Tag: 1957

The column features tales of grandchildren and Reunion headgear. I’ll lead off with Jeff Williamson reporting from Madison Wisc., on his and Nancy’s six grandchildren. Sarah ’16 returned from junior year study in archaeology at UCL in London, and Erin starts out at Middlebury. Nancy attended Erin’s graduation from high school in Berkeley, Calif., while he stayed home to attend A.J.’s ceremony. Neil and Maya are in high school, and Alex is the youngest. The Wiliamsons spent much of the summer at their vacay home in Newfield, Maine. They plan to attend Sarah’s Wes graduation; Jeff has saved the ’57 cap and expects to wear it at one or more Commencement events.

Dick Cassie writes of completing a three-day faculty stint in oral diagnostics at Rutgers’ School of Dental Medicine. He met two Wes graduates studying there. Escaping from the fierce winter of ’15, he headed south to Florida, played golf in Tampa and then moved on to Delray Beach, visiting with Roger Toner. Dick now makes his year-round home in Bedminster, N.J., in a high-rise condo, commenting that he’s as “happy as a Jersey clam at high tide,” a unique real estate testimonial if I’ve ever come across one. Of course when he wants to experience authentic seashore life, he can be found at his summer retreat on Long Beach Island. His grandchild tally numbers three, one in college and two in high school.

Bill Shepard and wife Lois traveled on a lengthy Mediterranean cruise this past May. Bill was a guest lecturer, offering talks on destinations such as Marseille, Provence, and the Amalfi Coast. Stops also included Corsica, Monaco, Barcelona, and Rome. He said he was tempted to try his luck in a casino in Monaco, betting on number 22—said to be the lucky number in Casablanca but backed away from such a heady commitment (perhaps the favorite wager of the usual suspects?). Bill adds that this time the couple went “incognito,” mentioning that a year ago in St. Petersburg (Russia, that is) his ’57 cap was much in evidence. Well, our cap is bold red, is it not?

A note from Al Kalb finds him enjoying his 16th year of retirement and still swimming for recreation. He has eight grandchildren, with two of them in college, one at Colby and another at Emory.

Find Whitey Johnson and wife Paula enjoying Mt. Holyoke and Wes reunions cherishing “…old times, old friends we hold to you, hands joined…” (that is right out of the song book—“Campus Memories”). We can count on Whitey for ’17! Bob Smith and Betty Smith went up to Montreal this past May to attend games at the Women’s World Cup, along with two of their sons. All are strong soccer fans. Bob stays in touch with Jerry Baker and his wife, Peggy, and George Davies and his wife, Dusty.

Yours truly and Joan weigh in with “My Three (grand) Sons”, Johnny, 15, Wil, 13, and Tommy, 6. The oldest served as his h.s. freshman class president and plays second base on the frosh team. Will is into track and Tommy is a standout KG grad. Oh—the cap—I wear it in summertime when driving my red Solara convertible with the top down. Its condition has just the right seasoning for the occasion, and I, too, am saving it for our 60th. I hope that all of you are doing so as well, for when we convene in 2017.

Mark Feldman writes that daughter Ilana ’91, associate professor of anthropology at GWU, was recognized as a fellow at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies for 2016. Recent activity for Mark included a presentation at the Center for Strategy and International Studies on “Presidential Power to Normalize Relations with Cuba.” He adds a p.s. that perhaps POTUS listened in.

Honors for ’57 sons and daughters continue: From Bob Sharlet, whose son Jeff, an English professor at Dartmouth, won an ‘Ellie’ at the National Magazine Awards Ceremony in New York in February for Best Reporting 2014 for a piece on Russia. The ‘Ellie’ is magazine journalism’s equivalent of the Pulitzer.

In the “…around the world” category we hear from Nancy and Jack Braitmayer about cruise itineraries as far-flung as the Azores, Canary Islands, and Iceland. Jack has a special interest in the Spanish and Portuguese islands because of his long-time association with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which town and adjacent communities host a significant population from said islands, the heritage of seafaring folk coming to New England to ply their trade.

But wait—there’s more. A winter cruise to Caneel Bay proved to be an appropriate venue to celebrate Jack’s 85th birthday. Then he adds a story about losing a long-held marina slip in southwest Florida due to the owner’s decision to close down and convert the property to a horse farm. That’s right. (Look—I write the column based on what you guys deal over the transom.)

Bill Shepard embarked on a project of transcribing his father’s notebook from World War I. Serving in the Signal Corps, he saw action on the Western Front in the Metz section of Lorraine. He describes receipt of the message ending the war in 1918. Bill adds that his dad’s interest in radio communication as a boy included hearing messages from the Carpathia about the Titanic. I was fascinated by all of this—thinking our class’ fathers would more likely to have WWII experience—Bill told me that his father left Harvard in sophomore year and enlisted. After the armistice he returned there and graduated in 1920. The father kept in touch with his company mates throughout life and Bill grew up with many of his stories, which influenced Bill’s feeling that France—where he spent many of his State Department years —never seemed to be a foreign country to him. The work is available as an e-book at Amazon under the title Over There: A Doughboy in France 1918. All net proceeds will go to the Wounded Warrior project.

More “Author, Author.” Hank Fulton’s effort, Dr. John Moore (1729-1802): A Life in Medicine, Travel and Revolution, was published by the University of Delaware Press in late 2014. Moore was a figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Hank and his wife continue to work on family histories.

Bob Gorin reports the family rooting on daughter Bethel ’90 in the NYC Marathon last November. Her time was good enough for qualification in the Boston Marathon. Bob continues to be an avid in-person Wes football fan; he attended the Amherst game, a tough overtime loss on a rainy field, with grandson David, 14.

Sadly, we have lost Jack Corrodi, who died in Malibu, Calif., in January. Jack and wife Kay were renowned for their devotion to the adoption of many underprivileged children, mostly from Central and South America, all while managing a thriving real estate business in their home town.

Those of us who attended our 50th remember him as we always had. As the emcee for the Class Dinner he was in wonderful humor, charismatic as ever. Jack’s passing is Wes’s loss, ’57’s loss. His legacy remains the lives he touched, the lives he elevated. Our deepest condolences to Kay Corrodi.

In addition, I report on the death of Jon Ocksrider after a long illness. Herb Camp writes that his former roommate and Sigma Chi brother had been in  and out of hospitals for some time. His wife, Dottie, said that there were extensive medical issues confronting him. Our sympathy to the family.

Art Typermass | AGType@msn.com
144 East Avenue, #302B, Norwalk, CT 06851 | 203/504-8942

Summer highlights and high life for Lois and Bill Shepard comprised an extensive lecture cruise to Scandinavian and Baltic ports aboard the impressive-sounding Brilliance of the Seas Baltic out of Harwich, U.K. Ports included Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg, the last featuring a visit to the Peterhof. One nice surprise was the city of Tallinn. Bill recalls his stint as a Baltic desk officer during his State Department days, yet never visited Estonia until now. He also commented that he picked up on some anxiety there over Russia-Ukraine. Estonia was a former SSR. I guess history is never that far removed. Back in the USA, they were in Michigan in August at a granddaughter’s wedding in a lakeside setting.

Closer to home and not that distant, Mike Stein and wife Jasmine made trips to James Madison’s home, Montpelier, near Orange, Va., and also to Monticello, where a new visitors’ center awaits those touring Thomas Jefferson’s home. He adds that they both appreciate living in an area rich in American culture. Coming up on their list are Civil War battle sites, including Bull Run, very nearby their home. Some of those are on the bucket list of yours truly, so I’ll be interested in Mike’s forthcoming reports.

With this column largely dealing with summer pursuits, it strikes me as how transitory the season is, now that colder days have arrived. Like a line from a Paul Simon song: “July, she will fly, and give no warning to her flight.”

Talk about filling “the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run” (Kipling—I was always taught to acknowledge quotes in English 1-2), Gordy Wilmot reports on his family’s annual sleepover party for nine grandchildren, ranging in age from 6 to 25. All manner of sleep equipment is trotted out: beds, mattresses, sofas, loveseats, and so on. Games included football, Uno, and Twister (yes, really). Late night rewards included pizza at one a.m. For those able to rise early, Marilyn cooked a pancake breakfast. Readers of the column may recall that Gordy treated his family to a Bermuda cruise last year. Uno and Twister were also played on that occasion. Wow—it sure is good to have the Wilmots as grandparents.

Early this past summer, Joan and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. We took our family, including three grandsons, ages 5, 12, and 14, to the Sagamore resort on the southern end of Lake George. Luckily, the late June weather was cooperative, so all enjoyed a variety of activities such as golf, boat rides, and paddle boarding. Service and dining were exceptional, and they even recently opened an indoor rec center for rock climbing, mini golf, and even a whiffle baseball stadium. The grandboys made good use of it all.

Art Typermass | AGType@msn.com

Some corresponding with Mike Stein—we were remembering Scott Aiken and our Argus days—led to a story dealing with careers, choices, and the like. Mike was positioned to pursue journalism after his Marine Corps stint concluded in 1960. After a writing exam under the auspices of the Charlotte Observer was successful, he was accepted at Columbia Journalism, but couldn’t manage the cost—he said he earned all of $11,000 in three years of duty—so he went to work for the CIA where among other things he served in Vietnam as an intelligence officer and continued in that career. Here, I’ll add my own editorial comment that there’s probably a lot of additional stories in his catalog that would require security clearance for disclosure. Mike stays in touch with Carey Congdon, Bill Daley, and Bob Sharlet. He is looking forward to our 60th.

Bob Gorin writes in with the observation that this year would be ’57’s 57th anniversary, but he stopped short of lobbying for an intermediate Reunion—which is perhaps a good idea, but it’d have to be informal. He reports that his four grandchildren, ranging in age from 6 to 14, are busy in their respective school and sports activities. To borrow a title from a recent movie (which I recommend) The Kids Are All Right and they keep their grandparents young at heart.

Tony Austin is a regular contributor to the column, and he continues with commercial fishing off the North Carolina coast. I wanted to learn more about it from him, so here goes. He left academia in the late 1960s and was a Cape Codder for many years (the Capies call late-comers—that’s anyone arriving after the 18th century—washashores), originally as a lobsterman and then fishing out of Wellfleet, Harwichport, and Chatham. He’s been in North Carolina for 25 years and runs a 34-foot Duffy & Duffy, Ruthie’s Redress, and fishes for black sea bass some 20 miles offshore. Tony has also advised Puerto Rico on development for Vieques (island). He adds that during the Cape years, he tied up next to the owner of the Andrea Gail, the now famous boat of The Perfect Storm, which, of course, was written by Sebastian Junger ’84.

A better book than the movie, in the opinion of yours truly. My house in Chatham is minutes from Tony’s marina on the Cape. Our family has been summering on the Cape for many years, and it’s possible we enjoyed some of Tony’s catch back in the day.

On the literary front lines, Jim Brown alerts us to the recent publication of Mystery of the Mona Lisa by his son, Dr. Chris Brown. There’s a book tour, an expected second printing and, yes, a movie in the offing. The book is part of a trilogy focusing on heady subject matter such as the Shroud of Turin and the Ark of the Covenant. Jim adds that his youngest, Kimberly Stalford ’88, is a psychiatrist and lives in Asheville, N.C. Jim plans a move there next year to be near her family, including three grandchildren.

The West Coast is calling in the form of Allen Jay, who like so may of our classmates is enjoying grandchild-time. Sometimes it feels as though we are going around again, with the added perk of being able to leave when you want. Anyway, based on a heads-up from Sam Bergner, he and wife Ricky looked up Jeff Morgan ’75 and spouse who produce Kosher wines at their Napa Valley winery in St. Helena, which is the kind of town featured in the movie Sideways ( which I also recommend). Allen and Ricky give great reviews for the pinot noir and cabernet choices, which have earned marks in the 90s from Wine Spectator. To validate their review, the Jays purchased cases of the Landsman Pinot Noir and the Covenant Cab. He did not indicate in his note whether or not he intended to share any with Sam. We’ll have to wait and see.

I’m writing this on a grey-toned afternoon in early spring, but with the near future in mind, thus I trust all are enjoying the summer.

Art Typermass | AGType@msn.com
144 East Avenue, #302B, Norwalk, CT 06851 | 203/504-8942