Tag: 1972

It was a busy spring for Bruce Hearey. He was awarded an MA in humanities from John Carroll University (alma mater of Don Shula and Tim Russert)—it took him 10 years, and he greatly enjoyed what he correctly identified as the COL experience, taking courses in history, literature, and art history. He wrote his thesis on Charles Ives (tipping his hat to the late Dick Winslow ’40, who introduced Ives to Bruce in 1971), got much better grades than he did at Wesleyan, and refuses to answer any questions about what he will actually do with that degree. Then, at his 50th Andover reunion, Bruce was inducted into their sports hall of fame, where he joins Bill Belichick ’75, Andover class of ’71, and George Bush, Andover class of ’43. Most important (and not to slight the news in my next paragraph), Bruce became a grandfather. Son Leif Dormsjo ’97 and his wife, Kristin, welcomed Sven Olsson Dormsjo into the world.

Bruce journeyed to Santa Fe to attend Bruce Throne’s wedding to Alaina Speraw. This is Bruce Throne’s second and last wedding. Earlier in the year he took Alaina to her (and Wesleyan’s) first alumni event in Santa Fe, and she now understands the Wes Diaspora and how women changed Wes for the better after they enrolled.

Leon Vinci celebrated his 50th high school reunion in, yawn, Middletown. He was in the second graduating class at Xavier High School. Leon is living in Roanoke, Va., and although in a “semi-retired status,” is doing health and environmental management consulting work.He is an adjunct professor with Drexel University and active in chair positions with national professional organizations addressing climate change. If that isn’t enough to keep him busy, he sits on the national Joint Task Force for DHS and DHHS in the area of public health and healthcare emergencies; and he chairs a subcommittee on cybersecurity and public health and health care emergencies. And next year he will be able to brag that all of his kids have attained their master’s degrees—Laura has her MBA now, and Doug and Michael are getting their master’s degrees then.

John Manchester’s novel, Never Speak, is due to be published in January. You can learn more at johnkmanchester.com. Note the blurb from Steve Schiff.

Keeping with the theme of Wheeler’s Egyptian Dog (they opened for the Byrds at the hockey rink—remember?), Dan Gleich is anticipating a San Francisco meet-up with Manchester, Schiff, and Peter Stern. Dan says he is edging into retirement—working half-time, but not feeling any less busy.

Win Watson succinctly states how Wesleyan helped him:

“a. Took neurobiology and oceanography senior year, as well as an education class. Now I am a full professor teaching neuroscience at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), and my research involves marine biology.

b. Soccer team: I still play a bit, but more important, I coached my son’s youth teams and at one point we won a state championship.

c. Golf team: Still play and I’ve had my share of success.

d. Fraternity and friends: I can still drink and goof around with the best of them.”

Moving over to the other UNH, the one in New Haven, the following from the recently retired Michael Kaloyanides: “Sheila and I will be sailing on the fall Semester at Sea around the world voyage. I will be a visiting professor teaching courses on world music and the history of Rock and Roll. Sheila will be the lifelong learner coordinator on the ship. This will be our sixth voyage with the program and we will be visiting Spain, Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, India, Burma, Vietnam, China, Japan, and Hawaii before disembarking in San Diego. We now have three grandchildren under the age of 2-and-a-half: Julia, Jane, and Will. Son Nathan lives in Northport, N.Y.; daughter Alexandra is an assistant professor of religion at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte; and daughter Elizabeth is legal counsel for the Bose Corporation and lives in Needham, Mass.”

Jerry Ryan is retired and living in Greenville, S.C. He plays golf, does volunteer work, and travels.

Speaking of travels, Elisa ’76 and I went to Paris in June, where I chaired a panel on international law and climate change at a big ABA conference. Besides just being there and revisiting some favorite spots from my 1970 COL semester (the only thing missing were the pinball machines in the cafes), the highlight was visiting and having dinner with Bonnie Krueger and her husband, Thomas Bass. This was the end of Bonnie’s final term running Hamilton College’s program in Paris, and we got to sample some of the wines, cheeses, and saucissons they have accumulated over the years. After we left, Bonnie got swept up in the fever of France’s World Cup triumph, which was celebrated openly and loudly throughout her Saint Germain neighborhood.

In August we had our annual trip to Lloyd Komesar [’74]’s Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. Not only was it better than ever, but our own Mike Arkin actually appeared in one of the films, as Harvey Weinstein. Very creepy. First time attendees included Mike Busman, Harold Sogard ’74, and Judy Hirschberg Atwood ’74.

Please help us get a big turnout for our 50th Reunion in May 2022. Yes, it’s a long time away, but we are seriously reaching out to everyone. Please send news, and help us contact folks who have not been at prior Reunions.

Seth A. Davis | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

I begin with the sad news of Manfred Stassen’s death. COL students and other philosophers and Germanisten knew him as a one-of-a-kind teacher, philosopher, homme de lettres, and chess expert. An edited version of a tribute by Mark Gelber appears in the Letters section; the full text is on our class notes page at magazine.wesleyan.edu.

Elisa ’76 and I had a wonderful week driving to and from a meeting in Charleston, S.C., seeing several classmates on the way. One of our stops was Smithfield, N.C., which you will undoubtedly recognize as the home of Bob Spence. Not only did Bob return to his hometown after law school, he is running what was his father’s law practice, and living in his boyhood home. We were treated to a lovely dinner at the Spence Manse, catching up on the past 46 years. Bob’s lovely wife, Carol, remarked how Bob constantly talks about how much his time at Wesleyan, particularly the spring of 1970 in Paris with the COL, meant to him, and she was interested in finally meeting someone who was there with him. Bob is trying to figure out how to disengage from his legal practice, which is doubly hard for him since he has a profound commitment to serving his individual clients.

On our way back, we dined with Rob Gelblum and his wife, Mary Lou, in Raleigh. Rob is having a good deal less difficulty disengaging from practicing law and is doing more musical performing. His family moved to Carolina from Philadelphia right as he started at Wes, to the great consternation of Rob and his brothers, but he quickly grew to love the area and has enjoyed living there.

In Chapel Hill we visited with Elisa’s classmate, Ted Shaw ’76 and his lovely family. Ted, a renowned civil rights attorney, teaches at UNC School of Law.

And returning home through the Capital area we visited with Bonnie Blair, who is a double classmate of mine—law school, too. Bonnie is ratcheting down her practice and preparing for her son Ross’s wedding in the fall.

Bob Withey is living with Leslie Walleigh (Brown ’71), high on their well-gardened hill in coastal Rockport, Maine, where he plows yards of snow, builds even more rock walls, coaches tennis, and serves as an ad hoc counselor and formal librarian at Camden Hills Regional High School. Their two daughters, Charlotte and Lauren, and a grandson, Benji, live in Marin County, Calif., so maintaining a balanced environmental carbon account is challenging. Richard Aroneau ’71 and Barbara Biddle Richardson ’74 are the local Wes connections. Bob’s dad, George Withey Jr. ’45, an assistant VP for business affairs from 1969-1976, died in July 2017 at age 93. George and his wife, Nancy Roe Withey, had a very interesting life together for 73 years. A favorite memory for Bob was marching with his parents during Reunion 2010 beside fellow World War II alumni up High Street past Eclectic House where George lived as a student and North College where he worked.

After 39 years of day-to-day practice as a general internist and geriatrician, Peter Schwartz is retiring. He has some volunteer positions lined up and a variety of hobbies to which he hopes to devote more time. Visiting with family members and traveling should take care of the rest of his time. Son Jonathan Schwartz ’00 is head of middle school at the Green Hills School in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Peter has a son in Osaka, Japan. His daughter and all his other stepkids and grandkids (10 total) live with him in the Philadelphia area.

Mike Hurd’s son, A.J., is graduating high school this year. Plus, he just got a 9-month-old, 60-pound black lab mix rescue “puppy.” Following a familiar theme, Mike moved back to his hometown, New Hartford, N.Y., living within sight of his boyhood home. Mike is still working, for the Trane side of Ingersoll Rand, and still enjoys the people and the benefits and the reason to get out of his PJs every day. His brother, Doug ’76, lives nearby and they often talk about the differences as freshmen between ’68 and ’72. “From wild to focused in just a few years.”

Since hanging up his reporter’s notebook two years ago, Randall Pinkston has been trying his hand at teaching. He was an adjunct at Stony Brook University School of Journalism and the University of Mississippi Meek School of Journalism and New Media.

He wrote me from there, trying to remember what he forgot in law school (UConn ’80) so he could teach communications law in the May intersession. “Working around the clock—three-and-a-half-hour lectures for 10 days. Whew!” Randall says his wife, Patricia, still allows him to live with her in Teaneck. Their daughter, Ada ’05, is a Baltimore-based performance artist and teaches art in Lanham, Md.

Finally, Mark Gelber is about to receive the highest distinctions awarded to civilians by the Austrian Government—the Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1. Klasse. That’s the Austrian Medal of Honor for Science and Art, First Class, folks. (Naturally, first class.)

Seth A. Davis | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

Believe it or not, planning efforts are already underway for our 50th Reunion. That’s going to happen in the spring of 2022. Many of us are already working to make this Reunion the greatest ever. We would like to bring as many classmates back to campus as possible. So, if you’ve not been to a Reunion in recent years—or ever—this is the one to go to and now is the time to start planning. We are setting up a novel “class council”—not to plan the Reunion itself but to work on reaching out to people from whom we haven’t heard in a while. If you are interested in helping in this effort in any way, please let me, or Andy Feinstein or Bob White know.

Roger Jackson retired from Carleton College in June 2016, after nearly 30 years of teaching Asian religions there. It’s well-nigh impossible, he says, to quit academia cold turkey, though, so he’s continued to keep his hand in, by giving talks, writing articles and reviews, finishing up a book on Buddhist meditation, advising students, and teaching off and on at Carleton and at Maitripa, a small Buddhist college in Portland, Ore. He is also enjoying, as always, family, friends, travel, poetry, good food, and baseball—but the current political climate not so much. “Watching Burns and Novick’s Vietnam series has been sobering, and a reminder that things not only could be worse, but have been.”

Of all the subjects of “whatever happened to?” queries, none were more frequent—or more futile—than those concerning George Walker. On New Year’s Day, a story in the New London Day gave us the answers. George left Wesleyan to join the Black Panthers, but became disillusioned. “It was clear we were not just overmatched,” he explained. “This was a flea against an elephant.” Disillusion led to heroin, and robberies to pay for it. George spent, by his own estimate, 13 years in prison, including a term for a bank robbery in Connecticut. In 2000 he moved to Florida, earned his undergraduate degree, and eventually earned a PhD in mental health counseling from Barry University. George’s dissertation, growing out of his own experience with long-term addiction, analyzed the concept of “ambiguous loss,” where the bereavement process has no closure, and where existing knowledge provides little help in processing such issues. How wonderful that our own ambiguous loss has now been addressed. And how wonderful for George to be able to help others deal with such situations.

John Manchester has signed a deal with TCK Publishing for three novels of psychological suspense—Never Speak, If I Fell, and The Girl in the Game. Two of them, he says, especially the second, have Wesleyan stuff hidden in them. Can’t wait!

I am sad to report that Rick Blake died in December, after months of a debilitating illness. Rick was an obstetrician and gynecologist, and taught those fields at the Howard University College of Medicine. His obituary noted that he majored in biology at Wesleyan, ran track, and played racquetball “for kill.” One Wesleyan racquetball opponent reported that while he, himself, did not like to lose, Rick disliked losing even more.

Finally, I spent a couple of wonderful days in Scottsdale this January with Dennis Kesden, who is now fully retired from the ophthalmology practice he shared with his wife Sherry. I have to say that Dennis has figured out his retirement as precisely as he figured out his life. He and Sherry met in medical school, and jointly picked ophthalmology as their field, as they saw the possibility, as individual practitioners, of doing exciting and innovative procedures out of their own office. That is precisely what they did, practicing together in an office they built on Long Island. Now, as is the trend in healthcare all over, they have sold the building and the practice, and live next to one of 27 fairways in a lovely golf community a short distance from their two grandchildren. It was great to see Dennis in a relaxed setting and talk about old times.

Speaking of families, I haven’t talked about mine lately. My older son, Mark, and his wife, Jenny, bought a house in Peekskill, N.Y., a short distance from the ancestral home. Mark is working at (brace yourselves…) West Point—as a labor economics analyst for the Army and Department of Defense. My younger son, Kevin, lives in our true ancestral home—the Bronx. In fact, he lives within walking distance of my parents’ homes, and the high schools (and one college) they attended. He works in the New York City 311 Call Center, answering inquiries and complaints on anything from parking regulations, noise, and garbage pickups, to protestations of innocence from Rikers Island inmates. He loves public service and is growing to appreciate the amazing variety of life in NYC.

Seth A. Davis | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

Let’s start with in-person encounters with classmates. In July, I traveled to Santa Fe for a conference, and had lunch with Bruce Throne and Larry Weinberg. Both of them find living there to be close to idyllic. Larry retired from an active GI practice, but is consulting with the University of New Mexico family practice residency program in Santa Fe. His daughter, Leah ’08, and her husband, Scott Horowitz ’07, have teaching jobs at the University of Denver—in musicology and chemistry and biochemistry respectively, so Larry expects to spend more time in that other Mile High City in the future.

I attended Lloyd Komesar ’74’s Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, which was, if anything, more fun than last year. Steve Goldschmidt had attended all three festivals, and this year he managed to get co-worker Mike Arkin to come, too. Many, many attendees from other classes, particular ’74. Any Wes grads in the Northeast in late August should consider going. There really is not any way to have more fun. (And wait until you see the alumni reception they throw—THANK YOU, Paul DiSanto ’81, et al!)

Jane Kent Gionfriddo and her husband, Michael ’73, had their 40th wedding anniversary last summer! They moved to Middletown from Cambridge, Mass., to the house in which Michael grew up. Jane taught for 34 years at Boston College Law School and, with a co-author, published a first-year law student textbook, Legal Reasoning and Objective Writing: A Comprehensive Approach (Wolters Kluwer, 2016). In December, she retired from BCLS as a professor emerita. Their daughter, Catherine Gionfriddo ’03, was a film major and now is a freelance editor in NYC (catherinegionfriddo.com).

This, verbatim, from Steve Alpert: “Greetings from my Adlerhorst in Amsterdam. Aside from good earthy living in British Columbia, Reimar Schefold and I have just completed another book. The last one, Eyes of the Ancestors, was an award-winning book that Sir David Attenborough called the best book ever written on Indonesian art. The latest, Toys for the Souls, chronicles my friend’s remarkable journey and 50 years of study among the Sakuddei tribe of Siberut in the Mentawai Islands off the coast of West Sumatra. It is also a catalogue raisonné of their remarkable arts. Never a dull moment, I am working on another book dealing with artistic masterpieces from different Dayak tribes in Borneo. Anyone out there who is interested in the gamelan orchestra or Indonesian culture, please contact me. We are trying to bring the Sultan of Yogyakarta to Wes Tech.”

Dave Hagerty started his own business, Berkshire Leadership Partners in 2016, specializing in executive coaching and leadership development. He coaches in the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Dave and his wife moved to their second home of some 23 years in Great Barrington, Mass., in the Berkshires. They have four grandchildren ranging in ages from 6 to 9.

Ron Ashkenas’ tribe continue to increase.  He added three new grandchildren (one set of twins) and a new son-in-law to the family in the past year. The wedding (the last, he says) took place on the beach in Crete on July 4. “Our daughter and her now-husband live in Australia, and this was a relatively central location.” On the work front, Ron is retired from his firm, but still very busy with both paid and pro bono consulting.  He is writing a handbook on leadership for the Harvard Business Review—for which he interviewed Michael Roth ’78, who provided some wonderful insights.

Steve Berman spent five days with Randy Mastrangelo ’73 and his family, including Alexandra ’98. Tropical Storm Jose hung out the whole time Steve was there, depriving him of the sunshine to which he has become accustomed, and keeping Jim Shepherd was marooned on Martha’s Vineyard. But Mike Kaloyanides and wife Sheila did make it up. Mike provided the music for the processional and recessional at Randy’s wedding in 1972, and they hadn’t seen each other since then! Both agreed it was like they had seen each other yesterday.

Finally, I am saddened to report the passing of Andy Thomas. Andy graduated from the University of Idaho, College of Law, and spent his entire career with Idaho Legal Aid Services, providing free legal services to low-income people in housing, family, public benefits, and senior law cases. Andy appeared before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Idaho Supreme Court.   He served in many community organizations, including the Idaho Region III Mental Health Advisory Board, the Idaho Housing Coalition, the Intermountain Fair Housing Council, and the Idaho Homeless Coalition. He served as president of the Third District Bar Association and was held in high esteem by his fellow attorneys in the Third District.  Andy was a mentor and great friend to his colleagues at Idaho Legal Aid, both in Caldwell and throughout ILAS, which has seven offices across the state. In some respects, Idaho Legal Aid was Andy’s family, and his colleagues loved him dearly and will miss him immensely.

Seth A. Davis | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

Our 45th Reunion is now history, and those who attended will concur that it was great fun. The campus was beautiful, and it was great to see old friends, even if we all seem to be getting older and kvetchier. Considering the alternative, that’s not such a bad thing. So here are my random recollections, with apologies in advance to any attendees I may have omitted.

I arrived at Wesleyan on Friday, and camped out by registration to see who was checking in. Thus, I got some time with Jim Shepherd, Steve Goldschmidt, Steve Lewis, Dennis Kesden, Mike Busman, Bruce Throne, and others. At our class welcoming reception at the Stew Reid House we had our only weekend visits with some true notables—Wesleyan President Emeritus Colin Hon.’89 and Nancy Campbell MALS’80 (who have nothing but wonderful memories of us—or so they say), and Chip Goodrich.

Friday dinner was an extraordinary event, thanks to the labors of Andy Feinstein.  We took over O’Rourke’s Diner for the occasion, and Brian O’Rourke prepared an elaborate tasting menu for us. Only one dish vaguely resembled a steamed cheeseburger, and the “BYOB” policy led to some fine pairings. My table sipped a marvelous Walt Wines pinot noir, and there were various other wines and single malt scotches passed around. Leon Vinci presented Brian with a copy of Brian’s cookbook, autographed by us.

So it’s fitting to mention two who were unfortunately NOT in attendance. Mike Carlson, 45 minutes before his cab was due to arrive to take him to the airport in London, realized that he had forgotten to renew his passport. (Further comment from me would be superfluous—not that it has stopped me in the past.) Hank Shelton’s plane (after his original flight was cancelled) hit a bird one hour out of Memphis, whereupon that flight, too, was cancelled, thereby making it impossible for Hank to get to Wes in time. We truly missed them.

Most of us managed to be there for the alumni parade, noting that we are getting that much closer to the front. There followed an afternoon of hanging around on Foss Hill and attending seminars and film presentations. Our class seminar, entitled “Sustainability, Climate Change, and Energy in an Era of Alternative Facts” (title credit to Bruce Throne) featured Bruce Throne, Bonnie Blair, Stew Reid, and yours truly. We all laid out a mixed message of innovation vying with aggressive administration retrogression. What can we do about this, many asked, and the best response was that individual and grassroots actions still count for a great deal. Thanks, I guess, to Peter Hicks for posing a question about the ban of fracking in New York State, my honest answer to which earned me the opprobrium of most of the crowd. And the record will show that Stew was the only one of us explicitly to call for removal of the president.

From there to our class dinner, which was a raging success, thanks to the efforts of Mike Kaloyanides, Blake Allison, Steve Blum, and Mike Kishbauch, a.k.a. Blackwall Hitch, who performed the 19 top songs of our college years, from “Time Has Come Today” to “Honky Tonk Women.” Word got around campus that the ’72 party was the place to be, and by evening’s end we had quite a crowd. We cannot thank the four of them enough for their efforts—they were fabulous, and we’ll all have wonderful memories of their performance for a long time.

Bonnie Blair was an admirable MC. And thanks to those who joined with me in expressing brief tributes to recently departed classmates. Some found it mawkish, but it’s important. Thanks to Steve Goldschmidt, Blake Allison, Rich Easton, Bob White, Steve Berman, and Marjorie Melnick.

Richard Kolotkin filled me in on the past 45 years, although he was not able to come for Reunion. He got his PhD in psychology from the University of Minnesota, and spent the bulk of his career at Moorhead, both teaching at Minnesota State University and in the private practice of psychology.

He wrote, “Over the years, I have published a marriage self-help book and a number of research-based articles. One of these was a study that compared relationship satisfaction as it emerged in committed relationships in real life to the satisfaction experienced in online amorous relationships between two “committed” avatars on a massive online game called Second Life. This generated a bit of a buzz when the data showed that significantly more women were more satisfied with their virtual lover than they were with the man with whom they had a committed, real life relationship.”

Now fully retired, Rich and Deidre, his wife of almost 40 years, plan to reinvent themselves “in a warmer part of the world in new ways that nurture both spirit and soul.”

Next Reunion is our 50th. Be there. Renew your passports now. No excuses will be accepted. For those of you who keep saying you’ll be there “next time,” this is it.

Seth A. Davis | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

NEWSMAKERS | 1970s NEWSMAKER SETH DAVIS ’72 Seth Davis ’72 is chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources Law (SEER), the premier forum for strategies and information for environmental, energy, and resource lawyers. “To be entrusted with the leadership of SEER is truly a high honor,” said Davis. He has practiced law for more than 40 years, specializing in environmental law since 1980. He continues to practice at The Elias Group, the Rye-based environmental law firm, where he has been since 2004. An adjunct professor in Pace Law School’s environmental program, he also lectures frequently on environmental subjects. A College of Letters major at Wesleyan, he earned his JD from Harvard Law School.

Elisa ’76 and I had an absolutely marvelous time at Lloyd Komesar ’74’s Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. Lloyd has done a spectacular job putting this festival together, and it’s hard to imagine anything more enjoyable than spending three-and-a-half days in Vermont in August, watching an array of new films, not to mention a few classics. Next year’s dates are Aug. 24 through 27, and we are definitely going back.

There was a huge Wesleyan contingent there, and Paul DiSanto ’81 even came up to run an alumni event at Middlebury’s Stonecutter Spirits, run by Sivan Cotel ’05, whose product line is most highly recommended. At the risk of offending those I fail to mention, attendees included Steve Goldschmidt, Todd Jick ’71, Neil Salowitz ’73, Mike McKenna ’73, Bill Pearson ’74, Debra Storey ’74, Lyn Thurber Lauffer ’74, and David Weinstock ’75. We were thrilled to meet Juliet Werner ’03, whose documentary, The Laughter Life, was one of the featured showings. (It’s about an SNL-like comedy troupe on the Mormon cable network!)

By my count, we saw films at 10 of the 11 screening times, seeing as many features and even more shorts, and even then we saw maybe 30 percent of what was shown. Nice going, Lloyd! We will definitely be back!

Larry Weinberg got a break from tending to “various GI complaints” (his patients’—not his) to visit his daughter, Leah ’08, in Ann Arbor, where she just received her PhD in musicology, writing her dissertation on Einstein on the Beach. He then hit Boston for his 40th med school reunion, and to New York to see Hamilton.

Mike Carlson and Bob White both had some humorous recollections in connection with Coach Bill MacDermott’s passing. Mike’s was on Facebook, but here is some of what the Whizzer had to say: “There is no doubt that Mac was important in my Wesleyan-experience. It was Mac who dubbed me ’The Whizzer.’ The Whizzer became who I was at Wesleyan around the time of the Dartmouth match in February of our freshman year. As a wrestler, the whizzer series was a favorite of mine and I remember teammate Lou DiFazio from the sidelines, loudly shouting when I was on the mat, “The whip, Whizzer. The whip.” At that Dartmouth match, during the warm-ups, I had a towel on my head, draping it, in part, over my face in the style of Sonny Liston. When Mac noticed me on the mat, he did a double take and held out his hands as if feeling for rain. He asked me, ’Hey Whizzer, where’s the rain?’

“Mac made a major contribution to my wrestling education. I still use the Wesleyan Wrestling Manual that Mac gave the team our sophomore year. When I was in medical school, I was a journeyman wrestler, practicing at high schools in the Newark metropolitan area. I used this manual to help the novice athletes develop their skills. The same February that I became the Whizzer, Mac supported my interest in freestyle wrestling by giving me a chart that was illustrated with a collection of freestyle and Greco-Roman techniques on it. I used it for 10 years after Wesleyan to teach myself to survive in my adventures on the freestyle wrestling circuit in New Jersey.

“I know I astounded some of our classmates at our last Reunion when I told them that the Williams wrestling meet was on the same day as the Fisk Hall Takeover. Why would I remember that? Obviously, that was weighing heavy on my mind that day I went to have a conversation with Mac about the impending event on Feb. 21, but I was detoured from that discussion and became the Whizzer.”

Bruce Hearey might by now have returned to Earth following the Cleveland Cavaliers’ championship season, but he was still floating above us when he sent me some news over the summer. “I drove to Maine with my son, Owen. Owen graduated from UCLA this past June with his hard-earned PhD in economics and starts a new job in LA this September with the Analysis Group. He also visited Iceland in June with his brother, Leif Dormsjo ’97. Leif and his wife, Kristin Barcak, live in D.C., where Leif is a director of transportation.

“Anyway, back to Maine. On the way we stopped and had lunch with Steve Ingraham ’70 in Rochester. Steve is retired from law now, but is still perhaps the most wonderful person in the world, staying busy doing volunteer work with Nepali refugees. Owen and I went on to New Hampshire where we did an overnight climb to the summit of Mount Pierce in the Presidentials. It seemed a whole lot easier for Owen than it did for me. In Maine, Owen and I visited Acadia and Bar Harbor, but mostly went to Rob Brewster’s daughter’s wedding in lovely Franklin. Emily was marrying a nice Irish fellow, David Varley, and it was a special gathering. Presided over by Elliot Daum ’70, a judge in Santa Rosa, Calif., the wedding also featured Al Wallace ’70 and wife, Barb, Rob’s sister, Tish ’77, and some teary fatherly sentiments from the bride’s proud dad. A lot of Eclectic spirit to be sure, in a lush setting looking out over a salt marsh. Rob is planning to retire from his longtime post as executive director of Riverdale Mental Health, and still do some private practice work. Though he and I don’t see each other for long periods of time, it never seems to matter.

“Here in Cleveland, we bask in the glow of a championship, and a successful convention, and await the Indians’ triumphant return to the World Series.”

Last, some personal news. In August I became chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environmental, Energy, and Resources Law. This section has been the intellectual center of my legal practice for more than 35 years, and it is a great honor to be entrusted with its care for the next year. I am already amazingly busy with chairmanly activities, and we’ve got a very full year planned with events in many parts of the country. I hope to see Wesleyan folks at many of them. I was pleased to be able to include some sterling alums in my several dozen chair appointments: Earl Phillips ’77, Jason Gellman ’93, and Colin Van Dyke ’99. And—subsequent to the original writing of this column—I presided over SEER’s Fall Conference in Denver, where Governor John Hickenlooper ’74 was the keynote speaker.

SETH A. DAVIS | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

 

As I cleaned out my basement while moving out of the Davis homestead, I preserved a few items of particular personal interest. One of these items was our freshman facebook. I have it in my office now, and as I look at it periodically I am struck, not just by the array of earnest young (and clean-shaven!) faces, but by the extraordinary collection of young men with whom I was privileged to begin college in the fall of 1968. Not to slight the wonderful women who joined us later, but it truly was an honor to be one of those 331 men, and all I can say is thanks to Bob Kirkpatrick ’60 for bringing us all together! From the horror of what went before that year—the assassinations, the convention, etc.—I joined that class with the highest of hopes. The road down which we ended up traveling may not have been the road we envisioned, but it has been a journey worth the effort. To have been your chronicler for the past almost-40 years has been an honor.

The only true descriptor for most of us comes from the language of my forbears, and that word is “mensch.” Webster’s defines mensch as “a person of integrity and honor,” but it’s much more than that. The class of 1972 is loaded with menschen—true feeling, caring, creative, men and women. Or, as one of my fellow menschen once described me, “regular guys with some brains.” As we have recently said farewell to some classmates, and as we look forward to seeing many of you at our reunion next year, let’s take a second to remember what a wonderful group of people we were—and still are.

You might also translate “mensch” as “An Honorable Man,” which is the title of Paul Vidich’s recently published spy novel. You absolutely have to read it. It’s a thriller, but much, much more. Paul is quite a craftsman of words, and the resolution of this story has stayed in my mind for weeks after having finished it. No word on the movie rights yet, but I could see Ben Affleck doing it…

Also on the espionage front, my local cinematheque, the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, had a special showing of this season’s episode 8 of The Americans, six days before it aired, with a personal appearance by co-producer and writer Steve Schiff. This particular episode has since been hailed by some as the finest single episode in television history, or at least for this year, and there is no disagreement here. We enjoyed drinks with Steve and his wife Laura afterwards, but no future plot spoilers were divulged.

We received news of Fred Moore’s passing too late to include more than a brief mention here. So here are some notes from Bob White, who attended Fred’s funeral: “When I re-connected with Fred after our 25th Reunion, Fred denied that he ever thought about Wesleyan. When I pointed out to him that this may not be the case because his son’s name was Wesley. He swore that it was ‘subliminal.’ That was Fred for you. Fred was proud when I related to Wesley (then about 10 years old) about Fred’s stellar performance at a Wesleyan-Springfield track meet during the spring of either our junior or senior years. Fred was the anchor for Wesleyan’s relay team. Butch Carson, also a sprinter, recalled that the team was behind by at least 100 yards when Fred was handed the baton. Butch further told me, ‘I have never seen a human being move that fast.’ It may have been Percy Harvey who quipped at the meet, ‘Fred was running like the Klan was chasing him in Alabama.’ As a witness to this feat, I thought he could close the gap somewhat but never catch the other runner. Also, I thought it was impossible for Fred to pass him. Fred caught the other runner, stayed even for a few paces, and then down the straightaway, Fred let the burners loose, hitting the tape first. It was a fantastic win for Fred and Wesleyan. And Fred shrugged it off as if it was business as usual.

“Attendees included Al ‘Smitty from the City’ Smith ’73, Kevin Smyley, Granderson ‘Granny’ Hale ’73, and Richard Jasper ’73. During our junior year, I remember Fred, Butch, and Kevin in Harriman Hall regularly on Thursday nights for ‘intensive study sessions.’ I learned from Kevin that he was much involved with Fred’s care in the last months.

“Of course, after the funeral, the ‘Wesleyan people’ sat at the ‘Wesleyan table’ (I noted this same behavior at the late Percy Harvey’s wedding reception, i.e., all the Wesleyan people sat at the ‘Wesleyan table’ in another tent from the rest of the guests). This gives alternative meaning to Beverly Daniel Tatum ’75’s book title, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? or the January 1970 New York Times article, The Two Nations at Wesleyan University (which by the way had a photo of Fred Moore, sitting at the ‘black table’). When I was on campus, I caught interesting comments from both directions about where I sat because I sat at the wrestling training-meal table during season. Granny was entertaining with his usual banter at the table. Because I was sitting next to him in a church, I was worried that I was going to be struck by lightning or slapped at any moment.

“In the 1999 issue of Wesleyan featuring, celebrating, and reviewing “The Route to Diversity at Wesleyan,” there is a photo from the Fisk Hall Takeover, in which one of the shadows looks like Fred. I received nods from some of the folks at the wake, who watched the PowerPoint presentation of Fred’s life that contained that photo, and who confirmed that it was Fred. We spent a lot of time back then wondering what would happen to us. Well, we know what happened to Fred. He graduated from Wesleyan with a degree in economics; he received a master’s of business administration in finance and accounting from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; he had a successful career, moving up the ranks of his profession; he kept in touch with his Wesleyan classmates, friends, and buddies; he came to the 1970s Wesleyan Black and Latino Alumni Reunion in Memphis in October 2005; his name appeared on the most recent Wesleyan Donor Honor Roll. Fred supported what supported him at his best; and importantly, he urged his son, Wesley, to apply to Wesleyan.”

Thanks, folks! More in four months!

SETH A. DAVIS | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu

213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

I must begin with some sad news, as we have lost one of the true icons of our class. Dave Revenaugh died in February after a lengthy illness. Everyone will remember Dave as the star running back on Wesleyan’s undefeated team in 1969. The image of him scoring the winning touchdown in the epic win over Williams is forever etched in my mind. The following year Wesleyan repeated as Little Three champs—and we went through a very long stretch of time before that happened again. But let’s also remember Dave as a truly delightful, if Rabelaisian, individual. He was a constant, active presence on campus, someone who enjoyed life immensely and made everyone around him enjoy it too. He made a career as a builder, specializing in “green,” sustainable projects. No one who knew him will soon forget Dave. The world has now become that much duller.

Geoffrey Smith passed away last June in Virginia. Jeff worked for the IRS for 40 years. He was remembered in his Centreville community for his many years of coaching softball and basketball with men and women with special needs.

Fred Moore passed away Feb. 16. Fred earned an MBA from Columbia and qualified as a CPA, enjoying a long and varied career in the corporate world and in banking, most recently as vice president of Structured Securitized Products for ING Financial Services, Inc. We who remember him as a track star at Wesleyan are not surprised to know that he kept up with competitive running until he became ill.

Dennis Kesden is moving into a new phase. He and his wife, Sherry, sold their ophthalmology practice and office building, and became employees of OCLI, the largest eye group in the New York metropolitan area. They work Monday to Thursday for three weeks, then take a week off and go to Phoenix to see their daughter, Cindy; son-in-law, Jay; and grandchildren, Spencer and Hannah. Their son, Dr. Mike Kesden, is a tenure-track physics professor at U.T. Dallas, and the winner of a Sloan Fellowship. Dennis has targeted this December as his retirement date. Dennis plays a lot of golf, but Sherry’s idea of relaxation is performing 18 cataract operations a day.

Sherry Hilding is still working as a special education teacher at Windham Tech HS in Willimantic, Conn. She also was recently certified as a TRE-tension/trauma release provider, takes a lot of yoga, and continues to teach an eclectic exercise class. And last summer she attended a ‘super fantastic” workshop at Omega Institute led by Bobby McFerrin.

Pat Bailey is still living the dream in his home, Chateau Calypso, in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. “This past July I was the International Sailing Federation’s technical delegate in charge of the Sailing Competition at the Pan American Games. Our event was acclaimed the best ever in the history of the Games! Not too bad for a simple island boy and as always I am thankful for my well rounded education at Wesleyan ’68-’72.”

Paul Vidich’s novel should be published by the time this column is in print. I can’t wait to read it. Paul’s home town buddy Vin Suprynowicz has also transitioned to the fictive mode. To quote from the book jacket of his latest novel,

“Deep in the Nevada desert, in a hidden mansion full of old books and vintage clothes, guarded by five-and-a-half anthropomorphic cats and a family of Attack Roadrunners, Vin Suprynowicz went cold turkey from a 40-year newspaper career. They said he’d never write anything over a thousand words again. But with the help and encouragement of the Brunette and a few close friends, he came back. With The Testament of James he proved them wrong. Now comes the second drug-enhanced adventure of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens, The Miskatonic Manuscript. In an earlier life, Vin wrote Send in the Waco Killers, The Ballad of Carl Drega, and the freedom novel The Black Arrow.”

Leon Vinci is back “east”—Roanoke, Va., to be precise, after 12 years as a county public health officer in Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. Two sons and a grandchild live nearby. (His daughter works on Madison Avenue in “the Big Apple.”) Leon is CEO/President of Health Promotion Consultants, a health and environmental consulting firm. In Colorado, Leon met up with Rick Berg for some mountain/trail hiking on the western slope. (Okay, Rick! Two consecutive issues!) Leon is proud to announce that this is the 175th Anniversary of the founding of Chi Psi, and he will be attending the conclave in Williamsburg, Va. The Lodge at Wesleyan is the third-oldest chapter.

Peter Schwartz works in a large geriatric medical practice in southeast Pennsylvania. He and wife Leigh celebrated 20 years of marriage and the birth of their 10th grandchild (six for him, four for her). Son Jonathan ’00 is head of the middle school at The Greenhills School in Ann Arbor. Son Jeffrey lives in Japan while the other children are closer by.

John Paul Maynard is completing his fifth year running the website, Islamic Civilization, hosted by the alumni office of Harvard University. In September, he completed Twelve Capitalisms: An Economic History of Civilization. In spring 2016 his second book of poems, Turning the Barbarians, will be published by the Levelers Press.

This from Rob Gelblum: “Trying to exit my 30-year environmental law career (including 25 with the State of North Carolina, ending three years ago), though music will take up a certain amount of time. Meanwhile, Mary Lou continues to render therapy part-time to the severely autistic. Reuben (29) is new to Seattle after relocating there with his partner (she’s starting medical residency there), and Morris (just turned 28) continues to grow Sweeps (sweeps.jobs) while living outside Chapel Hill. Both sons did that UNC-CH (where their parents met as 32-year-old grad students) undergrad thing. A downsizing scenario involving leaving Raleigh after 28 years for a few acres west of Chapel Hill, with ML’s handicapped older sister/ward and sister’s caregiver living in one little-if-not-tiny home and us in another, may be in the cards. It’s ironic to think that, when my parents announced in Philly in June ’68 they were moving the family to some place called Chapel Hill, N.C., I said something like, ‘Thank goodness I’ll never have to live down there with you, since I’ll be starting Wesleyan in the fall.’ Best to all ’72ers.”

And of course, a final word from Bob White: “An article is coming out soon, targeting me and my work on the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis. Ouch! It is a good thing that I went to Wesleyan and this is just business as usual to deal with such contention. Stay tuned.”

Thanks, folks! More in four months!

SETH A. DAVIS | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu

213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801

Rick Berg and his wife are back from Bhutan, where he was writing software for the Royal Thimphu College. “That,” he says, “was a wonderful and enlightening experience, but after two years at Himalayan wages there is no question of retirement. Besides, I need something to do, since I’ve given up climbing after several bad falls. So it’s back to New Mexico, where I’m writing software for DataWizards, a small company I share with three partners, and hiking on the weekends. Occasionally I do get back East, where I get to see Bernie Crawford, who is a surgeon in NYC.”

The following major news bulletin is submitted verbatim and without further comment: “Much to the surprise of all concerned, Steve Roper finally married his long-time amiable consort, Nancy J. Stack ’74, in April of 2015. This shocking turn of events was aided and abetted by Steve’s ’72 classmates, J. Bryan Flynn and John R. Rivers, along with honorary classmate, Carol (Beardsley) Rivers. The happy couple will continue to reside in Melrose, Mass., where Steve has retired after 31 years of attempting to keep the Mass. Dept. of Transportation from violating all known federal and state historic preservation laws. Nancy J., although entertained by Steve’s adventures in the trackless morass of Medicare/Social Security, continues to labor as a hired gun planner/project manager in Boston.”

John Manchester and his wife, Judy, have moved to Oakland, close to sons Shawn and Chris, who are both enjoying high-tech success, and grandson Jackson, who is a nuclear-powered age 3. John is in his 11th year of pursuing a second career as a writer after the Internet destroyed his old one as a composer. He is still holding out for traditional, over self-, publishing. His latest is a thriller with a backstory based on the Wesleyan ’60s.

Jerry Ryan, after buying or financing nursing homes for various companies over nearly 35 years, is retiring to Greenville, S.C., next spring. Presumably, Jerry left nothing but satisfied customers in Greenville. Jerry has four grandchildren between his wife’s two and his own two.

After over 30 years of designing and producing computer games, and before that, paper-and-pencil games, Arnold Hendrick and his wife, Georgeann, have retired to “sagebrush steppe” country of Meridian, Idaho, just outside of Boise. Except he hasn’t really retired at all: he’s still employed making computer games for a virtual company.

After almost 40 years in New Jersey, Doug Stivison and wife Heather moved to the beautiful southeast coast of Massachusetts, where Doug took up the position of pastor of the Congregational Church of South Dartmouth. The iconic 200-year-old church is just two blocks up from the waterfront of Padanaram Harbor….well known to sailors as the site of the Buzzards Bay Regatta. Doug had the pleasure this summer of walking his daughter, Megan, down the aisle, then turning around and officiating at the wedding. Singing at her sister’s wedding was Beth Stivison ’09.

After completing a long-dreamed-of circumnavigation aboard his 43-foot South-African-built cutter, Nat Warren-White has returned to his home state of Maine, where he is writing about his adventures. To date, Ocean Navigator, has published 14 pieces written about all legs of the journey and Nat is busy looking for a publisher to help edit and create a book stitching these “chapters” together. Nat and Betsy, together since ’75, have just been blessed with their first grandchild, Diego Antonio, born June 15 to son Josh and his partner, Maria, in Berkeley, Calif. “What a thrill —and great to join the club and be able to share grandparent stories with Peter Stern and others, plus have an excuse to spend more time on the Left Coast.” Nat continues to act and coach executives through the Ariel Group in Boston (arielgroup.com) while practicing as a drama therapist. The theater company he helped start in 2004, AndStillWeRise (andstillwerise.org), comprised of ex-prisoners and their loved ones, continues to thrive in Boston and will be appearing at the North American Drama Therapy conference in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 15. Any and all WEStech friends are welcome to visit in South Freeport, Maine. Nat enjoys being in regular touch with Joel Bernstein, Jim Pickering, Stephen Policoff, Peter Stern, Peter Love, Inara de Leon, Paula Harrington and others from our sweet bygone WESU days, but still misses Oscar Look dearly. A book of Oscar’s letters and poetry, published by his daughter, Erin, is available on Amazon…just search Oscar Look and it’ll pop up!

Andy Feinstein continues to work, expanding his law firm, which specializes in representing students with special needs and their parents. “I see Rich Easton on alternate Friday mornings at the Stonington Men’s Group and just missed Paul Vidich’s 65th birthday party last Sunday evening.”

Mark Frost’s weekly newspaper, The Chronicle, celebrated its 35th anniversary on Sept. 2, still “locally owned, locally committed” and having its best year ever. Mark is following with interest the Wesleyan Argus controversy—and hoping the Argus and Wesleyan will stand their ground in defense of a free press and free speech.

Bruce Hearey’s son, Leif Dormsjo ’97, got married this past April to Kristin Barcak, in a lovely weekend celebration in Charleston, S.C. Having worked in Maryland state and city government for well over a decade, Leif is now the director of transportation for the District of Columbia. Son Owen will be graduating with a PhD in economics from UCLA next June, and hopefully will be more than gainfully employed when this gets printed. Bruce finished a year as president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, and is now back to practicing law. He and wife Stephanie are downsizing, as they are a short year away from empty nest status. They are leaving leafy Shaker Heights and migrating a few miles west to a condo townhouse in Cleveland’s increasingly cool Uptown area. The three flights of steep stairs do not intimidate them, whether Bruce gets that long delayed hip replacement surgery or not.

“Despite the pessimism of all these Republican loudmouths, life to me at 65 seems pretty good,” writes Bruce. “I am bemused by the stuff on campus: Deke suing the University, the University shutting down Psi U, students wanting to shut down the Argus…I guess [expletive deleted] keeps happening on campus no matter the generation.”

Finally, this has been an eventful year for me. My son Mark was married on April 18 to Jenny Bonacore Adolfson. I may be a latecomer to the marriages-of-children scene among this crowd, but I must confess it was one of the happiest days of my life. And, as you can see from my new address, Elisa and I have happily relocated to a wonderful new townhouse near Danbury. (Thanks in part to Fran Pennarola ’73, who handled the closing). No, this is not retirement, but it is the end of 60 years of Davis family presence in the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, and that was not devoid of emotional pangs. It’s great to be back in Connecticut after 43 years, and it makes for a shorter drive to our 45th Reunion, which will be here soon.

Thanks, folks! More in four months!

SETH A. DAVIS | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu

213 Copper Square Drive, Bethel, CT 06801