering and plans to pursue a variety of interests and play a lot of tennis! They are staying in Oak Park, Illinois, with no plans to move anywhere else.
Jane Goldenring graced the Boston area earlier this year. We managed to celebrate our Taurus birthdays despite the soggy weather. Her New England swing included receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award from her high school, Hopkins School, in New Haven. She got to speak to the entire student body about her career as a film executive and producer. I read and watched the speech, which was quite good.
Helen Taenzer Lott writes that both she and her husband are doing well. Helen’s new email is dcbags@sbcglobal.net.
Many folks, notably Andy Darpino and Jeff Gray, wrote to me to report the death of Steve Beauchamp, which appears to have been quite sudden. Steve and I go back to our first day at Wesleyan. He was living on my Butterfield suite freshman year. To say that Steve was a force of nature with his infectious laugh is a gross understatement. Steve possessed good acting chops as both teacher and performer. Plus, I remember almost dropping to the floor when I first heard Steve sing opera—an amazing voice. As Jeff wrote: “Steve leaves a legacy of love and passion that touched many. We are all better for having known him. He will be missed but not forgotten.”
Wendy wrote a line in her notes that has stayed with me about how lucky one is to have old friends, family, and be able to enjoy them. Throwing in good health, these are great things to appreciate.
Thanks to everyone for such an enthusiastic response to my plea for notes! We’ve heard from several people who have never sent in a note before. Here’s the latest, in the order I received it:
From Don Fallati: “I have recently joined the Board of Trustees of Print Center New York (https://www.printcenternewyork.org/). It is the leading nonprofit exhibition space in New York dedicated to exploring the medium of prints. The Print Center offers interdisciplinary exhibitions, innovative scholarship, educational programming, and digital resources, and it has recently opened a new, ground-floor space at 535 West 24th Street. It’s in the heart of the Chelsea Arts District, and I encourage anyone interested to visit as the Center always has interesting exhibits.
“My wife (Ruth Pachman ’78) and I have been collecting prints and works on paper for many years, mainly focused on modern and contemporary artists. We are also excited about Wesleyan’s new art gallery being constructed in tandem with the renovations to the PAC. It will be a great new arts space in the center of campus and a showcase for the school’s significant art collection.”
From Nat Needle: “This might be fitting: my old Alpha Delt roommate, J. Mark Beamis ’77, came out from Boston for my birthday show in Worcester and recorded this. The evening revolved around accompanying eight different vocal soloists, so I only got to sing a couple myself [including] a 1931 tune I hadn’t done in maybe 40 years, a request from vocalist and erstwhile bandmate Tina Le, who prefers Perry Como’s more relaxed version.”
From Elyse Grasso: “The beginning of August saw ground being broken, finally, for the rebuild of my house that was burned to the ground in the December 30, 2021, Marshall Fire and wind event.”
Tom Kovar
From Tom Kovar: “I’m still pursuing three creative outlets (music, fiction, photography), and the photo is from a brief but outstanding family vacation on Cape Cod.”
From Merle Kummer: “I’m pleased to report that I’ve helped found the CoLAB High School Stem Career Collaboration, which just incorporated as a nonprofit in April 2023. We connect Watertown (Massachusetts) High School Students with local STEM professionals to inspire them to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math. Here’s our new website: http://bit.ly/WHS-CoLAB.”
Jaimee Mirsky and family
From Jaimee Kurfirst Mirsky: “Not much new to report except a new granddaughter, Ruby. She is the fourth grandchild and first girl of the bunch. Jay and I are enjoying retirement—we both spend as much time as possible with the kiddos, and lots of time working in our garden. I’ve been part of an online classics book group since the beginning of COVID. I never wanted to join a book group before, but the time was right, and this one is pretty special—we actually read and talk about the books. 🙂 I’ve also been advancing my knitting skills and doing tutoring for a local literacy organization. Not exciting, but I’m fine with that at the moment. I’m including a photo of the family from a recent week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.”
From Byron Haskins: “Gabrielle and I reconfirmed our wedding vows on August 12, after 20-plus years of everything you can imagine in a partnership during turbulent times (but I won’t get into the details that include getting her citizenship because she believed 2016 was the time for the first female POTUS and seeking a third act in Canada because it wasn’t). It was a joyful recommittal, small group of friends and family on our back patio. Tears shed, laughs laughed. Also we sold the property in Quebec, are ending our apartment lease in Montreal, and consolidating in Michigan for the next leg of our journey. I will miss Montreal, as we made a few friends there and got a bit closer to Quebecois family during the last two years. I still volunteer sometimes with the Michigan Democrats as part of the Senior Caucus (one fight against ageism) and the county party organization, and continue my hobby of creating technology-assisted one-man-band esoteric music under the label of ‘the ignorant savants,’ which is a poke at how we Americans have a tendency to plow into things as if we are all-knowing when we actually generally keep heads-in-the-sand about the requirements of a common good, a common ethos, or a historical use of convention. It’s an end run around facing growth-enhancing cognitive dissonance. Also I’m keeping the door open on the Classmate Conversations for which you can contact me and Joanne Lukitsh about anytime— if any two or three classmates want to chat about something chat worthy, I’m willing to produce the video and post it on our Wes76Alum YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Wes76Alum.”
From March Boal: “Life is good! My two sons are grown and started on their careers. I just got back from a week on Cape Cod, where I worked several summers while at Wesleyan—it is still beautiful but considerably more crowded. I have not retired yet—I am still enjoying teaching economics at Drake University in Iowa. By the way, I have a message for any high school seniors daunted by the decline of affirmative action: we have empty seats here at Drake. We may not be as prestigious as Harvard, but our professors knock themselves out for students and our graduates do quite well in the job market.”
From Leslie Gabel-Brett: “I am feeling fortunate that I have love, health, and family in abundance. Carolyn and I took a great trip to Italy with our daughter and 15-year-old granddaughter. We are also enjoying summer vacation on Cape Cod with all our kids and grandkids—we made them play pickleball! I am keeping my creative brain cells active by developing a one-act play about Victoria Woodhull and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. And I am happy to continue as a visiting faculty member at Wes, teaching a course on social activism and theories of change. I share with and gain inspiration from the next generations who will do their part to repair the world.”
From left to right: Mike Greenberg, David Cohen, and Matt Paul
From David Cohen: “I had my (roughly) annual reunion with Michael Greenberg and Matt Paul and our spouses in Boston this spring. Sadly, Stewart Shuman missed the affair this time. My wife, Sandy, calls these annual events “Seven Doctors and Me.” She only has a master’s degree, poor thing. As usual we walked many miles, ate, drank, and talked family, art, politics, Wesleyan, and science while touring the Boston Public Library and Mike’s famous lab. I’m recently semiretired to the Berkshire Mountains, woodcarving, and working on writing a book on some local history. Check out my COVID lockdown creation, a self-published children’s book called The Amazing Life of Squirt the Water Drop. It only took me 25 years to go from concept to publication. My youngest two kids live on Maui and are emotionally traumatized but physically safe!”
Norm Kerner, who is retired from his long career as a record producer and recording studio designer/owner, now oversees operation of his two studios in Hollywood, California. Here’s a look at one of them.
Debra Neuman (left) and Barbara Strauss enjoying pickleball in Maine.
From Debra Neuman: “Barbara Strauss invited me to spend a week with her at Quisisana Resort in Center Lovell, Maine, in August, a place she and her late husband Jeff have loved for many years. It was a wonderful week and here’s a photo of us playing pickleball, a new passion.”
From left to right: Cheryl, Terri, and Edna
From Cheryl Woodson: “Talk about how to ‘live out loud and age excellently!’ I’m 67. My Aunt Terri (in the middle) is 96, and her main runnin’ buddy, Miss Edna, is 103! I’ve been posting their wisdom on my Facebook and LinkedIn pages for the last couple months.
“I’m also gearing up to offer two online courses in November (National Family Caregiver and Alzheimer’s Awareness Month) To Survive Caregiving—Yes, you CAN! offers info and insights from To Survive Caregiving: a Daughter’s Experience, a Doctor’s Advice that won first place in the 2022 Writer’s Digest awards for Best Self-Published Books—Inspirational/Motivational Category. Dementia: The ‘Slow Walk Home’ (thusly named by Bishop T. D. Jakes) covers the genetics, physiology, and pathology impact on people who live with Alzheimer’s and other dementias and the people who love them, treatments, and ways for everyone to cope.
“I’m launching an updated website at www.drcherylwoodson.com [and] will begin social media marketing for the courses in September. Stay tuned!”
From Lyle Weinstein: “I am not sure what people might be interested in reading, but my wife suggested that it might be helpful to people to mention the two books I have written on caregiving for dementia patients, The Alzheimer’s Family Manual, and, more recently, The Montessori Alzheimer’s Project. There are a few online videos of talks I have given on these topics, such as the recent one in Halifax, Nova Scotia at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elk5NVdt6E8.
“Other things I have edited and published include a four-volume series on Dissociative Identity Disorder and early childhood trauma entitled Engaging Multiple Personalities, several books on Tibetan Buddhism including Penetrating Wisdom by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Devotion by Lama Pema Tsewang, and others that are not sold on Amazon . . . .
“I have retired from practicing law (which I did in Colorado and California) but still assist my wife, Riza, in the Montessori school community she established in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Throughout all these years, I have continued my study and practice of Buddhism, helping to establish some meditation and retreat centers in the United States and Canada, in particular, Thrangu Monastery in Richmond, British Columbia.”
From Susan Mitchell and Sue Heller Clain: “We got together at Sue’s home in Media, Pennsylvania. Sue has retired from teaching economics at Villanova University. I was visiting my son and his family, including my 2-year-old grandson in Philadelphia. I am also at the very beginning stages of seeking ordination to the Episcopal priesthood in Maryland. We’ve been friends since being assigned adjoining suites in Lawn Avenue (CSS) in 1972.”
Sue Heller Clain is on the left; Susan Mitchell is on the right
From Meredith Bergmann: “I taught a workshop on ekphrastic poetry at the Frost Farm Poetry Conference [in August] in Derry, New Hampshire, and had a wonderful time. Participants came from all over the country, and were serious, enthusiastic, and irreverent—lots of interesting conversations and debates about all aspects of poetry, biography, and art.
In late August “will be the ceremonial groundbreaking for my Lexington, Massachusetts, sculpture, Something Is Being Done. The bronze won’t be installed until next May—it’s at the foundry, in progress.” Meredith Bergmann and MA State Senator Cindy Friedman
Meredith Bergmann and MA State Senator Cindy Friedman
From Rob Williams: “I am currently living in Maui and working as a disease physician. I have been here since March of 2021. Although I didn’t get to see him, Elliot Epner was here and left right before I arrived. I have not seen his name listed in the oncology department. I missed him by about a month. I’ll be here until March of 2026. I’ll then be looking to retire.
“I survived the Maui fires and we are very safe. The entire island is in mourning as we all know someone who has lost a home and/or family members. Recently heard from Pete McArdle. He is retiring after working many years as a veterinarian. More recently he was a research coordinator at Novartis. I have been very busy with the COVID-19 pandemic and retirement is looking very good right now.”
Polly Hays
From Polly Hays: “Greetings from Denver, where we had the rainiest June on record, and then in July and August are continuing to break heat records. I continue to enjoy the leisurely pace of life in retirement, and recently told someone that I am a homebody who likes to travel. This winter I made my way to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, for a singing and mediation retreat; we also enjoyed the reward of a spectacular view of the northern lights one evening. Yes, they were just like the pictures, and yes, it was cold out, about minus 20 [degrees] Fahrenheit. This summer, I had a totally different adventure in Atlantic Canada. Trip included hiking in Cape Breton Island National Park and experiencing the tides of the Bay of Fundy in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
“Below are a few pictures from Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in New Brunswick, where you can walk on the ocean floor at low tide, and kayak among the rocks at high tide. Now that was fun!!!”
Arnson Family wedding photo
From Cindy Arnson: “The highlight of 2023 was the June wedding outside of LA of our son Micah to Maya Paz. The photo says it all. We were very happy! I should be easy to spot; others in the photo are my husband, Gerry; oldest son Zack (a U.S. Foreign Service Officer); and Micah’s twin sister Jeanne (a grad student at George Washington University, in clinical mental counseling). We’re sorry to have Micah and Maya on the West Coast, but since we racked up a lot of frequent flyer miles during the pandemic, we have a nice cushion for travel.
“After 30 years of not being in the classroom, over the summer I taught a class on Latin America for midcareer master’s students at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS, where I did my graduate work). I’ll continue in the fall of 2023 and accompany the group to Chile in mid-October. It’s challenging but rewarding and keeps me on my toes. So much for ‘retirement,’ but I’m very happy not to have to fundraise, attend staff meetings, fill out personnel evaluations, etc., all part of my previous job at the Wilson Center. We feel blessed to be in good health, have kids we’re proud of, and additional time for hobbies like woodworking and fussing over our garden of native perennials!”
From Douglas Morris: “Since I have never before sent in a note, let me boil down what I have done between graduating Wesleyan and retiring a year ago: Mostly I worked as a criminal defense lawyer for indigent defendants in federal court, largely trying to persuade judges to give my clients less time or keep them out of the hellholes of federal prisons altogether; I now am adjuncting at Brooklyn Law School, teaching a seminar on the Nazi legal system; I have also moonlighted as an independent legal historian writing two books on lawyers who resisted the Nazis (Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany [University of Michigan Press, 2005] and Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler’s Germany [Cambridge, 2020]), and I am now finishing up a short book on the anti-Nazi Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, criticizing his badly flawed theory of resistance; I am married (happily, still getting along), and have two children and three grandchildren, each of whom I have tried early on to introduce to ideas of social justice by reading to them Yertle the Turtle, which I first came across in the 1973 Nat Needle production of Dr Seuss! at Wesleyan after I landed a minor role as a turtle, an oppressed turtle.”
From Steve Smith: “I started at Wes with the Class of 1975 but took 1974 off and graduated in 1976. I married before senior year and we ran and lived in the Alumni Guest House, so I wasn’t too visible, either. But with friends in classes before and after mine, maybe someone will remember me.
“After graduation we spent 10 years in Oklahoma and have lived in the North Carolina mountains since then. No prestigious awards or inspiring work experiences, but 48 years married to my best friend and 52 together is worth a lot. Four years ago we both retired and haven’t looked back.
“Since junior high Jean has been an artist and I’ve been a ham radio operator. After retiring, we started going to state and national parks about once a week, where I talk to folks around the U.S., Canada, and Europe on a small radio and Jean paints two or three watercolors with pen-and-ink added in the two hours we’re usually there. Then we visit that park before looking for a mom-and-pop restaurant in the area and checking out a new-to-us town. So far, we’ve gone out 197 times to 142 parks in six states. It’s been fantastic, having a one-day vacation every week!
Steve Smith’s setup
“One photo is of my setup one day last year in South Carolina, with Georgia across the river. I sometimes use a microphone but prefer Morse code using the WWII key shown. I talked with 97 people that day. The other photo (below) is a painting Jean did at a park last month. It’s been fun watching her progress in creating paintings quickly without knowing in advance what they would be.”
Jean’s drawing
From Desmond Whitney: “I don’t have much to report except to say that being nearly 70 is not anything like what I would have imagined when we were all together in Middletown. Without a doubt, the last decade or so has been the best chapter of my life (recognizing I can say that in part because I’m lucky to have continuing good health).”
Notes from Facebook (provided here with permission):
Seth Lerer retired from UCSD in June, after a stellar career as a professor of literature at Princeton, Stanford, and finally UCSD. Retirement hasn’t slowed down his productivity; this year he provided an essay for the recently published Textual Communities, Textual Selves: Essays in Dialogue with Brian Stock, and next January his Introducing the History of the English Language will be published by Routledge Press.
Jon Daniels has relocated to upstate New York after a long stay in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome home!
Marjorie Allen Dauster and her husband Rip ’74 met David Harmin and me for lunch at Rein’s Deli not so long ago; they regaled us with tales of their recent trips to Iceland and Italy and, to be honest, I can’t remember where else because they’re traveling so much! Both are in good health and are greatly enjoying their grandchildren. You wondered why I mentioned puffins in Iceland? This is why!
From Melissa Blacker: “David and I are still living in Worcester, Massachusetts, which we call the spiritual center of the universe. At least, it is for us. We have moved out of the Buddhist Temple that we founded 14 years ago. The Temple is supported by the local and now national and international Zen community that we started 30 years ago, and though no longer living on site, we are still the guiding teachers. Our new official name is Boundless Way Zen Temple: www.boundlessway.org. David and I live a 10-minute walk from the Temple, which was closed to in-person visits for the three years of the pandemic, but during that time we found a new life on Zoom. And now we’re once again open to the public. The Temple has an acre of gardens and winding paths in the backyard, with a koi pond and waterfall. If you’re ever in Worcester, feel free to take a stroll and enjoy the flowers, shrubs, and statues.
“Our daughter and her husband are expecting their second child in early September, a girl, and are the happy parents of a four-year-old boy. He calls us ‘Baba’ and ‘Nana,’ and they live about an hour away, so we get to be with him once or twice each week. And we’re still together, enjoying our entry into aging.”
From Jim Rolston: “We bought carbon-fiber gravel bikes when we retired just as COVID hit. Good way to be outside and away from folks. Studded tires for riding on ice! We did a bit over 1,000 miles on the rail trails that first year of COVID. Perfect time to retire and the perfect way to get fresh air, exercise, and stay away from people!”
The Rolstons’ bikes
A work in progress
And, finally, from the Harmin household: “David is still working full time in Mike Greenberg’s lab at Harvard Medical School; it’s hard to retire when you love your work and your coworkers! He is spending his spare time singing with the local Vox Lucens choir and walking our ancient, doddering dog around Cambridge. I am enjoying retirement more with every passing day and am keeping busy volunteering with the Weavers Guild of Boston.
We both feel incredibly lucky to enjoy continuing good health, wonderful friends, and a home in the best neighborhood either of us have ever enjoyed. See you at the 50th!
Reminder: Reunion dates: May 23–26, 2024. Consider joining our 50th Reunion Planning Committee. Participate as little or as much as your time and interest permit. We have monthly Zoom calls. Also, continue providing ideas for our reunion. Contact me (Sharon Purdie, spurdie@wesleyan.edu), Lucy Diaz at (ldiaz@wesleyan.edu) or Mandy Broulik at abroulik@wesleyan.edu to join the committee or to suggest ideas. See Pam’s review below to read what you have to look forward to!
Second Reminder: Please complete the short reunion survey if you have not done so. You can access it here: 50th Reunion survey.
Pam van der Meulen’s review of the Class of ’73 50th Reunion in May: “I attended the Reunion along with Sharon Purdie and Alfreda Gaither, to get ideas for our upcoming 50th. It was so much fun getting to know people and hanging out with them. It didn’t matter that I knew only one ’73 classmate at Reunion. Many had not seen each other in years, sometimes as many as 50 years, and they had a great time connecting and reconnecting. So, I am sure that our reunion will be so much fun, and I urge people to attend! I have also developed friendships with classmates I know only through reunions, and more recently through working on the Reunion Committee. It is not too late to join the Reunion Committee: it requires only a one-hour Zoom meeting every month—and like much at Wesleyan, these Zoom calls aren’t even required (and there are no grades). Hope to see more of you on the committee soon.”
Norma Williams
Norma Williams was honored by the Real Property Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association as its Outstanding Real Estate Lawyer at an Installation and Awards Dinner on May 23, 2023. Norma has practiced as a transactional commercial real estate attorney for her entire career since her graduation from law school at University of California, Berkeley in 1977. The criteria for the award included excellence in practice, leadership, and contributions to the legal profession.
Monique Witt reports: “Professional demands have kept us all busy. Ben has been on U.S./European tour with Rickie Lee Jones and was featured with his sextet in the May issue of DownBeat magazine. He’s currently returning from [a] Midwest tour with his sextet (Nebula Project) and will join multiple Brazilian groups for NYC dates. Dev is working on new product development and joint ventures for ExMachina. Steven is traveling and I’m recovering from knee surgery following a sport injury.”
James Kempf updates us: “I am thinking of coming to the reunion next year but I am not sure since I live in California. My wife, Renate, and I have resolved to only fly every other year to reduce our carbon emissions and while next year is our flying year, we have another trip planned, to Europe where Renate’s family lives. I may take the train, it’s three days or so from California to Connecticut, but I could then visit with my family in Pennsylvania. Renate won’t come in any case; she does not enjoy gatherings where she doesn’t know anyone except me. And, actually, I have not been in touch with any other classmates since a year after leaving Wesleyan except for Bob Gershen. He and I have an interest in start-ups working on decarbonization.
“As for me, after a short stint in the Peace Corps subsequent to graduating from Wesleyan in 1974, I earned a master’s and PhD in systems engineering, with minor in computer science, at the University of Arizona; met in Arizona and married Renate in Germany; and we moved to Silicon Valley in 1984. I’ve lived there ever since, working for high-tech companies, primarily large companies like Sun Microsystems or Ericsson. I semiretired in 2020 and have been working on software for renewable energy companies and building decarbonization since, trying to move the energy transition forward. Right now I am the CTO at a start-up based in Seattle, building a virtual power plant system. I also am a member of an angel investing group for cleantech start-ups, and work with them on assessing start-ups with a decarbonization mission. In our spare time, we enjoy hiking, music (baroque and Renaissance as well as EDM Trance), theater, including baroque opera, and road trips in California and the West Coast.”
Blaise Noto has lived in Chapel Hill for the past 12-plus years, enjoying being back on the East Coast (via 10 years on Maui). While in Chapel Hill, he has taught communications, public relations, and digital media at a few North Carolina colleges including UNC School of the Arts, and is still actively involved in a number of committees in the motion picture academy, as well as in the Wesleyan Alumni Admission Volunteer Program. In September, he moved back to his native New York but this time upstate to the Clifton Park/Halfmoon area. (Retiring? He’ll see!) He is looking forward to coming back to Wesleyan for our 50th, catching up with friends, and the brothers at DEKE.
John McLucas is exploring options for translating his latest novel, The Boxer’s Mask, into Italian. It takes place in Rome during the pandemic and looks at the challenges of language acquisition and living abroad. He is also, at long last, correcting the proofs for his translation of Tullia d’Aragona’s epic Il Meschino (1560), forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press in its The Other Voice series, which publishes bilingual editions of books written by women in Renaissance Europe.
During a recent visit to New York, John had a wonderful lunch reunion with Jon Raskin ’73 and Steve Greenhouse ’73.
News from Gray “Jon” Cox is as follows: “I continue to enjoy teaching philosophy, peace studies, language learning, and AI-related stuff in the program for Human Ecology at College of the Atlantic in my hometown, Bar Harbor, Maine, and serve as clerk for the Quaker Institute for the Future. I am especially excited to be sharing my latest book, Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth?Dialogue and Collaboration in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, which is now available at all the usual online places as well as the publisher. Anyone interested in a review copy can download a PDF at www.smarterplanetorwiserearth.com for free or get a paperback if you are thinking of using it as a text or for reviewing it for a journal, newspaper, or newsletter. Write me at gray@coa.edu.
“I am continuing to enjoy writing songs and have included some in the book. I had a delightful time with a bunch of CSS folks in a Zoom call that Larry Green organized this year and look forward to more opportunities to reminisce and catch up as our 50th year reunion approaches!”
Christopher Moeller reports, “In late winter Carolyn White-Lesieur contacted me on behalf of the Reunion Committee. Although we had barely known each other at Wesleyan 50-plus years ago, her calls were a treat that I enjoyed immensely.
“On my request Carolyn provided my contact information to Cathy Barnes. Cathy and I exchanged several emails. Coincidentally, my wife and I had already scheduled a trip to San Francisco to visit one of her friends. The three of us met for dinner with Cathy and her husband, Peter Busch. Remarkably, Peter attended two years of high school with me in Dayton. Although we tried, it’s hard to cram 50 years into one evening!”
Rick Kronick and his wife Amy’s two daughters and their husbands moved across the street from them for a magical two years during the pandemic, one family coming from Philadelphia and the other from Seattle. Both girls had two-and-a-half-year-olds when they moved to La Jolla, and each girl got pregnant and delivered babies while in LJ. One set of in-laws also moved to a few blocks away, creating the La Jolla version of the shtetl. Sadly, everyone moved away in July 2022; the good news is that the Philadelphia family moved to Berkeley, where Dorothy is an assistant professor at the Goldman Public Policy School.
“Following the magical two-year interlude during the pandemic, it has been a tough year. I shattered my pelvis in a bike accident at the end of January (complete with surgery and 19 screws and plates), my 97-year-old mother died in March, and Amy has developed serious cognitive impairment along with her multiple sclerosis. The good news is that my recovery has gone well—back up to cycling 140 miles per week, some swimming, yoga, and even a bit of shuffling. I’m working at creating a new kind of partnership with Amy and looking forward to celebrating her 75th birthday on August 19 at a party with 20 of our friends.
“I’m not quite smart enough to retire from the faculty at the UC San Diego School of Public Health, and continue a bit of teaching, as well as my Don Quixote-like attempt to convince policymakers that Medicare Advantage plans are being overpaid to the tune of something on the order of $1 trillion over the next decade, which even by D.C. standards is a fair amount of money. Governor Newsom appointed me to the board of the newly created Office of Health Care Affordability, which promises to be an adventure.
“Although we did very little traveling in the winter when I was hopping around on a walker, we’re back to pretty regular trips to Seattle and Berkeley to visit our quite delicious and amazing grandchildren (not that I’m biased) and their parents.”
Rick Kronick and his grandchildren
John Gardner is semiretired after 45 years of work as a teacher, coach, and administrator at Avon Old Farms School. He has continued coaching hockey—this will be his 49th year coming up—and doing alumni development functions. He has also started a new business in helping to get male and female hockey players into New England prep schools, pathwaytoprep.com.
Ron Cartin shares: “Still living in Costa Rica and working as an actuary in the Costa Rican Social Security. I still love tennis but had to quit playing some years ago because of a retina detachment. Would love to get in touch with some of my friends from the Class of ’74 (specially friends from the varsity tennis team in the years 1970–1974 and from the Eclectic fraternity).”
Scott Burson informs us: “It’s been at least 20 years since I have contributed anything to class notes, but preparations for our 50th Reunion have unexpectedly flexed a nostalgia muscle. This entry should hold for another 30 years. Wendy Liebow and I married in 1979, have two adult daughters, and have lived successively in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Seattle, Washington, and Lexington, Massachusetts. After graduating from law school, I practiced law for three years. Discovering how poorly socialized I was to law firm life, I escaped to get a degree in librarianship and a seven-year career as an academic law librarian. The career thing finally stuck when I became an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, working in the Seattle and Boston regional offices over 31 years. I retired in 2018 after concluding that I did not need to continue to subject myself to the insanity of the Trump administration. Haven’t looked back. Haven’t looked forward or sideways, either, but I take well to leisure.
“Other than my retirement, the recent headline is the relocation of both of our now fully launched daughters. Allison ’07 now lives in Freeport, Maine, working for the East Coast Greenway Alliance; Esther (nominally 2010, but transferred and graduated from Swarthmore) has just started as an assistant professor of psychology at Smith College. I hope to see many of you at our 50th Reunion.”
Jill during her summer hiking tour of the Alps
Jill Fuller-Johnston reports: “In December 2020 I lost my husband (an English-French horn player) after a long and difficult period of increasing dementia. It was during the very strict lockdown in Germany, so it was a very lonely time for me. To maintain contact with the community, I continue to work, but with a somewhat reduced workload. I still teach cello three days per week at the music school and am playing chamber music with excellent colleagues—in a string quartet and a piano trio—so I still have to practice regularly. Still living in the Sauerland, one of the most beautiful regions in Germany. This summer saw me hiking from hut to hut in the Swiss and Italian Alps, followed by visits to Ticino (Italian Switzerland) and Vorarlberg (Austria.) Then the whole family finally came to visit: my daughter with her family from England and my son with his family from Bonn. Despite the fact that it rained the entire time, it was an enjoyable visit because the small children are all the same ages (two and six) and the adults also get along well.
“Since May 2022 a Ukrainian family has been sharing my house with me.”
Claudia Catania updates us: “Just returned from Lloyd Komesar’s ninth annual Middlebury New Filmmaker Festival, which served four days of fascinating films. I highly recommend it to all for next August. Some of the Wesleyan grads partaking were Wayne Forrest, Sarah Cady Becker, Arthur Fierman, Bill Pearson, Rick Gilberg, Steve Goldschmidt ’72, Mike McKenna ’73, Michael Arkin ’72, Todd Jick ’71, Bob Becker ’71, Janet Biehl, Caroline White-Lesieur, et al!
“On the home front, my husband, John Cady ’71, and I enjoy having our older son, Max, just back from New Zealand and now a STEM teacher at Design Tech in San Francisco. Our son, Gavin, owns and manages from afar his restaurant, 1000 Figs, in New Orleans even though he lives with his wife, and their one-, three-, and five-year-old sons in Denver. John and I are planning to live in Denver a number of months per year, so give a holler if you know any folks we should look up!
Claudia Catania
“I’m no longer leading Playing on Air, the audio drama series of short plays I founded (playingonair.org; you can stream it or go to the podcast), but am enjoying newfound freedom as I weigh a world of possibilities. Travel ranks high. Sempre Avanti!”
In August, the board of directors of The Music Center (https://www.musiccenter.org/) announced the appointment of several new board members including attorney Richard (Dick) Kendall. As one of the nation’s largest performing arts organizations, The Music Center presents world-class dance performances, nationally recognized K–12 arts learning programs, digital arts experiences, and free and low-cost public concerts and events. In addition, The Music Center manages four theaters, Jerry Moss Plaza, and Gloria Molina Grand Park, on behalf of the County of Los Angeles.
“Each leader of our newest cadre of board members has been positively impacted by the arts throughout their successful lives and storied careers,” said Cindy Miscikowski, board chair of The Music Center.
Dick attended his first opera, Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, when he was 12 years old. Accompanying his grandmother to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, he recalls how stirred he felt while watching the fabled production—the experience cemented his lifelong dedication to the arts. Dick, a partner at Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP, with more than 30 years of complex litigation experience, joins The Music Center’s board of directors alongside his wife, Lisa See. He has his finger on the pulse of the performing arts field; he serves concurrently as a board member of BroadStage. Having witnessed firsthand some of the challenges facing performing arts venues and theatrical stages following the pandemic, he is determined to help The Music Center and Gloria Molina Grand Park thrive. Dick is also a member of the Human Rights Watch Southern California Committee and has served on the boards of Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and Western Center on Law and Poverty. He holds a juris doctor from the USC Gould School of Law. He and his wife live in Brentwood.
Class president Bill Quigley writes that the 50th Reunion was “poignant and healing.” He said there were great seminars, including the Two Nations Now One: 50 Years of Shared Love for Wesleyan, hosted by Wayne Barber, Rich Jasper, Ron Johnson, James “Diego” Howard, Josh Boger, along with Dean [Stephen] Butler on Zoom. “There were 50 Blacks and Latinos in our class—25 of them identified as premed when they came to Middletown. Twenty-three of the 25 became doctors. Many were first generation to attend college and Wesleyan changed their lives as it did for many,” he says.
Bill writes, “Most poignant for me was when Mike Shoob told his story of personally living TheNew York Times article our freshman year, “The Two Nations at Wesleyan University,” during that seminar. When Mike went to tell his suite mate on Lawn Avenue, Charles Trahan, to turn down his stereo, he got punched in the face. He never talked to Charles again at Wesleyan but always felt bad about that. He then handed the mic to Charles who was sitting behind him. Charles said that he always felt guilty about what he did and apologized to Mike. They hugged. Pretty dramatic and it felt like real closure for our turbulent years at Wesleyan. I ended up flying with Charles Trahan on my first leg home and we had a great time talking about the reunion.”
Bill also says the film from Donald Zilkha, Steve Goldschmidt ’72, and Granderson Hale showing the incredible behind-the-scenes work they did for so many concerts at Wesleyan was very special, and I had no idea how much they had to juggle.
He also says the 50th Reunion ’73 book was “extraordinary—kudos to Mark Helfa, John Huttlinger, and Jim Powers. In keeping with one of our themes of the last couple of reunions (I Never Knew You), I have kept the book on my desk since reunion and read it often—fascinated by the lives and thoughts of our classmates. Kate Quigley Lynch, Amanda Broulik, and Lucy Diaz did an incredible [job] organizing and facilitating the reunion.”
My East College roommate from freshman year, Timothy Bahti, says, “My word to our classmates, such as it is, is that it was a pleasure to see them all again, and to get to know—belatedly—a number for the first time. I look forward to seeing them again—when? At the 60th Reunion? I encourage us all to give to the Dean Stephen Butler Fund, in honor of our freshmen dean and in the service of financial support for first-generation Wesleyan students. To those of the class going to the world rugby championship in France this fall: enjoy Paris!”
Dr. Jonathan Raskin writes, “Very sorry to have missed the 50th Reunion but was on a trip in Egypt . . . third time trying to get there due to COVID . . . and family members really wanted to go, so we did visit and had a really great trip. I hope others have a visit there on their ‘bucket list.’”
He says, “My news is that I have been made a clinical professor of medicine in the Mount Sinai Health System . . . an honor capping off decades of the commitment to teach, publish, and care for others . . . something I still do embracing hard effort and humility.”
Mike McKenna says it was wonderful to connect with so many friends at the 50th Reunion. Over the weekend he caught up with Rick Edwards and his wife, Jackie, Dave and Sheila Bong, and Mark Eaton. He writes, “Really enjoyed seeing Tim Warner and Charlie Wayne who were first-year roommates and lived across the hall from me on Foss Hill. Both are also Western Reserve alums and Tim later served as the Reserve Board chair for years. Had lunch with Tim last week at the faculty club at Stanford where he is in the administration and colleagues with Condoleezza Rice. Also loved catching up with distinguished alumna Claire Reade and her husband the great Dr. Earl Steinberg. Talking with Rich Jasper about the work he continues to do advising young lawyers with clients on death row was also inspiring.”
Mike adds, “Inspired and humbled is a good way to sum it all up, I guess. I was particularly happy that so many Black classmates made the effort to come back. Learning about their family and career successes (so many doctors!) since our graduation made me feel so grateful for Wesleyan and the time we shared together. My overall thought was that I left campus this time, if not exactly feeling old, feeling aware of being part of a unique generation. Raised by parents who went through the Depression and World War II and their values, we hit an exciting period of history that changed all of us and shaped who we later became. I feel genuine affection for those who shared the experience.”
Bill Burke flew to Connecticut from Colorado for our reunion and says, “The Reunion Committee, guided by an outstanding team from Wesleyan, did a terrific job. Sincere thanks to Mandy Broulik, Kate Quigley Lynch, and Lucy Diaz.” I agree.
Bill also says, “Our memorable reunion combined with Homecoming events last November (reunion planning meeting; reception for hockey coach Dave Snyder and his wife, Diane; catching up with hockey teammates; and beating up on the Williams football team) has been my best Wesleyan experience since graduation,” adding, “How do you follow up on a best 50th Reunion ever?”
My West College roommate from senior year, Dr. Brian Mahoney, says he was sorry to miss our 50th but “I had total knee surgery and would not have been able to make the trip nor move around Wesleyan had Nancy Collins ’74 and I had made it.”
Brian writes, “There is some fun news for all Wesleyan crew participants over these decades. On Saturday, September 30, at the halftime of the home game with Hamilton football they [announced] the NCAA Regatta Finals Silver Medal winners of both the men’s and women’s crew. They [also announced] the establishment of the Calhoun ’62 Men’s Crew Foundation and the so-far unnamed Women’s Crew Foundation. That afternoon George Surgeon ’72 and I [sponsored] a banquet in Beckham Hall to honor the legacy of Phil Calhoun ’62 for reinvigorating—first by rowing, then [by] coaching—the men’s crew (there were no women undergraduates in 1969, so women’s crew did not start until 1972, with my bride, Nancy Collins, rowing). Phil did this as an avocation while he worked in President Etherington’s administration. . . . Phil Calhoun coached me for two years and George for three years. The successful men’s and women’s crews of today were built on the granite bedrock legacy of Phil Calhoun. Contact Wesleyan Giving if you would like to donate to either/both of these 503 c-1 qualifying funds.”
Brian eloquently spoke about what Wesleyan has done for him. He says, “I graduated Wesleyan with three life-changing gifts. Number one, my bride Nancy and I are going strong after 52 years. I got the education that led to my career path in medicine at the programs of my choice. [And] crew taught me the value of lifelong fitness to which I adhere to to this day.”
It was an honor to see so many of you at the very special reunion. My daughter Dana and I shared some nice moments with my former East College roommate, Eddie Nathan, and his lovely wife at dinner. He seems not to have aged and is as colorful and articulate as ever, as are so many of you who I saw on that memorable weekend in Middletown.
“How do we follow up on that?” as Billy Burke asked. I’m sure we will.
Finally we received word that our esteemed classmate Lloyd Mueller died on June 10. Lloyd had retired as the senior supervising epidemiologist for the Connecticut Department of Health and is remembered by many for accomplishing a great deal for public health in Connecticut. He had been a member of the New Haven Quaker Meeting Association and Yale Humane Association. He is survived by his wife, daughter, and two sons, and we will miss him and his notes to us over the past 50 years.
