CLASS OF 1969 | 2025 | FALL ISSUE

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John Bach is “still the Quaker chaplain at Harvard and a painting contractor. I’m going out with my boots on.”


Chuck Taylor “spends time on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, in the Hudson River Valley, and traveling. Friends are welcome at either location. Bright lights, city lights, or beautiful, historic, lower Hudson River Valley.”


Fred Coleman continues as a “trauma psychiatrist for refugees in the USA.” He is a member of the Global Mental Health Learning Collective, with 18 teams in nine countries. (No surprise, the focus is trauma and mental health.) He says that his wife, two kids, and three grandchildren are well. This year he has traveled to Australia and New Zealand; to Maui with a daughter and her family; and to Lake George in the Adirondacks. Fred also attended a great 60th high school reunion at St. Andrews in Delaware; and he recommends reading Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley.


Bill Eaton wrote, “I met my wife, Janet, 52 years ago in Madison, Wisconsin, while I earned a PhD in sociology. We spent five years in Montreal where I taught at McGill. After five years at the NIMH in D.C., I worked as a teacher/researcher in mental health for 40 years at Johns Hopkins. I edited a prominent textbook and developed a screening scale for depression disorder that’s in wide use. We live in Kendall Crosslands, a Quaker retirement community in Pennsylvania. I published a novella, Outward Bound. I make noise in a band called Sweet Potato Fries, reminiscent of my involvement in the Wesleyan jug band, Vulgar Boatmen. I enjoy supporting Michael Bennet ’87 for governor [of Colorado].”


Harry Nothacker is “still involved in athletic activities. [I just completed] a swim/run biathlon in Rehoboth, Delaware, which I first entered in 1982. Silas Wild, and a navy roommate, encouraged me to start running. Since then, I’ve competed in about 400 races, with distances from one mile to Ironman treks.”

Harry, on right, at the Independence Day Biathlon in Rehoboth, Delaware

Dennis Marron wanted to let us know that he visited Wesleyan with his granddaughter, who he “thought was a fit. She, however needed ‘big-time football,’ so she chose Virginia Tech. . . . On another note, I have a grandson who plays football and lacrosse [and he] excels at both. Could be another ‘Hoy’s Boys’!”


Ken and Visakha Kawasaki are authors of multiple books and publications available from their Buddhist Relief Mission.

Stuart Blackburn wrote, “All good in Brighton (UK).” He has another novel due out next year; it will be set in 1940s San Francisco.

From left to right: Stuart’s wife, Judy, stepson, Michael, and Stuart

Phil Wallas sent in this sad news: “Class of ’69, Dr. Bill Demicco died in early July. He and his wife, Marie, lived in Scarborough, Maine. At Wesleyan he managed the unusual combination of pre-med studies and the demanding CSS program. He was a man of many talents: pulmonologist, father, husband, musician, painter, dancer, foodie, lobster-fest host, and more. If you knew him, you knew a thoughtful, warm, steady, funny friend for life.”

Steve Remmer also wrote of a classmate’s passing: “Jack Meier died [on May 30] after a long battle with esophageal cancer. He died at his dream home in Bluffton, South Carolina, with his wife, Claudia, by his side. Jack was a fraternity brother at Deke and roommate in New York when we both were enrolled at Columbia Business School. He was a good friend, and together with John Mihalec, the three of us spent many evenings at Deke discussing the war in Vietnam, race relations and the civil rights movement, sports, music, and women. It didn’t help our grades, but we became lifelong friends. During the past six months or so, the three of us were able to reconnect, joke a bit about ourselves, and remember those special times at Wesleyan. Jack will be sorely missed.” John added that “although Jack started out in our Class of 1969, he took some time off and actually graduated in the Class of 1970; and he played [on] the undefeated 1969 football team the fall after our graduation.”


John Lipsky ’68 responded to a Bob Dombroski comment: “I remember vividly the appearance of Janis Joplin and the Holding Company at MoCon. I was on the breakfast crew. As I sat having dinner, Janis and the band joined me and began talking. Their subsequent performance left no doubt they were headed to the big time. I saw some memorable concerts in the circular hall.”


Mid-July. Hot and wet in Old Saybrook. In cities and states around us, floods rip apart the landscape, our town a protected enclave. Daughter Liz, Josh, and family just left. The grandchildren go in many different directions at warp speed. Little speed for us. The locale offers shops, doctors, restaurants, health club, library, and theater. People I worked with are dying, multiple teachers and students this spring. The consolation—a Haddam/Killingworth reunion at Hammonasset State Park and a 60th high school reunion at Rockledge CC in West Hartford. Can’t forget Janis singing, “Ball and Chain.”

CHARLIE FARROW | charlesfarrow47@gmail.com

11 Coulter St., #16, Old Saybrook, CT 06475