Tag: 1968

I heard from Jeff Talmadge: like most of us, he “didn’t go anywhere or do anything” in 2020. “A year of patience, resilience and caution. . . . While the world, and especially our beloved country, has been in chaos, we have turned to family and close friends more than ever for recreation, love and comfort.” 

     Bob Knox made my day by doing something very simple that you too could do: he called me out of the blue. One of those Stanford guys who never returned, he is a still practicing attorney in Marin County. When asked why he is still working, he confided that he enjoys it— trying to extract money from insurance companies who won’t pay little old ladies whose house burned down. Two special things: running through the woods with a bunch of friends every Saturday and getting back to the guitar (taking lessons from a very fine teacher). Two sons. Three grands. Keeps in touch with John Mergendoller. 

     Mark Johnson, a JV oar out of South Kent who entered in the fall of 1965 but—being a rambunctuous EQVer­—didn’t finish until 1971. He reached out and we had a lovely chat with a lot of crew stories and friends in common. Mentioned Louis Loeb ’67­—someone I only knew as a legend—and Nat Greene (someone we all knew as a terror but he’s mellowed). Mark is a musician of a funny sort (computer stuff etc.) who taught, played and stayed in California. When reality hit, he took his IT skills into banking and then, more happily, into economic forecasting and lobbying for hospital systems. Lucky in love, Mark is married and has four grown sons and two grands.

     Confession: as I told John Lipsky if I’d been in EQV, I probably would have grown up faster. But then would I have had as much fun?

     I got another glorious call from out of the blue: John Shobert, an oar on our ’65 and ’66 V. He left Wes after sophomore year. Did a tour in ’Nam with the 101st. Enrolled at Penn State where he met his wife, now of 50 years. Two kids. Three grands. One great. MBA from Fairfield. Series of responsible HR positions here and there. Twenty years in Baltimore where he saw George Reynolds occasionally. Last 20 years in a lakeside home in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ten years retired: United Way, church, skeet shooting, fishing, etc. Few parts replaced but in good health.

     In late November, Greg Angelini died. Wig Sherman remembered him as always having a smile and, clearly, that is the way he went through life. After Cornell Law, he married his high school sweetheart and returned home to Leominster, Massachusetts, where he established himself as a sole practitioner with a sizable support staff and a broad portfolio of cases. Family law, advisor to businesses, labor law, representing towns and school boards. But paramount was his reputation for collegiality and friendship. His ambition never intruded on his concern for others. A devoted father who skied Okemo and enjoyed summers in Harwich with his two daughters.

     Jeff Bell, a widower and a Philadelphia transplant to Savannah who proudly still sports a good head of hair, wrote to announce his engagement to Kathy Stevens—originally “a Jersey girl” that our Lawrenceville lad found irresistable. She has two sons, 23 (Miami), and 21 (Richmond), which is her alma mater. I spoke with Dave Webb. Happily reading his way through retirement with a break for cocktails at 6:00. Splits time between the Cape and Florida. Keeps up with Bill McConaghy who is also on the Cape who has become a grandfather. Bill Van Den Berg’s New Year’s letter was beautifully pictorial, indicating his real wish—to be a photographer for National Geographic. Dave Losee was sworn into the Maine Bar this summer. Drew Ketterer­—Maine’s AG for 10 years and Rick Ketterer’s ’69 brother—was Dave’s sponsor. Most sadly, Rick died in August. My Boys in the Boat had our October reunion on Zoom. Washington State has one of the world’s biggest ferry system and one of Nason Hamlin’s sons is now managing a big chunk of it. Wallace Murfit is the last one standing: still competing. I thought we were a handsome bunch of devils but someone said we were getting older.

     Judy and I have one “child,” Josh, and he came east (from Seattle) in December with Emma Barnett, a totally wonderful and exceptionally capable woman, to marry in a lovely/intimate/informal/immediate-family-only/CDC-compliant ceremony at a nearby Airbnb. David Ramos ’05­­—Josh’s best friend from high school—was the “congregation” and photographer. All very moving.

     Be smart/safe/strong.

After years of a terrible but spirited battle with health issues, on July 21, 2020, Bob Newhouse passed. It was on “a beautiful day in the place he loved best, his home overlooking the ocean in Nantucket, where he insisted going when it became clear that he might have only one more trip in him. . . . He was a truly gifted artist. He drew and painted and was a terrific cartoonist but it was his marvelous sculpting and woodworking that most will remember” (from correspondence from his brother, Steve). 

Again from Steve: “I taunted him by saying his trials and tribulations later in life were payback for his Baccanalian revelry at Chi Psi. . . . Some think he was the model for the cool and handsome Eric ‘Otter’ Stratton in Animal House.” Be that as it may, he still managed to have 

a very successful career at the financial giant Marsh McLennan.

Bill Beeman retired as the chair of the anthropogy department at Minnesota after a long—34 years at Brown and 13 years at Minnesota—and distinguished academic career. No fool, he is leaving midwestern winters for Santa Clara to join his husband of six years (after 30 years of togetherness), Frank Farris, who teaches at Santa Clara University. (He sees Ted Smith ’67 who lives in San Jose). Bill went to an island in the Persian Gulf the summer of 1967 with Sib Reppert ’67 and returned there for the fall semester of 1967 to do ethnographic work. It was transformational as it led to his senior paper which led him to the University of Chicago (provided he continue with Persian and Arabic). Traveled to Iran and Afghanistan until it was no longer possible. Taught Peace Corps volunteers.

I reached out to Bob Abrams, a Nicholson 6 graduate, and learned he is in St. Louis and a man of leisure. He has a son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter not far from me. His wife, Jan, is unhappy that the pandemic has prevented them from making their semi-annual visits. John Kepner who had a career in hospital administration, has been writing a blog entitled “Rounding Third Leadership Blog”(fenwaymanagementadvisors.org/leadershipblog). It is a deep, far-reaching and ambitious endeavor that covers a lot more than baseball. Meanwhile, his son, Tyler, actually covers baseball for the Times and had a book out last year, K, a History of Baseball in 10 Pitches, which spent a week on the NYT best seller list.

I have been speaking with my erstwhile comrade in chaos, Bob Svensk. Still working quite independently (partnered with his son, Andrew ’99) from a Southport office in a worldwide reinsurance business. (To understand it fully, it helps to have gone to Harvard.) Very involved with Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation and Southport Conservatory. Son Christian ’96 is an urban planner married to a transportation guru in Sacramento. Son Hallock is Williams ’07 and an attorney married to an attorney in L.A. Andrew’s wife is a NYC ADA. Bob and Annie have five grands but three are on the West Coast­—out of cuddling range. 

My editor gives me 800 words and I am not yet there. So: Dave Losee has become a beekeeper. Bill Currier ’69 is working hard on a pilot for a TV show. BiIl Nicholson continues to read his way through American history. We are fine: Judy continues to love me and really gives me no choice in the matter.

 I write in September, and, as a rule, I keep current events out of these Notes. But, as I make the rules, I can break them. And, though a divinity school graduate, I am not good at asking god for favors. But, I am praying for the unemployed, the hungry, the homeless, the sick and dying, that we address the many divides in our country and for an orderly transfer of power.

Lloyd Buzzell | LBuzz463@aol.com
70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405 | 203/208-5360

I have been doing this for well over 40 years and—because I found you to be a delightfully spirited group back when whose trajectories have exceeded all my expectations—it has been a pleasure. But these are difficult/strange times to retain my usual good cheer: Not long ago I was caught up in the impeachment proceedings, but then thousands started dying, millions became unemployed and we, as members of a high-risk cohort, walk about with a target on our backs. While you know all that, I could not proceed without at least noting it.

Locally: for reasons that defy comprehension, my wife still loves me and gives me no option but to do things by the book. I like our governor’s leadership. Our son, Josh, was to be married to a good woman May 24 in Seattle. Heartbreakingly postponed. But we’re fine.

Pre-all this, Helen Dempsey had a lapse of judgment and married Bill Van Den Berg in a Unitarian service in the State College, Penn., area. We spent time together at the 50th and they are a fun couple. Andy Gaus—who is in Boston—and I had a great email exchange. We agreed that this is the time in our lives when we should do exactly what we want. For him, that was to self-publish a selection of his songwriting from his teens through his 70s entitled Songbag and available at Amazon.

John Poor died peacefully at home in Bronxville, April 13, of COPD. The Commodore “was a charismatic, smart, and generous man who…loved kids and art and sailing and the beach. He was very sharp and would do the Saturday crossword puzzle in minutes (and in pen). He truly loved life and lived it well” (from the NYT). Professionally, he was a well-regarded advertising executive with Blair Television and later Petry Media. Steve Carlson remembers him as a “fun and unique guy” who inherited his crossword skills from his mother and will be sorely missed.

It may seem a little unexpected, but Wig Sherman is the classmate with whom I stay in closest contact. We do not agree about anything (except some jokes) but serve as one another’s portal into alternate universes. However, our discord is brotherly. The May 7 arrival of Elizabeth Bean made him a grandfather for the first time. A devoted friend, he keeps up with the guys from the Lodge and is currently supporting Bob Newhouse, who retains a strong spirit as he contends with some medical issues.

Erica MALS ’91 and Nason Hamlin, one of our most elegant couples, retired to (and hunkered down on) Washington’s San Juan island. “Adequate supplies, gardening, reading, jigsaw puzzles, a beautiful setting, and lots of fresh air. The big downers are not being able to hug our grandchildren…and the cancellation of three musical string quartet workshops (Bruges, Sooke, BC, and Seattle)” as well as Nason’s barbershop quartet.

I am not a phone guy and normally wouldn’t suggest this, but the times are not normal, and a call from any of you about anything would be most welcome. After noon or early evenings, s.v.p. Be safe. Stay well.

Lloyd Buzzell | LBuzz463@aol.com
70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405 | 203/208-5360

After an MA from SUNY-Buffalo, Ted Li joined the English Department of Pingry School where he enjoyed a distinguished 43-year run. He landed at Pingry due to George Moffatt, the two-time world champion in gliding who taught there then, and gliding became Ted’s primary avocation through the early ’80s. But, in 1984, he shifted his focus to fencing. While coaching Pingry’s team, he had the opportunity to manage the U.S. fencing team at the Los Angeles Olympics—and subsequently two other Olympics.

Though retired from the classroom, he is not only involved with Pingry fencing but has also been elected the international body that governs fencing. Gliding and fencing have taken him to all the inhabited continents.

Dave Garrison ’67 retired in 2009 as professor of Spanish and Portugese from Dayton’s Wright State University. He started in the class of 1967 but a year off in Spain happily moved him into 1968. In retirement, he plays tennis and golf and, after a 50-year hiatus, has taken up the trumpet again.

A poet, he has just completed another book which—not surprisingly—looks at things from the point of view of 70-year-old guys. An excerpt:

They take aspirin before playing tennis,
write wills directing their ashes
be mixed into the clay of the courts …
They have a lot to remember,
more than they have to look forward to.
These men put more and more pepper
on their potatoes, jam on their toast.

The Boys in the Boat—Wallace Murfit, Harrison Knight, Bob Svensk, John Lipsky, Nason Hamlin, Will Macoy ’67, and me—held our annual October get-together at Wes. A special treat for me was that Janet and Coach Phil Calhoun ’62, MALS ’69 came in from Lancaster. He was too young and irresponsible to be much of a role model but god we had fun.

With profound sadness, Dick Grimm reported the death of his wife, Annabella Gonzalez, of COPD in NYC on Nov. 24. Born into a prominent Mexican family whose friends included Frida Kahlo and the young Fidel Castro, she, a dancer, ended up in NYC and studied with Martha Graham. In 1976, she founded a modern dance company that is going strong and which performed at many venues internationally, at Wesleyan, and to many underserved audiences. Our heartfelt condolences.

Jan and John Graham report they are now living in a comprehensive retirement community southwest of Asheville, in part to be close to Jan’s 101-year-old mother who is in skilled nursing in the same complex, and in part to assure their daughters they will not burden them. The Osher Lifelong Learning Center at a nearby UNC campus is a big part of their lives. There, a variety of courses taught by retired professors and the like keep their minds fully functioning. Alas, John’s golf game has irreparably deteriorated but he has found other fulfilling ways in which to engage himself.

Locally, I write this in January. We are a mixed marriage and usually celebrate the holidays in a mixed-up way. But circumstances this year were such that I celebrated my first genuine Jewish Christmas—Chinese with friends followed by a movie. Refreshing.

Bob Reisfeld, the retired chief of psychiatry at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Redwood City, Calif., is enjoying good health and this phase of life with his wife, Leslie. They’ve two adult daughters: one married; the other in a long-term relationship. One is an incredibly athletic amateur aerial performer with a master’s in management in the nonprofit sector; the other a professional artist. Bob, Brian Frosh, and Tony Rotundo and their wives spent a week together on Maui in November snorkeling, golfing—studying the perfect Mai Tai. Tony and his wife, Kathy, retired from Andover’s faculty five years ago and moved from campus housing to Lexington to be closer to friends, family and “city life.” Their daughter is in computer science at Mount Holyoke, while their son teaches at a bilingual boarding school in Shanghai. In retirement, Tony is working on a book exploring the relationship between white masculinity and conservatism. (Sort of a sequel to an earlier volume he did on 19th-century manhood). He keeps up with a select group of Wesleyan friends: Eric Blumenson, Ray Solomon, Don Fels, and Mark Taylor. “Kathy often comments on what great friends I have from college. I always tell her to be glad she didn’t know us when we were 18.”

Lloyd Buzzell | LBuzz463@aol.com
70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405 | 203/208-5360