Tag: 1968

I will start with Wig Sherman (Army vet) who let me in on a Wharton reunion at a dinner hosted by Jay Hoder (Navy vet) in Vero Beach. (Back in the day, back in Rhode Island, they played ’ball against one another.) Bob Runk ’67 (Army vet)—and some non-Wes guys—were present. “As you might expect, we listened to oldies but the night was not spent conjuring up old memories…rather focused on the present and future. All the while laughing.” Wig and Jay live in Grand Harbor, a community owned by Carl Icahn, as does Mike Spence, who is such a good golfer that he is shunned, and Ed Cortez ’69, who is an active artist and the lead singer in a local rock group.

There is a brilliant and hugely influential 2010 book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander that persuasively argues slavery was succeeded by Jim Crow laws, which created a permanent racial underclass and that, in turn, has been succeeded by The War on Drugs and mass incarceration to the same end. And Eric Blumenson’s research on “Policing for Profit”—how the federal Drug War gives police departments financial incentives to pursue drug offenders—was cited prominently. Eric teaches at Suffolk Law School in Boston.

I recently spoke to Dave Webb (who is splitting his time between Cape Cod and Ft. Myers), and he reported Paul Jarvis, a psychologist formerly in private practice and at Illinois State University, is retired. Living just outside of Chicago, Paul also has an in-town condo. Two daughters and grandchildren nearby. His wife, Carolyn, authored what has become the standard text—“the Samuelson”—of nursing. Peter Corbin, a Millbrook, N.Y.-based artist, had a one-man show at the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Va. Featured were a number of his fishing paintings complemented by a lovely catalog and a 2014 video showing the progression of his work on one painting, which presented his philosophy. Bill Beeman was quoted in the Times’ Feb. 14th Travel Section in an article about Americans traveling to Iran.

Judy and I went on a Viking cruise of the western Mediterranean in January. It was our first ever as we search for a way for me to travel, given my limited mobility. While I have never been so pampered or well fed, I thought it pretty sedate. Fortunately, we brought along our own excitement in the most genial persons of Chris and Gary Wanerka ’62, pillars of our new town. Chris cooks a mean shad and Gary is a legendary semi-retired pediatrician specializing in allergies.

It is my somber duty to report we lost two from our class in December: David Moss and John Grace. Robert Pease ’69 was kind enough to give me an account of David’s life: He completed his first two years at Wesleyan, after which he was drafted into the Army and served as a medic—becoming known as “Doc Moss”—with the First Cavalry in Vietnam, providing the initial treatment of wounded soldiers during the Tet Offensive and starting a medical program for Vietnamese villagers. He returned to Wesleyan in 1968 but moved to Oregon without completing his degree—something he later attributed to his recent combat experience. After receiving a BA and MA in history from the University of Oregon, his career included staff work in the Oregon State Legislature, chief of staff for the Oregon Speaker of the House, and the renovation of dilapidated properties into rental houses for modest-income families. A city councilor in Salem, he was appointed chairman of the State Ethics Committee by the Governor, in which role he was known for forthrightly speaking his mind on issues such as gay rights.

A skier, whitewater rafter, sailor, carpenter and historian who was active in several charities, he developed a paper titled “The Myth of the Vietnam Veteran,” which used social statistics to argue against the image of veterans as drug-using, homeless, poorly-educated, suicidal losers. He presented this paper to many civic groups along with another one on PTSD, in which he argued that it was a very real but subtle condition. He leaves his wife, Patricia Graves Moss MAT’70, and a daughter.

While I only knew him in passing, I remember John Grace as a person of uncommon decency. His wife, Joan Raducha, put it nicely in saying, “His Wesleyan education was a significant part of his future.” A Grateful Dead fan and a whitewater canoeist, he spent an undergraduate year in India, earned his MA at Hartford Seminary Foundation, was a Fulbright tutor for a year at the Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta, and then coordinated the University of Wisconsin Year in India Program in Banaras for three. Joan reports (somewhat incredulously, I think) that he convinced her that they could do anything together—including a rock climbing and rappelling course in the Himalayan foothills.

They returned from India to Madison, Wisc., where John established after-school programs in rural communities. He believed in servant-leadership and continued his commitment to human services, ultimately serving families and children as the head of the Wisconsin Association of Family & Children Agencies for 25 years. Further, through volunteer board commitments and his involvement with Madison’s Quaker Meeting, he worked with foster children, homeless families and as a patient advocate. Always an avid reader, in retirement, he consumed four papers a day, traveled widely and was an engaged grandfather. Besides his wife, he leaves a son and a daughter—Laura Raducha-Grace Thompson ’03, a physician and the mother of two.

I will close by reminding you that your 50th Reunion is May 24-27, 2018. You are expected to attend and, after that, I promise that I will never bug you about anything again. Sandy See (seescape@verizon.net), Stuart Ober (ober@stuartober.com) and George Reynolds (greynolds@sandpointefunding.com) continue to seek volunteers for our Reunion Committee.

LLOYD BUZZELL | LBuzz463@aol.com

70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405 | 203/208-5360

First, I will note that my wife, Judy, spent the fall in Paris and was there on Friday the 13th—and fairly close to some of the incidents—but she was not directly threatened and made it home safely a week later. We love France and she had a wonderful six weeks but never reckoned on it being so close to such a disturbing moment in history. (Like who did?) I make an effort to understand what is going on in this world and do grasp some things but, ultimately, it is beyond my ken and comment.

Paul Spitzer’s career as a biologist-ecologist was chronicled in Cornell’s Living Bird Magazine. As a youngster, he worked under the lead of the renowned Roger Tory Peterson, who directed him to study at Cornell, where he happily spent the 1970s expanding his understanding of the diminishing osprey population around the mouth of the Connecticut River. Realizing that the eggs were not hatching because of DDT (remember Rachel Carson?), Paul devised a way to bring healthy eggs from Maryland, constructed special nesting platforms with volunteers, and took other steps to increase the osprey population. In that area, there is now what he calls an “Osprey Garden.” He spends part of each winter in Belize doing an osprey breeding survey and his work on Maryland’s Choptank River is the subject of a chapter in a soon-to-be released book.

From Germantown, Tenn., Mike Terry ’70 is writing a powerful blog on his two-year cancer journey: withintenttocure.com. After a lifetime in Connecticut, Dave Losee is packing up and moving to Camden, Maine. Camden has an art colony which will keep Joan happy and it is close to Isleboro, where they have an exquisite cottage. But Isleboro, being on a small island, is insular and the town does not promise they’ll plow your road after every storm.

I had a great time catching up with Bill van den Berg recently. After Wes and some graduate work at Duke, he taught at NCA&T (Jesse Jackson’s alma mater) before earning his doctorate in biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania. He then taught at a branch of Penn State for six years but, as he did not publish enough, “perished,” Reinventing himself as a physics teacher at State College Area High School, he retired in the area in 2007.

As one who is doing just a middling job of retirement, I am awed by Bill’s interests and activities. A naturalist and wonderful photographer, he has a passion for wind-surfing: giving lessons in the summer, traveling to Hatteras with a group for weeks at a time, and going to Bonaire each winter. Interested in “anything we have trouble explaining with what we now know,” he is active in the Omega Society, a spiritual retreat center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and teaches on the paranormal. He is most joyously sharing his life and interests—“going steady” is how they put it—with Helen Dempsey, a retired social worker.

As my regular readers know, I have kept up the guys who re-established crew at Wes in the 1960s and, when in 1992 they started to row together as seniors, joined in the frolics. (My last race was on my 63rd birthday; blew out a hip and retired.) I have long considered them an extraordinary group but now have objective confirmation: this October marked the 50th anniversary of their first appearance at the Head of the Charles which has grown into the world’s largest regatta. On this occasion, the Globe’s award-winning sports columnist, Bob Ryan, devoted his October 9th column to the achievement of hanging in there and together for 50 years.

As I have regaled you with stories of their lives over the years, I will just do two things here. First, list the names of those who competed at the 50th: Harrison Knight, Joe Kelly Hughes ’67, Bill Nicholson, Will Macoy ’67, Bob Svensk, Nason Hamlin, Wallace Murfit, John Lipsky, cox George Bennum ’09 and Coach Phil Calhoun ’62. And, secondly, recommend you read The Boys in the Boat. It is the story of the University of Washington crew that represented the United States at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It has been a Times’ best seller for a year-and-a-half, so it is no cult book. Against the backdrop of Hitler’s Olympics, Daniel James Brown does a wonderful job of conveying the challenges and camaraderie of rowing to a general audience (which included my wife’s all-female book club).

Finally, I will put in my plug for our upcoming 50th Reunion. George Reynolds’ wife is on the board of her college and so he is a veteran of many Reunions. He noted how frequently he has been told how surprisingly terrific coming back was and saying they regretted not having come back more frequently. Well, the 50th is like the Last Hurrah and you really should consider making it: May 24–27, 2018.

Also, to make it as special and “handcrafted” as it should be, input from a legion of volunteers is in order. To date, we have more than a handful of classmates who have an expressed an interest in helping out but we need you! George (greynolds@sandpointefunding.com), Sandy See (seescape@verizon.net) and Stuart Ober (ober@stuartober.com) have graciously stepped forward to help identify and assemble a Reunion committee. And I’d be so appreciative if you contacted them and pitched in.

LLOYD BUZZELL | LBuzz463@aol.com

70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405 | 203/208-5360

A successful Reunion takes all kinds of things to come together and the 50th is the biggest of all. Sandy See (seescape@verizon.net), Stuart Ober (ober@stuartober.com) and George Reynolds (greynolds@sandpointefunding.com) continue trying to identify volunteers for our 50th Reunion committee. There is a wide range of tasks that need doing but, with a good-sized group in place, no one will be burdened. Indeed, it should be good fun to be working with old friends and classmates on a good cause. A lot of us have slowed down on the workfront and I can’t think of a better or more important venture to get involved with. If you read the accounts of the 50th from the classes ahead of us in previous alumni magazines, you know a number of people pitched in bringing forth a good turnout and a wonderful time. Please consider contacting them to make our 50th a memorable event.

Marrying Judy was the best thing I ever did so—as she is spending six weeks in Paris on a Road Scholar Independent Living & Study program—my fall will be a subdued one. My walking is too limited to go over for a visit and negotiate the city. I am managing being “home alone” but I won’t pretend that there is not a distinct drop in my quality of life.

A timely note—one element of Bill Beeman’s distinguished career at the University of Minnesota is an ongoing effort to improve understanding between the United States and Iran, a country he has lived in nine years all told. His 1986 book, Language, Status and Power in Iran, has been translated into Persian and is used as a university textbook in Iran. His 2008 book, “The Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs,” addresses and suggests a way out of the self-fulfilling prophecy of mutual demonization which has characterized the rhetoric and policies of Iran and the United States. An adviser to the State Department, the UN and the CIA, he goes back regularly and still leads tours.

Joseph McMackin is in Naples, Fla., a partner in a firm of 230 attorneys, who was just selected for the 2016 Best Lawyers in America. He has three sons—one handicapped, one a genius, and one undecided—and says keeping the family together despite his son’s affliction ranks as his biggest personal accomplishment. Professionally, he is particularly proud of being named by the governor to the Judicial Nominating Committee.

In August, the Times ran a piece on how Maryland was first to issue statewide guidelines prohibiting racial profiling by law enforcement that featured Brian Frosh, Maryland’s Attorney General.

I think you’ll like this—Nason Hamlin writes from an island off Seattle: “At the end of the day tomorrow, Erica and I will have completed one year of retirement. We had no training for it but have managed to make progress in the endeavor. We still make lists, mental or otherwise and often starting at 4 a.m., of the things we need to get accomplished that day. About six months ago I made the transition from being disappointed at the end of the day if I had not done everything on the list to being okay with having gotten anything done. We had very intense jobs before retirement but have not been bored. We are involved in a lot of music and we garden and read a lot. We have had a steady stream of family and visitors. Retirement is a work in progress, and we have to work at “loafing.” We’ll get there eventually if we work hard enough at it!”

I caught up with Randall Arendt, a landscape planner/site designer, who has had an incredible life: from his experiences in the Peace Corps and his work at the University of Edinburgh, he developed “conservation development,” a highly regarded approach to cluster and open space development that respects the natural habitat. During his career he spent a lot of time in the U.K. and made some interesting stops in the states, notably as the first director of Downtown Historic Lowell and director of the University of Massachusetts’s Planning and Applied Research Center. He has lectured in 47 states and been widely covered in the media including the New York Times and the New Yorker. Recently, he published Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character, the capstone of his career. A fellow at the Brookings Institute said of it, “This updated version of the 20-year-old classic is a how-to-guide to creating walkable towns in rural and urbanizing suburban North America, bursting with examples, many not built when the original book was written” (1994). His son is a Bowdoin graduate, and Randall, semi-retired, lives in Brunswick, a short walk from campus.

As he was a particularly dear friend after our years together in New Haven, it is with great sadness that I must inform you that Tim Polk died July 8th after an extended battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He taught religious studies for 30 years at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., where he offered a range of courses—Old and New Testament, as well as seminars on C.S. Lewis and Kierkegaard. He chaired his department and led the Presidential Scholar Program for many years. Colleagues noted he was renowned for his wit, his intellectual rigor, kindness, and his devotion to his students. Widely admired, one colleague said he was “the best exemplar and advocate…of the liberal arts tradition.” Another penned that he “has virtually exhausted all the means by which he could make Hamline a better place to work and learn.” In his obituary, it was noted, “He was a lover of many things: God, his wife and children, distance running, sacred music, serious reading, football, Philly cheese steaks.” Fiercely competitive, if he were my size, he’d have been in the NFL. A good man by any measure.

LLOYD BUZZELL | LBuzz463@aol.com

70 Turtle Bay, Branford, CT 06405 | 203/208-5360

2018 is not really that far off—at our age, we know how the years fly by—and yet that is our 50th Reunion, the big one, the Last Hurrah. To pull it off properly, there are a million things that need to be thought through and taken care of and, in all candor, we haven’t done much of anything. (Unfortunately, there is no group, unbeknownst to you, secretly organizing the event and my clear sense is we need to get in gear.) To that end, we are putting out a general call for volunteers of all stripes. If you would like to lend your talents to make this a truly memorable event, please contact Stuart Ober (ober@stuartober.com) or Sandy See (seescape@verizon.net), who have been kind enough to step forward and help identify a working group or Reunion council.

John Ashworth, after a doctorate from Harvard and a post-doc at MIT, has had an adventuresome career in renewable energy, starting in what is now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The lab grew from 50 to 900 staff in a few short years and he worked with a variety of state governments initially and then helped set up an international program for assisting developing countries to create their own programs. There he met his wife, Nancy, and they were married in 1982. When the Reagan administration took a meat ax to the program, he joined a small consulting firm in Vermont that focused on technical assistance for the developing world. For five years, he did a great deal of travel for USAID and the World Bank, during which time he witnessed two coup d’états and spent countless nights in airport lounges. After which, he was delighted to find domestic work with a consulting firm in D.C., but his heart was not really into life in the Beltway.

In 1994, John joined a start-up software-driven environmental education firm in Phoenix and ended up running the environmental group. There he got a great deal of hands-on experience with desert plants and drip irrigation as they slowly landscaped a good-sized property in Paradise Valley. But the summers got to them, and they happily found a way back to Colorado through a job offer from his first employer, NREL, where he headed up their biofuels partnership development team for 11 years until he retired in May 2013.
In retirement, “Life is good”—in a smaller one-story house with a greenhouse and a koi pond. John works at the Denver Botanical Garden, has been teaching himself blues guitar and is working on his outdoor photography. He skis every week during the winter and they do a good deal of traveling when Nancy can fit it into her schedule as a certified executive coach.

Bob Svensk and Peter Swain ’71 have been partners for the past five years in a trade finance venture that was recently sold to Allied World Assurance. Bob reports that “Peter has moved to NYC and now works at corporate headquarters. I remain in Southport as an ‘independent consultant’—whatever that means.” Peter started Wes with us but finished in 1971. When I reached out, he kindly gave me “the bare bones of life since Middletown”: Taught art and history at Midland School in Los Olivos, Calif., 1971–75. Got his MBA at Wake Forest, where he met his wife, (Anne) 1975–1977. Worked at First National Bank of Maryland in their international and ship finance division with responsibilities that brought him all over the world (and for over five years in the 1980s he was very happily London-based), 1977–2000. This was followed by stints at Riggs Bank and as a partner in a small trade finance shop in Baltimore before receiving a call from Bob making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The important stuff for Peter is Anne and three great kids: a psychologist, a med school student and “the third doing her thing.”

In April Rick Voigt taught a non-credit adult education course at Wesleyan that Don Logie attended. (Rick said Don was a disruptive student, continually asking questions that exposed the instructor’s limitations.) Since graduation, Rick taught at Miles College in Birmingham, Ala., a predominately black college that played an important role in the civil rights movement in that city. Then to the University of Virginia law school, where he met his wife, Annemarie Riemer. After law school, he worked for eight years in Washington, D.C., in the Solicitor’s Office for the U.S. Department of Labor, basically as a federal prosecutor under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Then he moved to Hartford to go into private practice, where he has been ever since. In the process of retiring, he is pursuing other interests, which for years had been on back burners. He is working in the Academic Support Center at Manchester Community College assisting students with writing, working with the Knox Foundation on urban “greening” and beautification issues, serving as a parajudicial officer (settlement officer) with the U.S. District Court for Connecticut, and teaching continuing education courses. They have two sons, both of whom live in Boston and have beards. From time to time, he sees Brendan Lynch, who deserves much credit for his civic work in the Hartford community.

Paul Spitzer forwarded a note he had gotten from Brian Frosh’s office. (Brian, you’ll recall, was recently elected Maryland’s Attorney General.) Some excerpts: “The death of Freddie Gray, or any person in police custody, is a tragedy… Baltimore is and always has been the very heart of Maryland. I know we feel compassion for our neighbors and friends, sadness over destruction and damage, and a shared commitment to rebuild and grow for the future…” Brian has been in the midst of things and, while lamenting the Baltimore that burned at night, he is uplifted by the Baltimore where residents help one another “and march together peacefully and with great purpose.” Let us keep Brian and Baltimore in our thoughts and prayers.

I spoke to Dave Webb last summer: very busily retired on Cape Cod after 42 years at Choate. One of the kindest guys in our class, it is no surprise that he volunteers at Hospice two days a week. Barb is volunteering at a couple of libraries and arts venues, and both are in several book clubs. Dave is auditing courses at a community college—trying for fluency in French. They have a son (and daughter-in-law) nearby who own two successful restaurants and they care for two grandchildren regularly. And they’re traveling: a Viking cruise on the Danube, two months in Florida in the winter, and lots more local trips. One thing they regretted about their careers at Choate was that they were not able to live in their own home, so while many of us are shedding ours, they’re now enjoying theirs. Dave is in touch with Ron Gwiazda ’67 whose career was in education, mostly at Boston Latin, and with Hank Sprouse ’62 who, with his wife, will be traveling with Dave and Barb on the Danube.

In September, Wallace Murfit came East, chartered a 40-foot sloop and sailed the upper Narragansett Bay and out to the Vineyard. Judy and I spent a week in October in the Czech Republic. I love Europe but, as my walking is quite limited due to tendinopathy, it was frustrating hobbling around the cobblestones. Planning a mid-winter get-away to Nassau. Amby Burfoot finished 11th out of 1,787 entrants in the 65-69 division of the 4.8 mile Thanksgiving Day Manchester Road Race. Dave Losee had a trifecta in 2014: ably chaired his high school reunion in June, had his son, Jamie, get married in July, and had successful open-heart surgery in September.

I heard from Bill Beeman: In January, he joined actor Tony Randall and Senator James Inhofe in Tulsa Central High School’s Hall of Fame. Bill is chair of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota, and is noted for his research on neuroscience and cognition in conjunction with music and theatrical performance, as well as his expertise in the understanding of cultures of the Middle East and their influence on international affairs. Last June, he married Frank Farris, a MIT graduate, who is a mathematician teaching at Santa Clara University in California. They’ve been long-distance partners for 30 years.

Michael Wolfe’s Cut These Words Into My Stone: Ancient Greek Epitaphs was shortlisted for the prestigious PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for a book-length translation of poetry into English published in 2013. Paul Spitzer was in the pulpit a couple of times last summer sharing with congregations his transcendent feeling for nature. In November, Brian Frosh’s campaign to be Maryland’s attorney general was successful. I heard from John Stinchfield ’69: in Washington, D.C., recently retired after a long stint as general counsel for a real estate/development firm and now volunteering in a preschool class in which the head teacher is his daughter.

It is my sad duty to report that John Hollenbach passed away April 4th. After Wes, John earned a master’s in architecture from Harvard. He moved to Vermont in 1973 and headed several firms that did both design and construction of commercial and residential buildings in the Champlain Valley. He and his wife, Beth Philips, raised their children, Jake and Liz, in an old North Ferrisburgh farmhouse. Always a hands-on dad who hiked, biked, canoed, and skied with his kids, John took great pleasure every spring planting a vegetable garden laid out with architectural precision. He was an enthusiastic bird hunter, loved sports on TV, enjoyed good beer, and competed in the Sugarbush Triathlon. In 2000, John and Beth moved to Bangladesh where they worked at the American International School/Dhaka (AISD), and John renovated and expanded AISD, and created exciting educational spaces. In 2006, they moved to Cairo where John headed up the design and construction of a new campus for Cairo American College, a K–12 school. During 2011 and 2012, John worked for the International School of Kuala Lumpur, overseeing the development of a new campus. He thrived working in these new, and very challenging, cultural and construction environments. His obituary noted the obvious: “John’s was a life well-lived.”

As he was my mate on the crew and a good friend, it is with particular sadness that I report Davey Crockett ’69 died of pancreatic cancer in Seattle Nov. 24th. His career was in international finance and he lived in Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Macau. While overseas, he raised his children, David and Cordy, and made many friends in the expat community. Visiting more than 100 countries all over the globe in his lifetime, Davey’s travels were often motivated by a desire to visit old friends, better understand history, and discover how places had changed since he was last there. He had an abiding faith in God, and loved golf, running, rowing and his place on Vashon Island. There he grew raspberries, potatoes, roses, rhubarb, apples, pears, plums, and more. He made jars of jam and applesauce and eventually started brewing beer and making wine using the fruits he had grown. In college, he might have seemed like the brawling defensive tackle that he was. But when Judy and I visited, he met us at the airport and most graciously showed us about. We saw him with his son and daughter, and we talked about the death of his first wife, Taffy, and how he had cared for her at the end. He grilled us salmon and we had a salad from his garden. There were flowers at our bedside. He felt very fortunate to live the life he did and especially to meet Kitty Lee, a wonderful woman with whom he shared a very happy second marriage. Indeed, despite his dire prognosis, they had been able to enjoy a lovely cruise in the Mediterranean just weeks before his passing.

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

I will open with a lovely letter I got from Guy Baehr as it is a model for you all: “I guess I’ve been putting this off for a decade or two, But I thought I’d send you an update now that I seem to have come to a convenient turning point. Which is to say that I am now finally and firmly retired to a small town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.

“I’ve built a house here, sold my house back in New Jersey and am looking forward to making friends among the expats and locals here, enjoying the Caribbean climate, and watching the fascinating process in a country of 10 million people moving, sometimes fitfully, from being a Third World country to an almost Second World country. (I guess that’s my CSS training.) Also I have a long connection to the Dominican Republic that started when I came here as a Peace Corps volunteer right out of Wesleyan and continued with a later marriage to a Dominican woman in the U.S. that lasted for 24 years.

“Most of my professional career was spent as a reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper. It was a rewarding and interesting career that let me cover a wide variety of people, from homeless people to Mikhail Gorbachev to survivors of the attack on the World Trade Center escaping Manhattan. I hope I left the state a little better than I found it. When the Internet started killing the newspaper business, I switched to teaching investigative reporting at Rutgers.

“With exquisite timing, I stopped working for pay shortly before the Great Recession, bought land here in the Dominican Republic and started building a house. It’s taken me until this year to finally move down here year-round. I’ve found the process challenging, absorbing and rewarding. Now I’m settling down to enjoy the more conventional pleasures of retirement: building small sailing dinghies, making new friends, and spoiling my 1-year-old grandson on periodic visits back to the U.S., not during the winter if I can help it.”

Rich Zweigenhaft ’67, a professor at Guilford College and co-author of Diversity in the Power Elite: How It Happens, Why It Matters, was cited prominently in a June 28th New York Times article on gay CEOs.

Bob Runk ’67’s musical career continues. He is writing/singing/recording. In 2013, he got nearly $55 in royalties from people downloading his stuff, and he has a wonderful website, the Runkus Room, at bobrunk.com. I caught Wendell Wallach, a fellow at Yale’s interdisciplinary Center on Bioethics, on a NPR talk show on July 1st, discussing the larger implications of some of our technological advances.

On the way up to Quebec, Judy and I stopped in Norwich, Vt., at the lovely hillside home of Andrea and Rich Kremer ’69 for a delightful dinner on the deck. Their big news was the birth of their first grandchild, a boy, in the spring. Andrea is adjuncting at Dartmouth, teaching freshmen writing intensive courses that focus on issues in medical ethics, while Rich is auditing all kinds of improbable courses. He is still consulting some but summers are pretty much dedicated to keeping the woodchucks out of his gardens.

In the crazy, tumultuous fall of ’67, I was befriended by Larry Dunham MAT ’69, a kind, spirited, accepting fellow. He was married—still is—and the father of two great kids who now have five of their own to whom he is a devoted grandfather. (The thing that really amazed me back in the day is that he was a graduate of the same repressive boarding school I attended and, nonetheless, had evolved in an open, wonderful way.) Anyway we reconnected after all these years and picked up where we left off. He lived in St. Paul and, finding his temperament ill-suited to traditional employment, worked on the railroad and then as a long-haul truck driver. Retired for a couple of years now, he is spending more time in the East to be closer to his daughter, Johannah ’91, and his son, Wheatleigh, who is a Yale graduate and an entrepreneur. Active in the McCarthy movement, Larry remembered Dave Siegel ’69 and Dave Caswell ’69 warmly.

I want to quote from a May 8th editorial from the Washington Post at some length: “On the merits, the race in the Democratic primary for attorney general in Maryland is a slam-dunk. State Sen. Brian Frosh of Montgomery County, who is among the most admired, intelligent, civil and hardworking lawmakers in Annapolis, should win the nomination in a walk.

“Over the course of nearly three decades in the legislature—much of that in leadership roles—he has been the author and driving force behind landmark laws to improve firearm safety, safeguard the environment and protect Maryland consumers. Other lawmakers take cues from Mr. Frosh when it comes to public ethics. Measured by achievements, qualifications and breadth of experience, the other candidates are not in Mr. Frosh’s league.

“At once self-effacing and substantive, Mr. Frosh has inspired bipartisan respect as a legislator who gets big things done without unduly tooting his own horn. He has shaped and sponsored much of Maryland’s most important environmental legislation for years. He wrote laws that cracked down on identity theft and teen drunk driving and has been one of the Senate’s most effective strategists in tackling gun violence.” (The best man won here; Brian took the primary handily.)

Locally, I am not completely sure what to do with my newfound freedom. Went to my 50th high school reunion, which even my wife enjoyed. Volunteering for Governor Malloy’s reelection bid. Laid low this summer as our condo has a pool and a beach, and feels like a resort. Trying to find my legs here.

Please do follow Guy’s example and update me on how you have been spending the years. It makes me feel like I am doing something of value here and not just rattling on for my own amusement. 

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

Johns Hopkins University Press published Cut These Words into My Stone: Ancient Greek Epitaphs, translated by our own Michael Wolfe who has been flying high but, until now, under the radar of yours truly. A little research revealed he has focused largely on bringing an understanding of his Muslim faith to a wider audience. Highlights include a string of publications (novels, essays, travel accounts, and verse) and writing awards; founding and operating a publishing company; co-founding an educational media company; producing a number of documentaries for PBS, some of which were broadcast world-wide through National Geographic International; hundreds of interviews for regional and national radio and television broadcast; and hosting a show on Nightline that was nominated for an Emmy and a Peabody. Based just east of Monterey in San Juan Bautista, Michael has traveled throughout Africa, taught at Andover and Exeter, and lectured at schools like Harvard and Stanford.

Ray Solomon, dean of the Rutgers School of Law­–Camden, has been named to the newly created role of provost for the Camden campus. Under his leadership as dean (in which role he will continue to serve), the school opened a $37 million classroom building and greatly expanded its clinical and pro bono legal programs. His wife, Carol Avins, is an emerita professor of Slavic Literature at Rutgers. Their older daughter, Claire, is working for a small foundation in New York that funds innovative Jewish educational projects and their younger daughter, Jess, is traveling during a gap year before starting Goucher College.

Ray was also kind enough to tell me more about “the Gardner Open”—a golf fellowship of Ted Ahern, Dave Gruol, Pete Hardin, Jacques LeGette, Steve Horvat, Craig Dodd, Dick Emerson and Ray, which has been playing for three or four days each July since 1968. Named after their first venue in Massachusetts, they have been playing with a steadily increasing membership at rotating locations up and down the East Coast. From all points on the campus: Pete, Dave, Jacques, and Steve were all on the baseball team; Craig, Pete, and Ray were all on the same floor of Hewitt 9; and, Ted and Pete were classics majors. Steve retired after many years as general counsel of a life insurance company in Chicago and now lives in South Carolina. Pete retired from the Air Force and then taught classics in Newport News, Va., from which he is now retired. Ted recently retired from the Classics Department at Boston College, which he chaired for many years. Jacques works in Atlanta with an architectural firm as a project manager. Craig has been practicing matrimonial law for many years in north Jersey. Dave lives near Craig and is a photographer. Dick is an attorney in Danbury.

While I knew Tim Polk at Wes, it was not until I moved to New Haven to attend divinity school that we became close. A couple of years ahead of me at divinity school and a lot smarter, he would school me in theology during the week and in football on Saturdays at the Yale Bowl. Thus, it is with a note of particular sadness that I learned from his wife, Lucy, that Tim’s early-onset Alzheimer’s has progressed to the point that he needed to go into a nursing home to meet his needs.

I heard from Lynn Coe ’69 who recently retired after practicing law for 41 years first in Seattle, then in Chicago, and finally in Boston doing municipal bonds for healthcare organizations. He was with Jones Day, a huge international firm, since 1996. Self-described as “one of Hoy’s Boys outliers, married to a Smithy for 45 years; two sons: one a doctor (Dartmouth ’00, Yale Med ’06) and the other a lawyer (Wes ’06 and Kent Law ’11). Likes to hunt, fish and travel;” politically conservative; and happy to see Wes win some football games.

I must tell you belatedly that Robert Blake died of a heart attack as he returned from his daily jog on Feb. 9, 2013. Clearly one of those fascinating classmates I should have known but did not, I will excerpt from his Washington Post obituary: He moved to India when he was 11, to Tehran, and back to India for high school. He earned a PhD in economics from Michigan and moved to the DC area, working for the U.S. Treasury in various international affairs departments for 15 years before taking a job as a development economist at The World Bank. He concentrated on Africa, a continent that he grew to love deeply. (Bob believed economic development was pretty simple: empower women.) Following postings in Cameroon, Uganda, and Madagascar, he retired to Arlington, Va., in 2009. Survived by his wife, Claudia, of 44 years, he discovered the joy of child development in retirement, spending a great deal of time with his grandchildren.

Locally: Judy and I moved out of New Haven two years ago to Branford, a nearby town on the shoreline. Since then, I have discovered one of the town’s features/leading citizens are Chris and Gary Wanerka ’62. Gary is a most amiable and legendary pediatrician who specializes in allergies. They live in the woods on the other side of town and he is now working just enough to underwrite their vice—worldwide travel.

I have been teaching young men at a maximum-security prison for almost 10 years. But, in the fall, I was put back into a classroom with 16 feisty felons after tutoring the past few years, and that change in assignment put things outside my comfort zone. So I packed it in. (After which, I sat down with my financial planner to see if I could afford to retire.) I have no grand plan and know I need to think about reinventing myself. But for now I am on my stationary bike most days, went off to Costa Rica with dear friends, reading a lot, and marveling at having all day every day be mine.

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