Art Rhodes: “Sorry that I won’t be coming to Homecoming—too much going on in Chicago and New Orleans, homes of our extended family. I stopped seeing patients (Rush University Medical Center) in November 2019, after 20 years at that institution, and fully retired from medicine November 2020, after 50 years of academic medicine (Harvard, University of Pittsburgh, and Rush Medical College). Spending time with wife Leslie Newman (accomplished artist and designer), extended family, renovating a house in the Chicago suburbs, and getting back to photographic activities (see ‘Papazaydeh’ on Instagram for posted photographs). Leslie and I greeted our 11th grandchild on July 24, a vibrant and healthy boy. Two other grandchildren entered their freshman year in college, and a third grandchild entered their senior year in college. Wishing my classmates health and happiness in our remaining years during these tumultuous times.”
Peter Kelman: “What a strange last couple of years it’s been. So far, my wife (Therese) and I and most (but not all) of our family have managed to make it through two years of the pandemic without becoming infected (as far as we know). During the first two months of the pandemic, I wrote and published a blog that sought to deconstruct and clarify the mixed messages coming from public health officials, scientists, and self-proclaimed experts across the political and philosophical spectrum (like the OR doc from Wisconsin who scared everyone about touching anything that came into our homes). The blog had attracted some 600 subscribers by the time I closed it down in early May 2020, when our Vermont governor and State Department of Health began to hold twice-weekly press conferences in which they explained the science behind their recommendations and occasional edicts. In late June 2020, we bought a new, age-in-place suitable home in Montpelier and the following May we sold our prior sweet, little, but totally unsuitable, home on the other side of town. (In both buying and selling, we managed to time the crazy Vermont home sales market just about perfectly.) During the winter of 2021, when it seemed to many that the pandemic would never end, I organized and hosted a Zoom get-together of 100 members of my Staples High School graduating class for what would otherwise have been the year of our 60th Reunion; among the more than 20 excellent speakers were our Wesleyan classmates Jerry Melillo and Ted Dreyfus. In June, I celebrated my 78th birthday with a Zoom gathering of another 70 or so friends and relatives spanning most of my lifetime. Meanwhile, for the past two years, rather than despairing about the deterioration of civility and empathy in our nation, I’ve focused locally, organizing neighbors and other Montpelier residents around issues of concern regarding housing, homelessness, and growing inequality in our city and region. Lately, most of my reading has been written by contemporary, POC, hyphenated Americans, many of whom are women, rather than the dead white male authors we read almost exclusively during our years at Wesleyan. As a result, I am learning much that I never learned in all my 20 years of formal education, and I am becoming more aware of my own narrow understandings as a privileged white male. I particularly commend to you several works of fiction: How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue; The Sentence by Louise Erdrich; No-No Boy by John Okada; Passing by Nella Larson, and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, as well two very important works of nonfiction—Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American, which I receive by email and read every morning, and last but not least The 1619 Project created by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, a compendium of Black history and culture that has shifted my understanding of America like no other book I have ever read.”
Bob Barton: “I want to share the story and image below. These help me stave off depression over the ongoing flood of negative realities—COVID, environmental disaster, Ukraine, the ease with which one man rallied millions to help him nearly destroy our democracy, the derailment of the Supreme Court, my arthritis, etc. Last year, before the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, Brian Resnick wrote: ‘The largest space telescope in history is about to blow our minds <https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/22664709/james-webb-space-telescope-launch-date-december-science-hubble>.’ He now considers his mind blown. NASA has finally revealed its first images from the space-based observatory. These images are decades in the making and come after years of delays and budgets being blown. <https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst#:~:text=The%20James%20Webb%20Space%20Telescope%20(JWST)%20is%20expected%20to%20cost,support%20five%20years%20of%20operations.> But they do not disappoint. Consider this fraction of the very first image released by the space agency: What makes this image so mind-blowing is how small it is, and how large it is, at the same time. It’s small in the sense that this image represents only a teensy tiny portion of the night sky. Imagine you are holding out a grain of sand at arm’s length. The area of sky that grain covers— that’s double the size of the area captured in the above image. But it’s huge in the sense that nearly every object in this image is a galaxy (besides the bright spiky starburst, which is a star in the foreground). Think about that: In every pinprick of sky, there are thousands and thousands of galaxies, at least.”
An update for the Geoff Geiser family: “We are living the good retiree life. Carole and I celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary in June. We spend winters at our primary residence in Churchville, Pennsylvania (Bucks County). Our summer residence is in Long Beach Township, Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Our two children, Erik and Lynn, and their families, are doing well. Our four grandchildren are also thriving. Zachary will be the last to graduate from college, one more semester to go. We look forward to our get-togethers during the holidays and at the beach house. This can be difficult considering all of their busy schedules. If any classmate is in either area, give us a call. Stay well. Geoff”
John Graves: “Dear Classmates, it seems like ages since I reconnected with many of you during our 50th! We’ve managed to survive two presidential elections, an insurrection at our nation’s Capital, a rapidly evolving pandemic, and the sad losses of several of our teachers and classmates. I was particularly saddened to hear of the losses of Professor John Maguire and his protégé, our dear friend and classmate Ron Young, both of whom were truly inspiring leaders.
“Meanwhile, I published my memoir, Lessons on the Road to Hope: A Psychiatrist’s Journey, Stillwater River Press (2020), now available in paperback on Amazon. In early chapters, I describe how I suffered from my first depression in my sophomore year at Wes, which forced me to drop out of my pre-med classes (later completed at Columbia). I transitioned, while at Union Theological Seminary, to entertaining a vocation in the ministry, rediscovering my interest in medicine, entering medical school, doing research in transplant surgery, and ultimately choosing psychiatry.
“I’ve been happily retired since 2016 from a general adult private practice involving teaching residents, running outpatient groups for men and bipolar patients, consulting and taking leadership roles in several public and private agencies, and treating a fascinating variety of patients with an individualized, eclectic approach.
“I’ve also had the pleasure of reconnecting with Fred Joseph and his lovely wife Anne for some incredible fly-fishing last fall in Estes Park (thanks again, Fred). I relished the opportunity to attend a Zoom session with Rob Abel, his young Wes protégé, Zoe Garvey ’20, and Hugh Wilson focusing on various psychiatric and cognitive syndromes associated with eye diseases. Bob Bast and I spoke at length following his reading of my memoir. He, not surprisingly, reported that he is revising the 11th edition of his definitive oncology text and continues, in his late 70s, to see clinic patients and train residents and fellows at MD Anderson. What a distinguished career!
“After a recent scary experience of mini-strokes, carotid surgery, followed by COVID-19 contracted in the hospital post-op, and an infusion of monoclonal antibodies, I’m resuming my walks, piano playing, and looking forward to resuming fly-fishing next month, as well as visiting shut-ins from my church parish. Life is good and I feel blessed to be alive.”
