Class Notes

Please write to your class secretary.

Hello, Classmates!

Jim McGonagle submitted news just a little too late for the last outing. Bob Barringer was inducted into the Wesleyan Baseball Wall of Fame along with four others during a ceremony on Andrus Field on Saturday, April 30, 2022. He was recognized for his baseball achievements during his four years as an “offensive force” for the Cardinals.  Joining Bob and his family were 1984 classmates Steve Peck, Joel Armijo, Scott Sprague, as well as Jim; along with Todd Mogren ’83, Ken Janik ’85, Tony Rella ’86, Charlie Galland ’86, Ken Johnson ’86, Tim Sullivan ’87, and Michael Cooper ’87.

Stephanie Fleischmann also wrote just past the wire to give news of her opera collaboration with composer Christopher Cerrone, In a Grove. The opera is adapted from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s story and created in collaboration with director Mary Birnbaum.   Originally commissioned by LA Opera, the Pittsburgh Opera production is available for streaming on YouTube.

Laura Simon thinks it is crazy how old we are all getting. She is (currently and still) the president of the Connecticut Wildlife Rehabilitators Association and does consulting work helping suburban/urban communities resolve wildlife issues and learn to coexist.   The current hot topic is black bears, as they are popping up in backyards throughout the state.

Michael (Misi) Polgar is coediting an open educational resource (OER) on the Holocaust. I am happy to pass along any messages to Misi if you want to know more about this project.

David Knudsen has recently launched Everything Set Inc., a start-up in the East Bay (with help from other Wes alums). His company, which is deep into beta testing, uses advanced AI on crowd-sourced real-time data to keep smart devices safe and secure.     His company website is everythingset.com, where you can get information about their Early Access program.

Mark Randles recently attended the wedding of Andy Peretz in Delray Beach, Florida, where he saw Jay and Gail Farris. Mark says it was the best wedding band he had ever seen, and Andy sat in with them on the drums (with wife Stephanie on cowbell). Mark also went to Kansas City and met up with James Glickman, Michael Bailit, David Booker, Hans Schweiger, and Bill Barry to enjoy a weekend of baseball games and museums. This Wes group has been meeting for 21 years at this point—they are headed to Toronto next year.

Paul Landau has a new book, Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries, which he has been working on for 12 years. His BA thesis (with Jeff Butler) was on U.S. policy in South Africa, so this book is a culmination of his study; Paul is a full professor at the University of Maryland, teaching the history of Africa, masked. His wife Emily teaches high school at Georgetown Day School (where Ketanji Brown Jackson is on the board).  Daughter Zoe is taking a year off from Oberlin, and Penelope is a junior counselor at Brown Ledge Camp this summer.

Paul lives a few blocks from the Capitol and had a front-row seat for the events of January 6. He lives on a pleasant and tree-lined street, but is in close proximity to homelessness, addiction, shootings, and other systemic municipal problems stemming from structural disinterest and federal neglect of the District. It is not lost on him that he is “getting ready again to teach about shantytowns, race, the role of self-told narratives in mobilizing, strong drink, the contest for public space, and White nationalism in apartheid South Africa.”

Susie Kang Sharpe is thrilled to have another exhibit of her artwork in Europe. This time it’s in Madrid, Spain. She ships her art to her fans to worldwide. Her work can be viewed: https://www.susiesharpe.net. She still enjoys being a physician and recently switched from traditional internal medicine practice to telemedicine. She loves the flexibility it provides. She is a frequent guest of many podcasts.

Maria Mead has been living in Santa Cruz, California, for the past 21 years. She is married and has two adult kids, who also live in California. She is a semiretired family practice physician—now busy with public health, trying to save our democracy, and reading and traveling as much as she can. Recently she got together with Jonathan Schwartz ’87 and Sophie Ziegler ’85, Heidi Wasch and Bob Leversee, and Veronica Masterson ’85. She is eager to hear from people visiting the Bay Area and can be reached at mariamead@gmail.com (and I have permission to forward her phone to other alums).

Kristin Kellom Damon continues to live in the beautiful Connecticut River Valley within the tri-state area of Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. She has officially retired from Northfield Mount Hermon where she worked for nearly three decades serving in a variety of roles, most recently as director of alumni and donor relations within the Advancement Office. She is relishing the extra time with family, especially being with her two sons as they launch their lives in college and beyond. In this particularly unsettled world, she increasingly appreciates the little things (that aren’t so little).

Finally, Molly (Willey) Tierney announces that she is a “grandma,” and welcomes baby boy Asher born to her daughter in May 2022.

Until next time.

Hi Class of 1983.

Yikes, the deadline is fast approaching and too much summer fun is getting in the way of responsibilities. Hey, I’m finally living on the edge! Life is good, dare I say normal, and it feels like the world can breathe again. At least for those of us fortunate enough to have access to medical care, food, shelter, and water. I’m not supposed to be political here, but dang, I’m tired of the news! Be well, safe, and enjoy the journey. Here now is what you all have to say . . . (I believe this is an online version . . . so the links should all work—it’s all new to me.)

Alice Jankell has co-founded Putnam Theatre Alliance, and the collaboration of multiple theaters has commissioned three playwrights to each write a piece about land ownership in the Hudson Valley in the tumultuous years between the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Alice will direct, and they’ll weave the pieces together into one epic play: Three writers, three bold protagonists, three unique perspectives, one big journey. Coming next year.

Ruth L. Schwartz is humbled and proud to have created what has become the leading global resource for lesbian/queer dating, relationship, and sexuality education at the Conscious Girlfriend Academy, www.consciousgirlfriendacademy.com. She’s also excited to be going to Sappho’s birthplace on the isle of Lesvos, Greece, in September, and contemplating a move there.

Kate Rabinowitz went to her first reunion since graduating. “It was so great to see people, who all looked radiant and as I remembered them. . . . Adding [to] the depth of the years we have continued our journey. The school has expanded in so many ways, yet it maintains its essence of sharp intellectual and creative pursuits.”

Andrew Bennet’s son really took a shine to Wesleyan, applied Early Decision, and was accepted. If everything goes according to plan, he graduates next May—right after our 40th Reunion. With two such auspicious events at once, Andrew will travel ‘en famille’ for that extended weekend from Madrid, Spain, where he lives. Andrew married a lady from Madrid 25 years ago and has two kids. He put a stop to his career in advertising since the start of COVID and enjoys having time to smell the roses. He writes, “I wouldn’t say I’m retired because I may well work again if the right opportunity comes along but I am not looking and only want to work again for pleasure. In the meantime, I also am helping as a volunteer for some midsize animal conservation groups in Spain with their communications and fundraising.”

Nicholas Herold and partner Emily have been in Maine for three years, hosting short vacation stays at their Portland Victorian home, in South Portland, and in Eaton, New Hampshire. They are also real estate agents (residential and commercial), but their main focus is how to keep providing an awesome experience for their guests. They operate their nine-room home like a hostel: guests in five bedrooms and three shared bathrooms, and he enjoys morning gatherings in the kitchen drinking coffee and eating quick bread. Last year they spent time in Portugal, Holland, and Belgium, and are super excited to travel to Chile in November.

After 36 years (!) of working for the New York MTA, Glenn Lunden is now a (very, very minor) YouTube star. The MTA asked him to host a three-minute video explaining why the MTA does so much track work in the New York Subway on three-day holiday weekends. Follow the link to learn a little bit about what he does as a subway planner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARBIDMVzKtQ.

Taya V. Glotzer shares: Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine Professor and Director of Cardiac Research at Hackensack University Medical Center Named American Heart Association’s Researcher of the Year (hackensackmeridianhealth.org).

Claire Gleitman writes: “I’ve just published a book, titled Anxious Masculinity in the Drama of Arthur Miller and Beyond: Salesmen, Sluggers, and Big Daddies (Methuen Drama, 2022). In addition, after 28 years as a professor of dramatic literature in the English department at Ithaca College, I’ve moved to a new role: ‘I’m now the dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at IC. It’s a big change for me, but I hope it will be an interesting one. My older son just finished a master’s degree in history and is working as an academic adviser and instructor at a tribal community college in North Dakota; my younger son works with at-risk youth and young adults in upstate New York. My husband, David, is happily retired after many years as an associate dean at Cornell University.”

Tim Brockett is partially retired and a significant portion of his time is his. He uses his newfound freedom to “pursue happiness” as Alexander Pope and Thomas Jefferson promised. His happiness projects include: creating and maintaining lovely, multi-acre, classical French and English gardens in Montana, working a few months of the year selling books online, reading the 10-volume set Gateway to the Great Books, and keeping a journal and traveling.

And here is one last note item that somehow I missed from several issues ago. Apologies to Heather Rae who recently sold everything and relocated to southeastern Florida to build a functional health and genomics practice (cutting-edge science to assess root causes of chronic health conditions: environmental toxins, nutrient levels, variants in enzymes (genes) of inflammation and detoxification, cellular voltage, and membrane lipids). Anyone interested in going beyond protocols and cookie-cutter medicine is welcome to contact her: HeatherRaeINHC@protonmail.com. Heather—having just started with a foundational practitioner here, I’m super excited to hear of your news! Best of luck and to those wondering what is this . . .  I’d say check it out!

Finally, some ’83ers sent in photos. Take a gander!

Stay safe, be well, and namaste.

What at lovely gathering at our 40th Reunion in Middletown in May. The pandemic door creaked open and a number of us were able to be together for it. Go to the Wesleyan University ’82 Reunion Facebook page and have a look as many of us have posted photos there. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/Wesclassof82).

Kudos to Sarah Chapin Columbia for her Distinguished Alumni Award and a big shout-out to Joe Fins (my COL classmate!) for receiving an honorary degree for his groundbreaking work in medical ethics (and for his service to the University, it goes without saying). Many thanks to Ginny Pye and Bob Russo for speaking at our class dinner.

Forty years is a very long time, isn’t it? It was lovely to celebrate it. Laura Fraser and I appreciated seeing you all, class notes really live. It remarkable how special it was to be together, something I hadn’t quite anticipated. I will take the liberty of writing that I really loved spending the day with Michael Lucey, eating a (large) breakfast at Ford News on Main Street, hanging out at Eclectic, reading our bound theses at COL and attending its reception, and getting a signed copy of his newest publication, What Proust Heard: Novels and the Ethnography of Talk, an amazing book.

Still, some catching up to do:

Emilie Attwell writes, “I am fine, the same. For the last 11 months, I have worked for the Harris Center. That is the mental health center in Harris County, aka Houston. Uvalde hit us hard. So did abortion laws and the heat is hotter than f@#%. Cold beer helps!”

Rob Lancefield writes that last year he retired from a 27-year career in museum work, most recently as head of IT at the Yale Center for British Art. “No regrets.” Rob is enjoying a simpler life largely free from Zoom meetings, looking forward to having his favorite guitar made playable again, and to reacquainting himself with it.

Chris Garson is still happily retired, “12 years and counting,” and very busy penning novels. “I recently completed a modern Arthurian trilogy set in northeast Ohio. If anyone has ins with publishers, shoot me a message!”

Bob Russo (post reunion) wrote, “Jeff Susla, John Brautigam, and I went to hear Graham Nash at a small, 200-seat venue. He sounded great, did a very nice show, and ended with a sing-along of Teach Your Children. Sentimental.”

Steve Maizes (my cousin!) “had the pleasure of a great California visit from Michael Zeller and his lovely wife.”

Alex Thomson is like a lot of folks, sorry he missed the reunion, having had something he could not miss that weekend. (Like so many of us. Life is busy.) Alex goes on: “I went with Moons [John Mooney] to see Phil and Friends a week ago. Only differences between the crowd at the show and the crowd in ’82 are cell phones. Same Twirlygirls, same Deadheads, same shenanigans . . . same good  friends . . . just a bit older . . . .”

Michael Levine has been living in Williamsburg, Virginia, since 2000, practicing occupational and environmental medicine. “My wife Liz is a prof at William and Mary, and son Andrew is a rising sophomore at Virginia Tech. I collect antique woodworking machinery (hoard broken and rusty things) and make some efforts to preserve American democracy.” He stays in touch with former roommates Garrett Randolph, Anthony Pahigian, and Neil Richman, and the folks from the Wesleyan crew. “I was very sorry to have missed our 40-year reunion—but look forward to seeing you all at 50!” We do too.

I will finish on a deeply sad note. Julie Kraushaar Zurcher passed away on July 23 after a struggle with her mental health that developed over the past year, unable to find a clear diagnosis or successful treatment. I had a chance to sit with her husband Werner and son Bryce ’18, in their home in Ladera, California, to remember Julie’s vibrancy, love, and optimism. I met Julie freshman year in Clark Hall and we lived near each other in Silicon Valley. When I moved here in 2010, we stayed in a hotel until our housing became available. Julie happened to be staying there, too, returning herself with her family from Switzerland and waiting for their own home to become available, and we recognized each other immediately. Her warmth and hospitality made our transition from Cambridge so much easier. She will be missed terribly, but our memories of her and how she touched us will remain.

Greetings from the heartland! I, Joanne, am writing this as summer rolls to a close: cooler evenings, shorter nights, summer’s bounty giving way to fall’s produce and falling leaves. I sincerely hope that each of you has enjoyed the fruits (and vegetables!) that the season brought including travel, relaxation, and joyful encounters with family and friends. I have noticed that people are starting once again to settle down into a pattern of acceptance of this new COVID-reality and moving forward with their lives.

Joanna Buffington writes that she is continuing to work and support land trusts on Cape Cod that focus on land and wildlife protection. She serves on the board of the Eastham Land Trust as well as volunteers for Mass Audubon, helping them in their efforts to protect diamondback terrapin nests and hatchlings, as well as helping to rescue endangered sea turtles that get stranded along Cape Cod Bay when water temperatures drop and they get trapped in their effort to return to warmer southern waters. Thank you for your efforts on nature’s behalf, Joanna!

Congratulations to Melissa Ann Coyne, who was promoted last year to city clerk for the city of Lake Worth Beach, Florida, after having served as deputy city clerk for five years. Melissa reports that her daughter Skye was married at Yosemite National Park on May 3rd. Skye recently wrapped up a starring role in Love’s Playlist (which will air on either Lifetime or Hallmark); she started filming on another project in August. Melissa’s new son-in-law is starring in That’s Amor, which airs on Netflix. “I’m a very proud mama!” she writes—understandably so!

Paul Godfrey is thrilled to announce that he and his wife, Mary Sue, are the proud, first-time grandparents of a beautiful granddaughter, Norah Sage, born to their son Charlie and daughter-in-law Hannah. Paul writes, “My specialty is taking her on long walks in the stroller so that she can get a good nap and her parents can get some work done.” I’m just wondering when she’s getting her first pair of skates and a hockey stick? Paul writes that in June, he and Mary Sue went east to the Cape from their home in Minnesota, and then out to Fishers Island, New York. They spent time with Linda and Tim O’Brien, Diane and Jim Baker, and Cathy and Jon Duane, hanging out at the beach, biking, fishing, and barbecuing for a week straight. Paul says, “For the record, the striped bass in the photo is the biggest fish I ever caught—but Jim made me return it to Long Island Sound because it was too small to keep.”

Chrissi Winkelbauer Kelly was in the beautifully preserved Germany renaissance town of Goerlitz in late August, attending a conference. She described visiting an art installation called Osmodrama—a “smell symphony” played on a device that wafts odors over you to tell a story, while a composition about the evolution of the earth played in the background. She chronicled this on her Facebook page–fascinating! Since suffering from anosmia several years ago as a result of an illness, Chrissi has become an expert in the field and is often tapped to lecture and teach.

Best wishes to Greg Davis, who recently retired to paradise from the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board), where he worked for many years as a field (staff) attorney. He made a big move not just across the country but across the ocean as well,  leaving Harlem for Maui with his wife and their five cats.  Just to confirm: “It IS wonderful . . . very tranquil with many beautiful beaches and  great weather no matter the many microclimates.” And Greg sends his best wishes to everyone.

Ed Suslovic and his wife Jen have returned to their home in Portland after many exciting weeks on the road in their new camper. This Labor Day, they officially become “empty nesters.” All three of their children (Matt, Meghan, and Kate) are all within a half-mile of each other in Somerville—which sure makes visits and family gatherings easy!

Livia Wong McCarthy, her husband Joe, and daughter Delia graciously hosted me and Kathy Prager Conrad July 4th weekend at their lovely home in Princeton. Deb Chapin had to cancel last minute due to a COVID scare, and she was sorely missed—but fortunately, she did not fall ill. In the spirit of our senior year Sunday night co-op, Liv, Kathy, and I prepared a delicious meal which we were then able to share with Shari and Mike Toohey and Lynn and Paul DiSanto. Sadly, Barb and Sandy Herzlich had to cancel at the last minute. But the evening was nonetheless delightful—we all caught up on several (and in some cases, many!) years’ worth of news, both at the table and alongside the hot tub, after which we all donned our souvenir Wesleyan socks, courtesy of Paul.

Paul Gaetano, who retired three years ago after 33 years as a Connecticut supervisory state’s attorney, is thoroughly enjoying “retirement.” He and his wife Elaine just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary with a fabulous Greek islands cruise that left out of Venice, where Paul was able to dazzle his spouse with his Italian, still sharp from his Wes study-abroad days. Following that, they traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, on their actual anniversary weekend. When he’s not traveling (his wife is Spanish), he is keeping busy as an adjunct professor at the local community college. “I love it!” writes Paul. “I teach criminal law and constitutional law courses to mostly young and ambitious students. When you retire from your full-time job/career, you certainly need to continue with a purpose and concrete goals.” Great advice, Paul, as many of us start reaching that age of retirement. I do know that many of you have already retired from one career—so please reach out and let me or David Block know what you are up to these days!

And since I have a bit of space left, let me share that our oldest son Alex is still in the Seattle area working as a software engineer consultant, solving lots of people’s problems; our middle son James is in Zurich and working at Google, specializing in AI and loving the European lifestyle; and our third son Christopher is in Chicago working as a trader and enjoying the city life. They all somehow ended up with computer science degrees and have found ways to marry that to their interests. My husband continues to teach at Indiana University, and I continue to teach my various-format fitness classes at the Student Rec Sports Center. And we travel as much as we can!

That’s it for now—and best wishes for the upcoming holiday season! And please keep the news coming! Any photos for the online edition of Class Notes should be sent as a separate jpeg attachment and not embedded within the body of the correspondence. Thanks.

Joanne

Please write to your class secretary.

Hello everyone. I hope all of you are well and thanks to all who sent news for me to share here. As I write this in August of 2022, it is a beautiful sunny and warm day here in San Diego. My husband and I just had a wonderful visit from our adult children—our son joined us from San Francisco and our daughter flew in from Philadelphia to spend a couple of weeks. I’m sure we all agree that it is great to be able to share time with loved ones again!

Amy Radin sent this lovely note: “Writing to share that we joyfully celebrated the wedding of our son Jared Radin ’12 and Annika Butler-Wall ’12 on July 3rd in San Francisco. It was a beautiful day full of sunshine and love at the General’s House at Fort Mason overlooking the Bay. Enjoyed being with the many other Wesleyan ’12 graduates in attendance and fellow alumna and Annika’s sister, Karisa Butler-Wall ’05.”

Heidi Mastrogiovanni writes:  “I’m having way too much fun writing The Classics Slacker Reads book series with series creator Cristina Negrón (who is married to celebrated marathoner Amby Burfoot ’68) and Deb Martin. So far, we have paid irreverent homage to Moby Dick, Madame Bovary, The Scarlet Letter, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, with Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby next on our horizon.”

Michelle Morancie shares the following: “I ventured into politics for the first time this past spring and was elected to the school board in Fulton County, Georgia, in May. My opponent is contesting the outcome. He claims that there were ‘inconsistencies’ in the tabulation of votes but didn’t provide any evidence. I’m hoping that the case will be dismissed by the fall. In the meantime, I am moving forward with training and will begin my four-year term in January 2023.” Congrats, Michelle, on this new chapter of your life!

Jim Flynn is still raising money for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and having a great time. He writes, “The science is amazing, and I’m happy to offer tours to classmates. Claudia Mosher ’78 and I are living nearby in Bourne, Massachusetts.”

Denise Giacomozzi shares: “My husband and I just returned from the Denver area after joyfully babysitting our granddaughter, 8-month-old Willow, daughter of our daughter Kristen May ’10.  While there, we got together with Bruce Doenecke and his husband Tom. Bruce still sings (and is president of the board) of the choral group, Ars Nova, which has quite a reputation in the Boulder area. Check out their online concerts (Bruce did not tell me to say that but they are fabulous). Next week I am looking forward to seeing Elaine Winic who will meet up with me at Chautauqua. My July 2020 plans to go there, of course, were canceled. Last night I concluded two years of volunteering for the COVID Grief Network as that organization is being subsumed into another that has paid staff. Please everyone take care of yourselves. My focus will return to writing letters for Vote Forward urging democrats to vote.  As the Rev. William Sloan Coffin was reported to have said, ‘If you want to have hope, do hopeful things.’”

Matt Okun sent the following news: “It has been a busy year for me and my wife, Annie Wong. We moved from Seattle to Aspen Hill, Maryland, to be closer to our grandchildren. We now have six between us! Two live in Alexandria, Virginia, two in Philadelphia, and the newest addition, Kian, in Brooklyn. I am very happy with my job as a staff developer at a middle school in Kensington, Maryland, and we have spent a lot of time working on our house and its gardens. So far no COVID for us, even though my school has had many cases. Blessings to all and cherish your health!”

Roelof Prins updates us: “I’m a long-lost class member of ’79. Transferred in from Leiden University in January 1977 as a junior and only spent two years at Wesleyan, which was a great time and a lifetime experience. I loved Richard Adelstein’s class at CSS! I am now (already many years) back in the Netherlands, where I run a philanthropic foundation called De Verre Bergen (for those who want to try their hand at Dutch: www.sdvb.com). I miss all my good friends from WesU and would love to catch up with them!”

That’s it for this issue. Be safe and happy. And, as Denise said, please everyone take care of yourselves.

Jennifer Atkinson reports a very pleasant ’22 in which she and Eric welcomed a second grandchild, celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary, and accordingly went on an Alaskan cruise where “icebergs and mountains and whales were the perfect antidote to COVID cabin fever.” Naturally they caught COVID from the cruise, but with Eric on sabbatical and Jennifer recently retired from George Mason University, were able to easily recuperate with rest and reading. Jennifer also reports that her sixth book of poems, A Gray Realm the Ocean, will soon be available. It combines a conversational style along with visual arts and won the Poets Out Loud Prize from the Fordham Poetic Justice Society/Fordham University Press. She plans to do upcoming readings, from Washington, D.C., on north.

Marilyn Fagelson, who I get the benefit seeing along with her husband Tony, here in New Haven, writes: “In May, Ruth Pachman and I traveled to Positano to join Elise Bean for the last week of her five-week stay in Italy. We have visited one another many times over the years, but the views and the food were so much better in Positano. Elise continues to support Congressional investigative work in Washington, D.C.; Ruth is a strategic communications consultant in New York; and I am practicing law in New Haven. Thank you Wesleyan for giving us these and other lifelong friendships!”

Lucy Mize is thrilled to report that her son Thaddeus Brown ’17 married Alex Aaron in July on their farm in Vermont. Sister Belle ’22 took care of the photography; all in all,  “a great Cardinal representation despite being a small event.” Lucy recently finished her first year of a doctoral program, “so while the number creeps up, still active at work, school, and play.”

Dave Wilson continues his successful jazz saxophone career, releasing his sixth recording as a leader this past January. The work, Stretching Supreme (Dave Wilson Quartet), is a tribute to John Coltrane, and reached #31 in the Jazz Weekly Radio Charts and #4  in the Downloads in the Play MPE Rankings. Dave continues to reside in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his wife Lisa.

Reunion 2022:

The value of reunions was made clear to me in that on Zoom calls or on social media, it is not possible to hug someone or connect in the same manner as when speaking face-to-face. Our 45th Reunion did not disappoint. As Mark Ellison summed up perfectly to me regarding the weekend: we were “overserved, overfed, and overjoyed” during the multiday event.

A few of us arrived Thursday before the festivities kicked in. Vanessa Burgess was one of my first greeters along with Iddy Olson and Jerry Stouck. While the campus was quiet, downtown Middletown was not; Iddy and I had a fine dinner joined by Iddy’s husband Tom Manning, who charmed most of the attendees throughout the weekend. The campus is undergoing many construction projects, while still hosting several exhibits and seminars including Sue Guiney’s much ballyhooed seminar on social enterprises: Founders and Funders.

Friday saw more arrivals: Cindee Howard and Jane Goldenring were in fine form. At check-in we ran into Felice Burstein, John Roxby, Arnie Alpert, Arlene Lappen, and Betsy Hecker and husband Jay. Making our way to the President’s Reception, we bumped into J. Mark Beamis, Jeff Shames, Mike Coffey, and Don Lowery. The Friday night kickoff cocktail took place at the Wesleyan Film Center where many folks joined in. In addition to those previously mentioned, we had a chance to catch up with: Sarah Kendall, Rich Swanson, Bob Glasspiegel, Hal Garneau and Dan Waters, Sue Guiney and her husband Don, Sue Berger, Kate Seeger, Jim LaLiberty, Lisa Brummel and husband Joel, Bonnie Katz, and Dave Thomas. My apologies go out to those significant others/spouses whose names I didn’t manage to retain, even though I attempted to return back to my room each day to record who I saw. After cocktails, several of us continued to dinner at the Usdan Center.

The traditional class parade and award ceremony Saturday added more class alums: Mike Balf, who had to have traveled the farthest for the event from Israel, Tom Roberts, Andy Darpino, Ted Stevens, Dave Levit, Don Ryan, George Capone, and Buddy Taft. Ron Bloom received a Distinguished Alumni Award, Susan Clark Webster received an Outstanding Service Award immediately after the parade. Lunch brought in several other classmates, some making brief cameo appearances: Doug Green, John Houston, and Alex Kotlowitz connected with some of us and seen across a crowded tent by others. At our major event, the class dinner at Usdan complete with outdoor balcony, I was able to at minimum visit with, if not hug, Louise Hazebrouck and husband Steve Rome ’78, Amy Breslow, Dan Ruberman, Dorothy Crenshaw, Jane Eisner (on crutches along with husband Mark Berger ’76), Mark Slitt, Andy Adesman, Sharon Adler, Jonathan Bailey, Jonathan Kligler, Paul Mason (with his lovely daughter Olivia), Paul Malnati, Steve McNutt, artist Will Sillin, and John Gaebe. Mike Balf started things off with a rousing welcome to all in attendance. At our dinner, Don Lowery, Sue Guiney, Jane Klemmer (in absentia), and Jerry Stouck received Wesleyan University Service awards.

If there are folks that I did not acknowledge as being present, please let me know so that I can mention you in the next issue. It is certainly true that social isolation for the two previous years made being together with folks who played a pivotal role in our lives 45 years earlier that much more special. I remember visiting colleges 50 years earlier and thinking about what my hopes for a college experience would include. Wesleyan stood out as a place where meeting and getting to know exceptional people would happen. With that said, forward to today: My expectations far exceeded what my 17-year-old self ever imagined.

Reminder that if you’re on Facebook, there are two groups that might be of interest to you:  “Wesleyan 1976” and “Wesleyan in the 70s” (the more active of the two).

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with notes!

Debra Hafner writes: “My life has changed pretty dramatically post-COVID. I’ve gotten divorced and I’m moving from Reston, Virginia, to be the interim minister at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington, New York, in August. I’m excited about the new possibilities ahead! Since our services are now online each week, I’d be delighted to have classmates join us at 10:30 a.m. EST on Sundays! I’d also love to connect with anyone who lives on Long Island. It’s a bit daunting to move at 67 to a new community!”

Mike Donnella reports: “My second attempt at retirement did not stick, and I just finished my first year teaching and running the Center for Compliance & Ethics at Temple University Law School. Though a different time and place from Wesleyan, I am enjoying the experience, despite the occasional flashback. Guest speakers are welcome at the Center. Let me know.”

Phyllis Bethel is “[e]njoying semi-retirement from music therapy. Our son graduated from Princeton and our daughter is a rising sophomore at Vassar. Tina and I are counting our blessings having avoided COVID thus far. Can’t believe I am going to my 50th high school reunion!”

Oliver Griffith: “I’m still living in Paris after retiring from the World Bank in 2016 and should get my French citizenship in the near future. I find France to be a far more rational country than the U.S. I continue to write freelance for NGOs, corporations, and international organizations, but am also doing a lot more performing in Parisian jazz clubs. I combine this with travel around Europe, which was great during COVID with far fewer tourists, and more recently worldwide in Club Meds (free vacations). A couple of months ago, I had dinner with classmates Alida Jay and Meg Walker, who had been with me in Paris 48 years (!!) earlier for the Wesleyan Program in Paris.”

Carol Bellhouse says: “We have snow on the mountains (August 10) so I’ll be heading back to my winter home in southern New Mexico soon. It’s been a great summer in Colorado—I’m attaching photos of the fresh snow, the moon in the aspens, and my waking view every morning. Love it here, but not so much when there’s 12 feet of snow on the ground!”

Barb Birney is ‘[l]ooking forward to celebrating my 50th high school reunion in Amherst, Massachusetts. Following that, I’ll be visiting my 97-year-old parents in Virginia. Dad is Bob Birney ’50. Post-COVID retirement activities are a lot more fun with restrictions lifted. Currently, I volunteer at the Mount St. Helen’s Forestry Learning Center. Interpreting a BIG BOOM story is always effortless.”

Rob Buccino is “[s]emi-retired and splitting time between Manhattan and northwest Connecticut, playing a lot of music, gardening, and daydreaming. Daughter Nora just got an MBA from NYU and started working with McKinsey. Shout-out to David Apicella and the Eclectic crew from way back when.

David Harmin and I have had a wonderful summer taking part in mini-reunions. We got together for lunch in Rockport with Karen Gervasoni and her new husband, Greg Horan, Mel Blake, Beth Penney Gilbert, and—of course!—Tom Kovar. (For me, it’s not a reunion unless Tom is there.) Everyone is well. We were evenly split between those of us who are still working and those who were retired. I have to say that the retired group made an excellent argument for joining them! Karen and Greg are taking off on a cross-country road trip in their camper van, seeing America before winter sets in. We’ve also seen Nina Rusinow Rosenstein, her husband Simon, Marjorie Allen Dauster, and Rip Dauster ’74 for our semiannual get-together; all are well and, once again, enjoying retirement.

Nic Collins sent in class notes! It’s his first time; I’m hoping other classmates will decide if Nic can do it, they can do it too. Here’s his report:

“This may be the first time I have ever submitted to the alumni magazine. Which puts me in a poor light indeed, considering the depth of my gratitude and affection for my Wesleyan experience. Given Karen’s carte blanche on length for this online issue, some background might be in order. I met Alvin Lucier on my third day on campus at the end of summer in 1972. I performed at his memorial service in New York two months ago. In the 50 intervening years, I dragged my family around the world on ‘nothing more than boops and beeps,’ in the words of one puzzled friend—despite our cheerful dean (Sheila Tobias?) calling me into her office in the fall of our senior year to confess, “Wesleyan doesn’t have a great job-placement record for electronic music majors.”

“Maybe not, but I survived (marginally at times, I admit) thanks to what Wes provided. I met Susan Tallman ’79 in the Arts Center, married her in Essex, raised said family with her (Ted, b. 1990 in NYC; Charlotte, b. 1995 Amsterdam), and we’re still together. I was lucky to grab a Watson Fellowship on the way out of Middletown, which sprinkled me around Europe for a year. San Francisco in the late 70s, NYC’s East Village in the 80s, Amsterdam and Berlin in the 90s. In 1999, running on freelance fumes with two kids in international schools, I accepted a teaching job at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I wrote a book on hardware hacking for music, now in its third edition (see http://www.handmadeelectronicmusic.com), whose resulting sounds would be familiar to anyone who took a class with Lucier.

“The pandemic coincided with a sabbatical that should have been spent back in Berlin but instead confined me to the old family summer house in West Falmouth, Massachusetts. I can’t complain, but it was not the most musically conducive location for an urbanite until, in those fraught months between the election and the inauguration, I somehow managed to produce this: http://www.nicolascollins.com/LuckyDip.htm.

“Not to finish on a down note but, speaking of fraught, I’ve never been as worried about the future of this country and the larger world as I have in the last five years. I’m keeping my Chilean passport current, renting a small apartment in Berlin, and hoping that one of these two lifeboats can float me if things get even grimmer. But what am I leaving to my children?”

And, finally, Seth Lerer sent me this lovely piece, entitled “Bicentennial: A Wesleyan Memory”:

“There were weeks when every day could be a poem. Sunrise, sunset, a great sandwich, or a blade of grass. My undergraduate ambition was to take the sublime and the stupid and turn it into poetry, to live a life rewarded in the verbal transformation of the everyday into the eternal. I’d spend hours looking for such inspirations, walking corridors, standing in the rain, or orchestrating crazy things to do that would be done just for the memory of having done them: a 2am mock Bar Mitzvah in the dorm, a drive to Montreal for breakfast, a staying-up-all-night reading the Aeneid out loud in Latin.

“In the spring of 1975, I realized that the opportunity was there, at last, for something lasting. I don’t know how I heard about it, or even if I knew what to expect, but I became convinced that spending April 18 on the common in Concord, remembering the ride of Paul Revere, the shots heard round the world—that this would be the moment that would make me a poet.

“Again, it was so long ago I don’t remember how I planned this trip or how I got there. But I do remember that I asked a girl to go along. Her name was Pam, and I cannot conjure up our friendship or why I asked her (did I ask her first or last?). But somehow, Pam and I got on the Peter Pan bus from Middletown, Connecticut, and made it to Concord on the night of April 18. I do remember that she wore bell bottom jeans and a white t-shirt with a sweater, and I dressed up in my tweed jacket and my button-down shirt, and as we both walked into Concord common—already, shortly after sunset, filled with people on the grass, playing guitars, having a picnic, dancing—we must have seemed like travelers from another time, beamed in to witness a great moment in history, except missing the date by 200 years.

“There were some speeches. Someone showed up in a tricorn hat. I don’t think Pam and I said much to each other, but by 10 pm or so we were both bored and hungry. Pam’s mother and her stepfather lived somewhere in the Boston area, and she suggested that we crash with them and cadge a meal. We got up off the grass, and walked away, and as we walked, our hands found each other, and our fingers interlocked. Like tendrils looking for a tree, I thought. And at that moment, even though we’d never kissed, we’d never talked romantically, we’d never done a thing—at that moment, it was the most intimate experience I’d ever had, unspoken, unrequested, two hands in the aftermath of a great historical anticlimax.

“We wound up, unannounced, at her house and without seeing her parents, Pam let me sleep in the guest room and she disappeared into what must have been her own, old room. The next morning, having showered but put on the same clothes from the day before, I met her stepfather at breakfast. He was a Chinese man in his 50s, reading the newspaper, and picking at what must have been last night’s chicken dinner. He looked at me, I sat down at the table, and without breaking eye contact, he picked up a whole chicken thigh with a pair of chopsticks and, through some trick of leverage, held it up and split the bone in half, the piece now hanging together by remaining bits of skin and meat, and I could hear that snap, and he brought the whole thigh up to his mouth and took a bite and put the rest down on the plate, and never stopped looking at me.

“Somehow, with or without Pam, I made it back to Middletown. I knew I had my poem in my head, and in an afternoon I wrote it down.

“Bicentennial”

Emerson, obsessed with pageantry,

Saw revolution in sunrise,

Doctrine at dawn.

He saw himself enmeshed in memory

Of dead for liberty

In Concord, crotch of history.

In the moment is the glory,

In the memory is the myth,

In the dream is history.

“I read it out loud to myself a few times, and then typed it up. It looked so clean on the good piece of bond paper, the ribbon from the typewriter, recently replaced, giving each letter a depth and heft that I could feel as I ran my fingers across the sheet. I typed up three or four more poems that day, ones I’d written in a class with Richard Wilbur— mannered, learned things about the clown Will Kempe in Bedlam and the pet fox kept by Stalin’s crony, Nicholai Bukharin, and a couple of translations from Old English. Still on a high, I folded them in thirds and took them to the library, where I found the current issue of The Southern Review and copied out the name and the address of the editor. I ran back to my room, typed up a cover letter and an envelope, put too many stamps on it, and mailed it. No self-addressed stamped envelope, no nothing else. Just the poems.

“Classes would be over in a month, and certainly, as I remember, before we were done, I got a letter in my postbox telling me that The Southern Review was going to run my poem, “Bicentennial,” in their Spring 1976 issue and that I would receive a check for $15 upon publication.

“I floated out of the mail room, walked up the hill and stood facing the football field, the May breeze catching the letter in my hand and making it flutter like a wing.

“A full year later, weeks before graduation, three copies of The Southern Review appeared in my mailbox, along with the check. There was the poem, my name, and my name again in the notes on contributors. I flipped through. There were unpublished poems by Delmore Schwartz, essays by Kermit Vanderbilt, Larzer Ziff, and Albert Guerard. There was a translation of something by Paul Valery and a review of a book of poems by the then barely known Geoffrey Hill.

“Fifteen dollars was a week of student groceries. A round of drinks for virtually everyone I knew. A round-trip ticket to Concord. I sent the poem to Richard Wilbur, ensconced in his pastoral in Cummington, Massachusetts, and he wrote back right away, letting me know how he ‘much liked the movement of Bicentennial’—such a Wilbur phrase, with its inverted word order and its alliterative push. Did he craft such sentences, or did he really think like that? And, rereading my poem, now, what made me think it literature? So full of adolescent overstatement. Who writes a poem with the word “crotch” in it? After over forty years of teaching, I can imagine how Wilbur must have reached deep to say something positive about such lines.

“I graduated, went to Oxford, to Chicago, and to teaching jobs at Princeton, Stanford, and the University of California at San Diego (where I served as dean of Arts and Humanities for five years that would fill a whole magazine, let alone a class note). I wrote a dozen books. I won awards. You would think all of this would have filled me with self-esteem. But then, they say there’s nothing like your first time.”