1960 Class Notes

Richard F. Banbury

1960 Class Notes –  January/February 2012 Issue

Edinburgh is to drama what Cannes and Sundance are to film.  And once again, Sandy Campbell has had a successful play premiered at the Edinburgh Festival, one of 44 in the Scotland Street series.  The World According to Bertie, adapted from a book of the same title, develops the story of a six-year-old boy and a border collie.  All 46 performances were sold out, and Bertie was designated in the Scotsman as a “Hot Show”.  Sandy and his co-author, Lydia Bruce, had another hit drama at Edinburgh, Patriot Act, a couple of years ago.  Perhaps Sandy, whose nom de plume is Sandy Burns, should get together with Wilse Keithline, who was recently cast in a community theatre production of Curtains, the professional version of which won a Tony as a Broadway show.  That casting call would work best for Wilse if the dramatis personae includes young Bertie’s grandfather.   

              Perhaps the most engaging lecture course in Yale College during our day was John Morton Blum’s epic interpretation of American History, followed closely by Vincent Scully’s tour de force in History of Art, with his inspiring narrated slide shows, during which architecture was often observed as a form of sculpture.  Film buffs may remember Professor Blum’s role as an historian in Woody Allen’s Zelig, that zany story about a ubiquitous yet amorphous 1920’s celebrity.  Professor Blum, who recently passed away at 90, was also a congenial individual who had close relationships with Pete Riddle, Barry Schaller, and John Wilkinson.  It turns out that Barry was Pam and John Blum’s “regular babysitter & occasional handyman” during both college and law school years.  Pete enjoyed an extensive correspondence with Professor Blum over the years, and John had personal and family relationships with the Blums under the elms in New Haven. 

              Nicki and I were invited to crash a Calhoun Reunion at the beautiful lake home of Mike Griffin and partner Molly Butler Hart, in Warren, one of the quintessential New England towns in northwest Connecticut.  The Calhoun contingent included Nancy and Owen Cylke (Bethesda), Joan and Tom Dent (Santa Barbara), with Mary and Harold Hammet (Fort Worth).  The non-Calhoun crashers included Helen and Pete Knudsen (Hamden, CT) and Patti and Tom Yamin (New York).  Molly and Mike were gracious hosts to this wayward Yalie collection.  Many memories and lots of laughs joyously filled the marvelous space and treasured time spent together. 

              The invasion of Charleston on March 19th has been fully subscribed.  The South Carolina low country cuisine, and various planned activities, punctuated with lots of free time, are awaiting the invasion force of approximately one hundred guys and dolls. 

              It was a good year for hardy classmates to renew friendships and share experiences.  Brad Warner joined Reuel Warriner and Tom Urmston in Manhattan for a Chi Psi and Navy reunion.  Also in Manhattan, Brad and Gerry Tyrrell were dinner guests at the home of Jerald Fessenden.  On both occasions, fond memories of the late Barron Fletcher were shared by all.  In the same vein, Ellen and Jock Pillsbury teamed up with Lyn and Jim Taylor for a European adventure, highlighted by high-end hiking in the Alps, with friend and professional Alpine guide Fred Jacobson leading the way. 

              Our golfing guys are still driving, chipping and putting, a fair way to enjoy the company of classmates.  The most recent stop on this tour, hosted by Merrill Magowan and Tom Trowbridge, included the scenic California courses at Cypress Point, Pasatiempo, and the Black Horse at Fort Ord.  Once again, Keith Kittle won the three-day competition with a low gross of 254.  Mike Harris, with two birds, and Bill Shipman shared the low net prize, using the modified Stableford scoring format.  Thanks to our golfing czar Steve Lasewicz for coordinating this established class tradition and reporting the results.  Taking a different course, Alan Gilison recently scored a very competitive 76 at the Beinecke Member Guest Invitational on the venerable Yale Golf Course.  

              A conversation with the Class of 1986 has been initiated with regard to our Summer fellowships.  These three programs, John Heinz, Les Aspin, and Branford, have been a hands-on project with our Class funding the programs and choosing the undergraduates who benefit from them.  One general concept is to enlist another class to participate in the administration of these fellowships and eventually assume that responsibility.  Our point man is Arvin Murch.  This is a preliminary exploration, and the signals from 1986 have so far been ambivalent. 

Recent research has established the importance of mind over matter when it comes to leading an active and fulfilling life during the senior decades.  These investigations, including work by psychology Professor Becca Levy at Yale, conclude that “expectations of their capabilities can have a greater impact on health, happiness and even longevity than the date on their birth certificate” (The Hartford Courant, Oct. 19, 2011, D3).  According to this research, pessimism about elderly decline can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and subjective age has been found to be more important than chronological age in predicting performance on memory and other mental tasks.  So …

Stayoung.

1960 Class Notes –  November/December 2011 Issue

Included among the various awards and recognitions bestowed on Yale alumni are the George H.W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership Awards, in honor of President Bush I, who was captain of the 1948 baseball team, well after his storied service as a decorated Navy pilot.  At that time, in his senior year, the future 41st President was living in New Haven with his wife Barbara and a toddler who later became the 43rd President.  The Bush Lifetime of Leadership Awards are presented at the biennial Blue Leadership Ball, which will take place this year at the William Lanman Center in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium.  The Awards ceremony will be on November 18th, the evening before the Yale-Harvard football game.  The honored alumni this year include Donald Dell, who has a distinguished and unmatched career as a tennis player, sports agent, lawyer and leader.  Don was instrumental in establishing the Association of Tennis Professionals in 1972 and was also the founder of Professional Services, known as ProServ, one of the nation’s first and most successful sports marketing firms.  As a college player, Don was a three-year All American and reached the NCAA final singles match in 1959.  A member of the United States Davis Cup Team in the early 1960s, Don was later captain of the winning Davis Cup teams in 1968 and 1969.  He was inducted into the College Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993 and the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2009.  Many classmates will recall Don as a regular television commentator for several years, covering Wimbledon with Bud Collins and Barry McKay.  His leadership extends well beyond the world of tennis.  After earning a law degree at the University of Virginia in 1964, Don practiced law for several years and also worked as a special assistant to Sargent Shriver at the Peace Corps.  Of the six alumni being honored this year, two others were at Yale when we were:  Jack Embersits ’58 and Ben Balme ’61.  Many of us remember Jack from his role as captain of the 1957 football team and his later work in the Yale Administration.  A resident of Madison, Connecticut, Jack passed away within the last year.  Ben was a first-team AP All-American guard who played with the Philadelphia Eagles before attending Yale Medical School.  His career as an outstanding orthopedic surgeon includes his front-line work with wounded warriors in Vietnam. 

Three Books:  On November 17, 1934, Yale defeated Princeton 7-0 on a remarkable catch and run by sophomore Larry Kelley, a future Heisman Trophy winner.  It was the last time that a college football team played the entire game without substitution.  The story of those eleven men and their later lives is well told in William Wallace’s Yale’s Ironmen.  Kelley’s roommate and teammate was Jack Wright, who played right tackle on that historic day.  Wright’s nephew, Matt Freeman, was a three-year varsity player, whose dedication to Yale football was recognized when he was presented with the Oliver Trophy after his senior season.  A new book authored by Mike Freeman, Matt’s son, would make a nice holiday gift.  Drifting is the story of Mike’s two-week solo canoe trip down the Hudson River, weaving historical themes with his observations concerning contemporary social and moral issues.  Recently released, Drifting has evoked several complimentary endorsements:  “Freeman’s narrative makes us think in hard ways about America as the country itself drifts toward an uncertain future”.  “Drift down the river with Mike Freeman and witness the unfolding of a love story – a love of history, a love of nature, and a love of family”.  Mike’s observations and reflections are undoubtedly influenced by having lived for ten years in a remote Alaskan village. 

              If one is in the mood to acquire class progeny projects for personal pleasure or holiday gifting, consider Like a Hole in the Head (Little Brown, 1998), a comic biblio-mystery by Jen Banbury ‘89, which became the fourth best selling work of fiction during the week following  the author’s appearance on the Today show.  The mystery, spiced by salty language and crude characters, involves an extremely valuable inscribed Jack London first edition. 

              The newly-formed Yale Veterans Association is seeking contact information from all classes for those who served in the military but are not  ROTC program graduates.  If you fall into that category, send contact information to Charlie Weymouth or Wilse Keithline, both of whom are members of the organization committee. 

Most of us are 72 or 73.  That’s equivalent to a C-.  We can do better than that.  Perhaps a lot better. 

Stayoung.

Class Notes – September/October 2011 Issue

We can’t live in the past, but we sure as heck can visit it.  From time to time, I like to reflect on some of the highlights, hijinks and happy adventures we experienced during those four years from which a thousand adolescents emerged as young men.  In that vein, a few years back various classmates recalled New Haven haunts where they joined with friends for the late night fourth meal of the day.  A nice injection of nostalgia.  Many of us remember attending hockey games, first at the old New Haven Arena and later at Ingalls Rink.  Our senior year captain Bruce Smith, like many others, continued to lace-up the skates long after his collegiate career.  While living in Paris and later Grenoble, Bruce played club hockey for a team in a European league of their own.  If you’re having trouble imagining Parisians on skates, Bruce recalls that a large number of his teammates were from the French Canadian provinces.  A gifted sculptor, Bruce later created a bronze statue of hockey legend and Princeton stalwart Hobey Baker, which can be found at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.  Bruce now spends his time between Ketchem, Idaho and Santa Fe. 

Other classmates who continued playing competitive hockey after Yale include Guy (Robo) Robinson and Jim Trowbridge.  Robo skated for many years with the St. Nicholas club in New York, a team with a long and strong tradition in the world of elite club hockey, including the aforementioned Hobey Baker, who played following his 1914 graduation from Princeton.  The restoration and preservation of the Edith Warton Manse and Gardens in Lennox, Massachusetts was in good part due to the perseverance of Robo as a member of the Board during those critical years.  Ed McGonagle, Tom Crosby and the inimitable Gene Scott were all part of our senior team. The mayor of Long Lake, Minnesota, Tom continues to practice law and, with Ellie, produces first-class maple syrup and tasty cider at their homestead.

David Wood of Louisville, Kentucky, and Al Puryear of Williamsburg, Virginia have joined the class executive committee.  Dave played a prominent role as co-chair of the Class Gift Committee at the 50th Reunion.  Class treasurer Bob Ackerman projects that our cash balance is $70,544.   

Also from Williamsburg, David George Ball has written a memoir entitled A Marked Heart, which traces his early years in wartime England through his academic years at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and as our classmate at Yale.  It was in 1959 that Dave invited a young and energetic minister by the name of Martin Luther King to speak at Woolsey Hall.  Dr. King made an electric presentation to the large audience, presaging the impact which he would later have on our nation.  In addition, Dr. King had a life-changing influence on Dave, who was eventually appointed Assistant Secretary of Labor by President George H.W. Bush where he initiated the framework for the 401(K) retirement program which now benefits more than 70 million Americans.  Classmates interested in acquiring a copy of A Marked Heart can do so through Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. 

Underrated Philadelphia is a fine venue for Saybrook friends and classmates to have their own private reunion. So says Dirk Soutendijk. Bill Idol, Dave Cross and Dirk thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. A behavioral consultant for a number of large companies, Bill spends eight months of the year in New Zealand and the other four in Vermont.  Sounds like Spring and Summer all year round. David hangs his hat in Rumford, Rhode Island and is working on a plan to save the sandy beaches of Long Island’s north shore from continuing erosion. 

The return of the ROTC programs to the Yale campus has been well received by several classmates who participated in those programs and served our country as officers in the various military services. Dave Ross has been following this story and celebrates the long-awaited reversal. Perhaps as a direct result of that policy change, a new affiliation known as the Yale Veterans Association held its organization meeting at St. Thomas More in June, as reported by Wilse Keithline, an NROTC classmate. 

Stayoung.

1960 Class Notes – July/August 2011 Issue

              Recently a reporter for National Public Radio interviewed Rick Santorum, who has been sniffing the Presidential campaign trail.  The reporter inquired of former Senator Santorum how he originally became involved in the political world.  He responded that during his college years at Penn State he had been inspired by our late classmate Jack Heinz and organized student volunteers on campus in support of one of Jack’s senate races.  After serving in the House of Representatives for six years, Jack was elected to the United States Senate in 1976, 1982, and 1988.  On April 4, 1991, Jack’s Piper Aerostar went down after being struck by a helicopter from below, with no survivors from either aircraft.  He was 52.  The Presidential nomination for Rick Santorum, who lost his U.S. Senate seat to Bob Casey in 2006, is presumably a stretch. 

              As our only classmate to have served as a United States Senator, Jack Heinz had a distinguished career as an independent Republican.  He did not follow the script of his party during the Regan and Bush administrations when he believed they were on the wrong track.  In our 50th Reunion book, Ted Stebbins, reflecting on Jack’s shortened life, shared these memories:    During his 20s and 30s, the real Jack began to emerge, as he developed into a brilliant, warm person, a natural politician, a seeker, a leader ... .  There was always an innocence about him … .  Jack and I never once discussed the possibility of his becoming President, a frequent subject of speculation for many of his friends and advisors.  He was always in the old eastern wing of the Republican party, so he might have found himself isolated from the party’s main stream as it moved right … .  He could have taken the opposite tack and switched parties … .  Jack Heinz had developed both the wisdom and the charisma to take on a role of national importance … .  I never knew anyone who embraced life so fully.  As an expression of our respect and admiration for Jack, the Class has for many years selected and funded outstanding Yale undergraduates, in challenging projects throughout the world, by way of the John Heinz Summer Fellowships. 

              There is a good deal of momentum in New Haven for the return of the ROTC programs to the Yale campus. [Army and Navy both]. This story was brought to my attention by Dave Ross, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel.  Like so many of our classmates, Dave was able to graduate as a Second Lieutenant and later served on active duty in Korea for two years, with a Duke law degree in his back pocket.  Dave also had the opportunity, while commissioned as a Reservist, to become involved at the Pentagon with various aspects of strategic planning.  In early May, the Yale College faculty, by vote of a significant majority of the 200 attending members, adopted a series of resolutions which will presumably enable the return of ROTC courses.  Another sign of the times was an invitation to Army and Air Force ROTC representatives to participate in an “Extracurricular bazaar and academic fair” in Payne Whitney last April.  During the schism, Yale students have been enrolled in ROTC programs at other colleges in Connecticut.  A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, Dave shared memories from his 1976 adventures in eastern Europe, meandering through remote Romania, hiking solo, under the watchful eye of “gun toting guards at all railroad stations”. 

              In 1994, Lew Lehrman and Richard Gilder established the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History which promotes and enables the study of love of American history.  Among its many initiatives, the Institute sponsors the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and George Washington book prizes, in addition to administering a history teacher of the year Award in every state.  The Institute has primary and secondary school history programs in all 50 states and several countries, including more than 800 affiliated schools, developing the quality and depth of American History teaching on a grand scale.  Additional information is available at guilderlehrman.org. 

              The Yale Class of 1960 has its own place in cyberspace.  An expanded and updated version, under the direction of Mike Dickerson, will be or perhaps by now is already at your fingertips.  Just ask you keyboard to transport you to yale60.org. 

              Not many Yale classes can boast of  a Yogi.  So how was it that Brian Jensen became  Yogi Jensen, a name I associate more in my mind with Yogi Berra than Yogi Bear.  Turns out that, while at Roosevelt High in Seattle, Brian attended an American Legion Boys State convention in Olympia, and decided to run for Governor of that conclave.  With a campaign based on a plank of humane hog slaughtering, our guy decided to adopt the catchy moniker of Yogi, inspired by the Yoga breathing and exercise classes he was taking as a novice mountain climber.  Yogi was victorious, presumably in a landslide. 

Stayoung.

May/June 2011 Issue

On April 12, 1961, General Pierre Beauregard gave the order to fire the shore batteries rising above Charleston Harbor onto Fort Sumter, thereby igniting the Civil War.  After 34 hours of bombardment, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the Fort and his small contingent of 70 troops.  This notable site of American history, along with many others, will be available for inspection by classmates who attend our off-campus Reunion at Charleston on March 19-22, 2012.  Charlie Duell, a long-time denizen of Charleston, is coordinating an attractive agenda of activities for Classmates and their guests.  Jim Taylor is coordinating this event on behalf of the class executive committee.  Charlie serves as the President of the Middleton Place Foundation, which oversees one of the oldest and most interesting landscape gardens in the country, as part of the preserved ante-bellum Middleton plantation.  With its unique low country cuisine, Charleston is indeed a charming and authentic American coastal city.  For those staying through the week, the Friday afternoon martial parade on the campus of The Citadel, South Carolina’s own version of West Point, is a moving and quite spectacular sight.  Southern hospitality abounds in this walkable, low-rise, visually attractive seaside city.

What General  Beauregard started, Abraham Lincoln finished, thus bringing new life to the principles of freedom and self-governance as set forth in the Declaration of Independence.  This was the basic theme of an Op-Ed article by Lew Lehrman, a Lincolnian scholar, published on Lincoln’s birthday this year.  Quoting liberally from Lincoln’s speeches and writings, Lew cogently and concisely stated the case for President Lincoln’s preeminence among all his peers.  To an Ohio regiment in August of 1964, Lincoln said “We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man.  In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed”. 

At least one of our mates considers himself to be a bionic man.  Without going into details of Yogi Jensen’s impressive surgical history, it’s worth noting that he has high praise for the “excellent medical and dental services” provided to him by the Ecuadorian healthcare professionals he has encountered in that country. 

Quincy and Rob Northrop have pulled up stakes in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and planted the family flag in Ann Arbor, where they have been welcomed by Steve Easter and Jim Wessel Walker.  This strategic relocation has facilitated more frequent interaction with various grandchildren residing in Chicago and Cleveland.  Although leaving bucolic Shepherdstown where Rob was involved in the expansion of the Department of Music at Shepherd University and the creation of a new professional orchestra, it didn’t take many beats before he and Quincy joined the Ann Arbor “Cantata Singers of some 40 choristers”.

Our senior swim team had a sensational season and was undefeated in dual meets, including a 56 to 39 victory over a very talented Harvard team.  Our senior classbook tells the story of one of the freestyle sprints as follows:  “In the greatest competitive 100 free ever swum at Yale, Bruce Hunter of Harvard tapped the wall first in 48.6 while Peter Lusk was second in 48.8.  Both times broke the existing American and NCAA record of 48.9 and both swimmers set new school records”.  Those were still the days when highly competitive Yale swimming and diving teams were among the elite programs in the country. 

Stayoung.

March/April 2011 Issue

In the word of golf, there’s a relatively small window for shooting one’s age, perhaps in the range of 68 to 79.  There will always be a few outliers, of course, like the senior prodigy who manages a 43-47 score on his or her 90th birthday.  I’m not sure if Alan Gilison is the only mate to match his age by cranking out a 72 on a championship course in West Palm Beach.  I expect there are others whose total strokes on some particularly good day equaled his total number of birthdays.  Let me know if you have accomplished that admirable equivalency.  Are you out there Keith Kittle? 

              According to Gilison, not all is economically dark in the Sunshine State.  After the 2009 collapse in the exotic car business, the last quarter of 2010 witnessed a promising rebound for high end wheels, such that the enterprise in which Alan has invested, Chariots of Palm Beach, is once again thriving.  Alan and his brother lucked out on another potential investment.  They were “one week away from wiring the funds” to Bernie Madoff when a variety of circumstances caused them to change their investment plans.  Incidentally, the Yale Golf Course where Alan honed his game, lo these many years ago, has recently been recognized by Golfweek magazine as the best collegiate course in the country.

              I had previously reported that Jonathan Weiss was our class representative at the World Cup in South Africa.  I have now learned that we had another delegate at that spectacle.  Sam Lambert attended two of the matches at the Cape Town venue, which were “wonderfully managed with great officiating and very friendly and well behaved crowds”.  Sam was able to reconcile the scheduling of the World Cup and our June reunion, resulting in a very special day at Derby for eight out of the nine members of our undefeated freshman heavyweight boat, who were also part of the undefeated 1958 varsity squad.  Joining Sam at the new Derby boathouse were Captain Emory Clark, Dave Dominik, Herrick Garnsey, Sam Lambert, Ave Laundon, Baldy Ogden, John Ostheimer and Bill Wiese.  All enjoyed getting back on the water and skimming the surface of the Housatonic River.  Incidentally, I highly recommend Em Clark’s poetic ode to Bart on page 172 of the Reunion Book.    

              Boston psychiatrist John Renner has edited a treatise on the office-based use of Bupremorphine treatment of opoid dependence.  John is the Associate Chief for Psychiatry at the Veterans Administration, Boston Healthcare System. 

              Jeff Kahn composed numerous poems during his senior year at Yale, including the  provocative line:  The ticking of the clock would seem to mock the beating of my heart, previously noted in the January column, with the author then unknown.  Jeff reports from Scottsdale that these words were admired by his roommate, the late Harry Oliver, noting that “I intended to honor Harry by including it in our 50th yearbook”. 

              What is most surprising about the Reunion Book is the unexpected observation that a substantial number of us look better now than we did fifty years ago.  Many of those naive and unvarnished cubs have matured into wise and weathered lions.  A few even resemble well known movie stars.  Rick Collins is a keen look-a-like for Alan Alda.  The editor’s caption under Chad Dilley’s contemporary photograph reads “Yes, I too thought it was Sean Connery”.  And if Class Secretary Peter Wells looks exactly like cameo actor Peter Wells, one of whose gigs was to play a Princeton professor in Russell Crowe’s A Beautiful Mind, then they must in fact be one in the same.  RB      

Stayoung.

January/February 2011 Issue

In the summer of 2009, Dan Schlosberg ’10 traveled to Germany where he immersed himself in the history of symphonic music.  That study program was facilitated by a Branford College Fellowship awarded by virtue of the generosity of our class and the participation of those classmates who serve on the Summer Fellowship Committee.  On October 16, 2010, five months after Dan’s graduation, the Yale Symphony Orchestra performed Dan’s original orchestral piece entitled Five Stuck at Woolsey Hall.  Dan credits his Branford Fellowship as playing a major role in completing this original composition.  Thanks to Arvin Murch, who has assumed the chair of the Fellowship Committee, which administers the Jack Heinz, Les Aspin, and Branford programs, for submitting this inspired item.  Over the years an estimated 135 students selected by the Class have benefited from grants exceeding $325,000.  At the AYA Assembly in November, an award was given to the class which has demonstrated the most productive relationship with Yale undergraduates, known as the Outstanding Student Engagement Award.  Pete Knudsen, Arvin’s predecessor, accepted the award on your behalf. 

Among those who were unable to submit a personal essay for the 50th Reunion Book,  Conrad Cafritz may be the only one whose alibi consists of an energetic five-year old son.  Of the many children sired and adopted by Conrad over several decades, Alexander, known by family and friends as Sasha, is the most like his father.  “He has my metabolism, my incessant speech, and a comedic sensibility.  We read eleven different comic strips every morning …”.  Based in Washington, DC, Conrad is still active with his business interests, as well as participation in politics and the visual arts.  At the center of Conrad and Ludmila’s world, however, is that “intense reciprocity of a young child”, a joy which Conrad muses is “hard to describe with any precision”. 

For the last twelve years, since retiring as a clinical psychologist, Burt Danet has been involved with developing A Better Community for All, an outreach organization emphasizing and implementing advance technologies for providing water, food, and shelter around the world to those who lack adequate access to those basic needs.  The work of this laudatory enterprise can be found at home.abc4all.net.

Susan and Al Gillotti, a retired international banker in New York and London, have moved northward from Martha’s Vineyard to Norwich, Vermont.  Perhaps the proximity of the Dartmouth campus, just a mile or so away on the other side of the Connecticut River has inspired Al to reprise his first novel.  Skim, originally published under a nom de plume, tells the story of a banking syndicate which makes a billion dollar loan to a corrupt West African country.  That turns out to be a questionable underwriting decision, since the sovereign borrower slides into civil war, with adverse creditworthy implications.  The bad fortune is not only financial, however, as unwelcome complications befall the bank executives and those who sleep with them.  The publisher is Academy Chicago.  Al’s second novel, George Evans, set in London, will come out later this year. 

Coming out of retirement, Ed Elmendorf, once an assistant to Adlai Stevenson and later Arthur Goldberg as Ambassadors to the United Nations, has now become president and chief executive officer of the United Nations Association of the USA, a non-profit advocacy and public education organization.

Here is further evidence that we can turn in our original knees and trade up for a newer model.  Fred Jacobson has again been leading hiking groups in the Swiss Alps with a pair of knees he purchased six years ago.  Downhill and cross-country skiing are also on his recreational agenda.  So pleased is Fred that he volunteers at the New York Hospital for Special Surgery, where he left his old knees and emerged with two new ones. 

For updated news about our class, be sure to access Mike Dickerson’s Yale60.org and add it to your favorites screen.  Born in Stockholm on October 21, 1833, Alfred Nobel was a brilliant and eclectic scientist, inventor, author, entrepreneur and pacifist.  He was perhaps best known for inventing dynamite, a curious credit for a pacifist.  When he died on December 10, 1896, Nobel left a considerable estate to fund annual monetary prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for activities in the service of international understanding, commonly referred to as the Nobel Peace Prize.  In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, established the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, which has been awarded annually since 1969.  The 2010 recipients of that Prize were Peter Diamond, Dale Mortenson, and Christopher Pissarides.  Highly regarded in the world of academic economics, Peter’s work includes a broad range of topics, including taxation, risk aversion, labor markets, and rigorous research that has “changed the way people view economics”.  In addition to being a brilliant star on the MIT faculty, Peter also serves on the Federal Reserve Board, to which he was appointed last year by President Barack Obama.

Stayoung.

1960 Reunion Class Notes – November/December 2010 Issue

It’s been quiet lately.  So I wonder if everyone who had something interesting to say about themselves, or the universe in which we inhale our daily dose of oxygen, did so in their contributed essays to the extraordinary 576-page Reunion Book.  Twenty-seven of those pages encompass the anonymous Confessionnaires.  No question that these submissions, inviting candid revelations but with the confessor behind a paper screen, are somewhat diminished by the lack of attribution.  Some of the quick hits, however, are worth their weight in words, exemplified by the following:  The ticking of the clock would seem to mock the beating of my heart.  I guess we’ll never know if that poignant thought was original to the classmate by whom it was submitted, although I presume it is. 

              The final essay in the Book, submitted by Yogi Jensen, was apparently snuck in by Peter Parsons at the bottom of the last page, presumably just minutes before the publisher’s deadline, although that day of reckoning was a moving target for many months.  I would guess that Yogi was sometimes late for class, although that leap of logic may be flawed by the fact that Yogi can often be located in a South American jungle.  In fact his essay reminds us that “mountaineering and jungle exploration have kept me close to nature.  And my import/export business has provided opportunities to travel”.  Nominally based in Seattle, Yogi clearly prefers the equatorial territories.            

One of the great photographs in the Reunion Book has the following caption:  Jack Child and 70,000 penguins on the Sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia.  After 20 years as an Army officer, including two tours in Vietnam and service with 101st Airborne, Jack moved to the academy, receiving a doctorate from American University, where he also acted as an assistant dean.  Since 1982, Jack has been teaching Spanish and Latin American studies at American, having recently been honored as one of six University Professors.  His particular interest in the “Far South” has inspired his success as a published author and explains his fraternization with those thousands of penguins.  In 2008, Duke University published a treatise involving one of Jack’s subspecialties, that being a scholarly examination of the politics and semiotics of Latin American postage stamps.

Sprinkled throughout the Reunion Book are the brilliant renditions of a parallel universe – the offspring of Steve Johnson’s fertile imagination wedded to his masterful artistry.  You can find his talents displayed under such headings as Aging Yalie Comics (pages 34 through 40) and the Reunion Sketch book (Pages 96 through 104).  It is interesting that Steve’s signature sketch for this project, appearing on both pages 2 and 35, is a risqué little item which thankfully eluded the censors.  Johnson is not the only creative artist recognized and celebrated in the Reunion Book.  Both Dave Sellers and Charlie Weymouth, illustrators, designers, and successful architects, have also contributed to the Book.  There is a nice profile of Dave, the pal of Patch Adams, beginning on page 41.  Working from a small town does not preclude achieving international fame, since Sellers, who receives his mail in Warren, Vermont, has been recognized by Architectural Digest as among the 100 best architects in the world.  Having worked in various building trades, and served on a Navy destroyer, Weymouth is eclectic in his artistic subjects, which include aircraft and submarines.  In addition, Charlie has won several awards not only for his architectural talent, but also in the related fields of urban planning and landscape architecture. 

Jonathan Weiss has a good excuse for not attending the Reunion, since it conflicted with his prior commitment to witness the World Cup in South Africa.  Although Jonathan praises the “warmth and hospitality” of the host country, he was not particularly pleased with the incessant blaring of the vuvuzelas, nor the quality of the officiating.  Our class representative at the World Cup also managed to get into a bit of a skirmish with a group of inconsiderate fans from Slovenia.  This large group of soccer hooligans managed to stand and hold banners over their heads throughout the contest against the U.S., completely obscuring the sight lines of those behind.  After the Slovenians refused to listen to reason, Jonathan and his female companion went physical and a bit of a scuffle broke out.  Although the dispute was adjudicated without serious injury, it can be assumed that Jonathan’s passport will never be stamped at the airport in Ljubljana. 

The Board of Directors of Rotary International has honored Dick Sideman with the prestigious Service Above Self Award.  Although Dick and Susan have retired to Palm Beach Gardens, they often travel back to Connecticut to visit with family and friends in the Hartford area. 

Stayoung.

1960 Reunion Class Notes – September/October 2010 Issue

As the afterglow of the half century Reunion begins to fade, there can be no doubt that the magic of our dancing cast its spell, including some highly energetic footwork by Patch Adams and Chris Walsh.  Every Yale class is unique, and each class of course believes that it is very special.  But perhaps in our case, having contributed a President and a Secretary to Yale, there may well be a valid claim to exceptionalism.  In that regard, I cite Matt Freeman’s remarks on page 245 of the Reunion Book:  “I had the privilege of serving for a few years on a 1960 panel to select recipients of the Jack Heinz summer intern fellowships.  It was in this context that I got to know one of the Yale Alumni Office advisors who said that the class of 1960 is often held up as a model for the University’s mission.  When I asked her why, she said if one looks at the important career categories, Government Service, Business, Education, Law, etc., there are multiple names from our class that can be legitimately inserted into serious leadership positions in every one … I bet you get the same rush of pride that I experienced when she told me that story”.  Although we cannot all take credit for the extraordinary efforts of a few, Matt’s sense of pride resonates through our band of brothers. 

              Not unrelated to the symbiotic relationship of our Class (and others) with Yale, the 50th Reunion class gift exceeds $20.4 million, passing the original goal by more than $4 million.   Good work by gift quad-chairs David Clapp, John Levin, Jim Ottoway and Dave Wood.  

              The game of baseball, more than any other sport, invites and to some extent relies on statistical analysis.  For instance, each of the major leagues makes a year-end award for the highest batting average, to the third decimal point.  RBI, ERA, OBP and other even more arcane stats constitute the tendons and ligaments of the game.  Who knew that Pete Palmer, an erstwhile Raytheon engineer, is a guru in this field, now known as sabermetrics.  As co-author of The Hidden Game of Baseball, a primary reference for sabermetricians, Pete has established an inside baseball reputation on the same level as the better known Bill James.  As a result of his prodigious efforts in discovering that Nap Lajoie’s 1910 batting average was actually several points higher than Ty Cobb’s, thus correcting an historical error, Major League Baseball rewrote  the record books.  A resident of Hollis, New Hampshire, Peter has also co-authored Total Baseball and five editions of the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia.  His interests, however, are not limited to baseball.  Pete’s diligence and dedication led to his role as a statistician for the New England Patriots, applying the mathematical tool of sabermetrics to football, and to co-authoring  The Hidden Game of Football and ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia.  No wonder the Patriots have won three Superbowls.   

              While you’re browsing through the Reunion Book, I recommend that you make a stop at page 215, and peruse Dave Elliot’s thoughtful and provocative essay.  With a crisp memory for detail, Dave recalls “some memorable courses”, especially Brand Blanshard’s “mesmerizing lectures on philosophy”, as well as faculty notables Henri Peyre and Bill Cobb.  A number of classmates are recalled in this nostalgic memoir, including Luis Mestre, Karl Robinson, Tom Miller and John Ostheimer.  Much of Dave’s early post-graduate education, like so many others, took place in Vietnam.  As a result of “intensive Vietnamese language training in the Army”, Dave acquired “a deep understanding of another culture and learning to see the world from another prospective”.  He reflects on the complexities and contradictions of the American experience in that place, which Dave observed through many prisms during his various roles, in country, over a span of seven years.  Acknowledging the deep ambiguities and sacrifices of that era, Dave writes that “some of our classmates ended up with close associations with Vietnam, but clearly drew very different conclusion from the experience”.  A professor of political science at Pomona College, Dave has authored The Vietnamese War and Changing Worlds: Vietnam Adapts to the post Cold War Era, soon to be published by Oxford University Press.  Finally, Dave observes that today’s Vietnam has evolved in the way we once wished it to be, with a flourishing private enterprise economy, a growing middle class, and with open arms to both  commercial and touring guests from America.

Stayoung.

Reunion Class Notes – July/August 2010 Issue

Mother Yale warmly welcomed home 314 of her sons for the 1960 family reunion in New Haven during the first week of June.  Father Time, always the linear thinker, observed the festivities respectfully and approvingly, but with a quizzical smile on his lips.  The presence and participation of 251 spouses and special friends helped make the party a truly joyous affair.  We gave praise to alma mater and she in turn reflected it back upon us. 

The range and depth of the academic programs available during Reunion week were extraordinary.  Spearheaded by Peter Knudsen, the three-day panel presentations at scenic Water’s Edge on the Connecticut shore were highly informative and well attended.  The full-day program on the subject of China Today and Tomorrow included classmates Oscar Tang, Professor Tim Light, and Po-Wen Huang, a resident of Beijing.  China is clearly a dynamic country, with what was described as a non-ideological regime where the young generation “laugh at the Marxist version of communism”.  Po-Wen estimates that private enterprise in China accounts for approximately 70% of GNP.  Other pre-Reunion panels at Water’s Edge included George McClain, Bob Neville, and Jim Lodwick on the religions of the world, as well a panel on Africa, moderated by John Wilkinson, with John Bing, John Dwyer, and Harvey Feinberg.

The featured class speaker Saturday afternoon was Patch Adams, even more idiosyncratic in person than as portrayed by Robin Williams in the feature film.  Recognizing each other’s creativity and curiosity, Patch was introduced by his friend Dave Sellers.  Physician, philosopher, comedian, clown, humorist and humanitarian, Patch is a brilliant and dynamic lecturer.  Reflecting on the inadequacies of the healthcare delivery systems in our country, the role of humor as therapy, and his clinical outreach to the most underserved outposts on the planet, Patch presents as a force of nature with an indomitable spirit.  At one point, dressed in a clown outfit, Patch indulged in some clowning riffs to illustrate how absurdity can be disarming.  During the second hour of this unique performance, a panel of classmates in the healthcare professions shared their observations and insights, as well as their reflections on Dr. Adams’ message.  The panel members were Kevin Herrington, Steve Kunitz, Larry Nazarian, Karl Robinson, and Bill Wiese. 

Another featured speaker was Marcus Giamatti, who gave a dynamic and animated soliloquy regarding the honorable avocation of being a member of Red Sox Nation, a cult status which he inherited from his father.  A professional actor, who has played Hamlet, Marcus is taller and leaner than his younger, better-known brother Paul, who played John Adams in the acclaimed PBS documentary.  Marcus declared that being a citizen of Red Sox Nation required experiencing joy followed by despair on the many occasions in which the Red Sox came ever so close before the gods of baseball yet again wrote a tragic ending to the season.  There were of course references to light-hitting Bucky Dent’s home run in 1978 and the muffed grounder by Bill Buckner in 1986.  Given that special place in the panoply of baseball, Marcus did not seem to know what to believe about the championship seasons of 2004 and 2007.  Although making reference to those triumphs, this loyal son apparently considers 2004 and 2007 as aberrations to be examined with a suspicious eye, perhaps a pair of Trojan horses mistakenly allowed inside the temple.  After his talk, I advised Marcus of similar broodings by Les Epstein in our 25th reunion book (see page 40), authored at a time when his son Theo was eleven.  It is only right to assume that Bart shared some special code with Les, who thereafter produced Theo, who in turn, as General Manager of the Red Sox, assembled the triumphant teams of 2004 and 2007.  This theory is not inconsistent with the fact that, at the time of his death, Bart was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. 

This was one helluva gathering of the clan.  Kudos to tri-chairs Peter Knudsen, Steve Lasewicz, and John Wilkinson, as well as the reunion gift chairs, David Clapp, John Levin, Jim Ottaway, and Dave Wood.  During the class meeting, Bob Ackerman was elected to succeed Dave Carls as Class Treasurer, while Harry Mazadoorian replaces Ed Leavitt as our AYA Representative.  The other Class Officers were re-elected, including Peter Wells, our Class Secretary, who has served diligently and effectively as our Chief Executive Officer.

Finally, the Reunion Book is just plain amazing.  Led by Peter Parsons, many volunteers played critical roles in arriving at the finished product, including but not limited to John Blanpied, Mike Dickerson, Rob Hanke, and master illustrator Steve Johnson.

Stayoung.

May/June 2010 Issue

On a warm day in June of 1960 near a thousand eager young men received their degrees from Yale College and proceeded quite expeditiously to disburse across the country and in some cases to distant shores.  A diaspora of impressive breadth.   Half a century later, it is now time for the 60th to have its 50th.  If ever we were to have a plenary calling of the clans, next month’s return to New Haven will mark that moment.  I can even now hear the sound of bagpipes echoing through the valleys of our disparate homelands.   

              Our Class Book of 543 pages would certainly be a primary text in any anthropologic study of those 944 males, then still in transition from adolescence to adulthood, as displayed alphabetically from Bob Ackerman to Ben Zitron across 189 pages of photographs, birthdates, and other basic specifications.  Those youthful apparitions, some smiling and others with a solemn pose, give little evidence of today’s countenances sculpted by 50 years of maturation.  Perhaps a future anthropologist would be drawn to the Class Oration, an easy practice round for Bart Giamatti, just warming up for those eight years during which he welcomed and bade farewell to subsequent classes of Yale College.  Bart was not fully satisfied with regard to the values and virtues of his classmates, which he expressed thusly:  Our memory stretches from the Know Thyself of the golden age Greeks to the weak and watery Be Thyself of today.  And wide is the gap.  That anthropologist would have reason to conclude that lux et veritas was an inapt motto for the culture she was studying.  That hypothesis would be corroborated by Al Pergam’s Class History, lamenting Our cherished, inalienable right to apathy, to indifference, to non-think ....  By way of redemption, however, Bart noted that:  It is to be creative and humane men in society that we have come to Yale, and I hope it is with this goal that we leave.  I think it is fair to say that, for the most part, Bart’s wish has been fulfilled. 

              A reminder that our Reunion tri-chairs, Pete Knudsen, Steve Lasewicz, and John Wilkinson, have coordinated a series of Pre-Reunion events at the Water’s Edge on Long Island Sound, with several distinguished panels discussing China and Africa, as well as a lecture by Professor Lamin Sanneh on the topic of “Religion and the New World in a post-9/11 world”.  Owen Cylke, John Dwyer, and Harvey Fineberg will share their knowledge and insights as members of the Africa panel.  These and other enticing activities bridge a period of three days beginning on June 1st.

Guy Butterworth ’61, has added light and truth to the legend, mentioned in a previous column, that Vanderbilt was mistakenly constructed with the courtyard facing Chapel Street rather than the Old Campus.  Debunking that myth, Guy notes that “President Timothy Dwight the Younger wanted a dorm that would compete with the Gold Coast dwellings on the other side of Chapel Street (and wanted to display an) openness to the community”.  A brother of our deceased classmate Michael Butterworth, Guy remains friends with members of our Class.

A significant behind-the-scenes player and scholar in the world of economics and public policy, Peter Arthur Diamond is a short-list candidate for the Federal Reserve Board.  Peter’s  academic credentials include a full professorship at MIT since 1970 and his service as President of the Econometric Society and also the American Economic Association.  With special interests in government debt, capital accumulation, and taxation, he is particularly recognized for his expertise regarding Social Security.  Peter has a double affiliation with Yale College, having entered with the Class of 1961 and, after a 3-year sprint, graduating as a math major with our class. 

There can be no doubt that Bob Sugarman stays in shape.  While recently touring in Israel with a brood of children and grandchildren, Bob participated in the triathlon at the Maccabiah Games, winning a Silver Medal in our age group.  Bob has been participating twice a year in various triathlons, and the Maccabiah competition was based on the Olympic version of a one-mile swim, 24 mile bicycle stretch, and finishing with a 10 kilometer run.  Life is full after an impressive career as a litigator, including several favorable results representing National Geographic magazine in its assertion of crucial intellectual property rights.  Nominally retired, Bob is still battling on that client’s behalf in the last of their IP cases. 

Barry Schaller has been working with the Peter Jennings project at the National Constitution Center on the subject of bioethics, one of Barry’s scholarly interests and a subject which he has been teaching on the college level.  Another facet of this interest is represented by Barry’s contribution to a forthcoming book on post-traumatic stress disorder, a project of the Yale Bioethics Center.  Incidentally, a recent magazine article took a look back in recent legal history to the murder trial of Richard Crafts, a commercial airline pilot accused of murdering his wife in a particularly cruel manner.  Barry was the presiding judge in a jury trial which included the testimony of 100 witnesses over a period of 53 days.  After deliberating for 17 days, the jury reported a deadlock with a single juror, the only dissenter, refusing to deliberate further.  A second trial eventually resulted in a guilty verdict. 

Stayoung.

March/February 2010 Issue

   Memorial Day this year will be celebrated on May 31st, which also just happens to be the first day of our three-day pre-Reunion adventure on the Connecticut shoreline.  So save the week of May 31st through June 6th for an aesthetically, intellectually and socially stimulating experience.  The first three nights, for those who choose to participate, will be at one of two resort facilities on the east shore of Long Island Sound.  Depending on which of the two locations is selected, the drive to New Haven will be within the 30 to 40 minute range, allowing the possibility for some classmates to stay at one lodging for six nights, which I’m told will be at a reasonable rate.  More details will probably have reached you by the time of this column’s publication. 

Preliminary plans for Reunion Week include a number of outstanding guests to educate and entertain.  It is anticipated that a panel consisting of Owen Cylke, John Dwyer and Harvey Feinberg will share their observations and insights regarding the continent of Africa, based on a confluence of professional experience and scholarly pursuits. The long-time chief scientist for the Jacques Cousteau enterprise, Dr. Richard Murphy, will talk about the present and future dynamics of our oceans.  Patch Adams, who was played by Robin Williams in that splendid film of the same name, will be a featured speaker on Saturday in New Haven.  The week will not be without nostalgia, including Marcus Giamatti’s reflections on his remarkable father and growing up in the President’s house on Hillhouse Avenue, one of the byways which Charles Dickens reportedly described as the most beautiful in America.  Our Reunion tri-chairs, Peter Knudsen, Steve Lasewicz and John Wilkinson, are doing a great job and getting a lot of support from fellows such as Peter Parsons, Mike Dickerson, Dave Sellers, and Rob Hanke. 

Hard at work on the second volume, Bill MacKinnon has enjoyed a strong positive reaction to the first volume of At Swords Point, his historical treatise on the Utah War of 1857-1858.  This is a fascinating story of a little-known military and political conflict between the United States and the Utah Territory, right on the cusp of the Civil War.  The Utah Territory, then a vast expanse of land six times the size of the present state of Utah, was the center of Mormon religion and culture.  When President James Buchanan attempted to remove and replace Brigham Young as the governor of the Territory, Young refused and led a rebellion against the federal government.  At Swords Point is now recognized by scholars as an authoritative work on the Utah War.  The second volume will continue the chronological narrative of the first, beginning with the new year of 1858.

There will be an exhibition of authors at Sterling during the Reunion.  All published classmates should contact Bill MacKinnon at mackbp@msn.com or John Wilkinson at john.wilkinson@yale.edu.

Gordie Moran reports that he is still a resident of Florence, certainly one of the most beautiful and romantic cities of the world.  He refers classmates to the Marquis version of Who’s Who in the World for his updated biography. 

A number of our classmates, as well as our country, benefited from the Navy and Army ROTC programs at Yale.  Dave Ross, who served as a Second Lieutenant in the infantry while stationed in Korea, was one of many who achieved officer rank while studying at Yale.  Dave recently sent along an article from the Yale Daily News which documents the growing momentum for a return of ROTC opportunities at Yale and other Ivy schools.  Some Yale students are currently participating in the University of Connecticut ROTC programs. 

In the fall of 1959, as we eased into our final year as undergraduates, the football team was manhandling its early opponents.  After the fifth game, Yale was the only team in the country which was undefeated, untied and unscored upon.  The combined margin against UConn, Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Colgate was an amazing 95 to 0.  Our guys were 13th in the AP national rankings and 15th in the UPI poll, and this was of course prior to the time when Division 1 football was split into sub-divisions.  Among the bulwarks of the Bulldogs that season were many mates, including Captain Rich Winkler, Matt Freeman, Raleigh Davenport, Fred Ernst, Pete Riddle, Mike Curran, Bob Millano, and of course All-East tackle Harry Olivar.  Sadly, No. 75 will not be with us at the Reunion, since we lost Harry late last year.  An outstanding football player, Harry Olivar was a good man, respected by all who knew him and loved by all who knew him well. 

Stayoung.

January/February 2010 Issue

   The amorous adventure of naval officer Jamie Morrison begins in Italy when, at the opera, he encounters Catrina LoGado, the beautiful daughter of a rich and aristocratic wine baron.  After a year of passion in Sicily, where the sauce is not all that’s hot and spicy, the couple marries and comes to America.  While living in Boston and then Philadelphia, Jamie becomes enormously successful and wealthy in a business career.  I wouldn’t dare imply that there might be autobiographical elements to Bill Peace’s new novel Fishing in Foreign Seas.  It should be noted, however, that Bill is a retired Navy officer and that he and his bilingual wife Anna own a summer villa on the North coast of Sicily.  In the novel, Jamie eventually faces and resolves moral and ethical challenges, both personal and professional in nature.  Fishing in Foreign Seas (460 pages) is published by Eloquent Books and marketed through the Strategic Book Group (1-888-808-6190), and is also available on Amazon.com. 

Retired as a clergyman, Jim Lodwick also hopes to join the ranks of class novelists.  Although Jim tends a garden at his home in South Bend, he spends much of his time outside of the Hoosier State, enjoying his summer cabin in Vermont and wintering in balmy Mexico. 

As president-elect of the international Society of Actuaries, with 20,000 members, Don Segal is scheduled to become president in October.  After his victory in a four-way contested election, Don announced his intention to emphasize the Society’s research capability and to provide rapid-response research to support public policymakers.  With a long and distinguished career in the actuarial world, Don was recently honored with the 2009 Jarvis Farley Service Award at the annual meeting in Boston of the American Academy Actuaries.  It’s nice to know that Don, an officer at J.P. Morgan Chase, is affiliated with one of our savvy and still prosperous financial institutions.

Although they were not acquainted while living in the same Vanderbilt entry in 1956-57, Ed Elmendorf and John Negroponte recently realized that connection when Ed, in his capacity as President of the United Nations Association of Washington, introduced John as the speaker at a model United Nations Conference.  Reflecting on Vanderbilt, I wonder if there is any truth to the old story that the architect set sail for Europe and the building contractor, misreading the plans by 180°, put the courtyard on Chapel Street rather than facing the Old Campus. 

One of the few classmates who were married during our undergraduate days, Dick West wistfully confesses that he and JoAnne have a 50 year old son.  When in the wonderful state of Oregon, look for DickieJo’s restaurants, named for Dick and JoAnne by two of their sons who own and operate that restaurant chain.  Dick enjoys the title of Dean Emeritus, having retired from his distinguished academic career as Dean of the Stern School of Business, New York University.    

In 1998, football coach Hugh Wyatt wrote an article for Scholastic Coach magazine describing the strategic advantages of an offensive formation which he had designed and which he named Wildcat after the mascot of his high school team.  Hugh now reflects “with great delight” on the recent success and popularity of his brainchild, name and all, in collegiate and professional football.

Having rejected a fleeting thought of retirement, Owen Cylke has accepted a position as Director of the World Wildlife Fund Macroeconomics Program Office, inspired by positive developments in that organization as well as a new administration in Washington.  The Program Office supports public health and environmental goals in Africa, at both conceptual and advocacy levels. 

At a Yale Geology Department’s conference on climate change in November, Tom Cranmer distributed a paper arguing that “the cap and tax” approach will cost the economy two million jobs and lower the GDP by one percent, without making a significant impact on carbon dioxide levels or the world’s climate.  Bob Giegengack, an outstanding academic geologist at the University of Pennsylvania, also attended the conference, where he and Tom shared dinner and their common conservative approach to climate change, emphasizing the role of natural forces rather than human activities. 

The time for submitting words and pictures for the 50th Reunion Book has been extended to mid-January, so there should still be a window for individual participation in that project.  These ungraded essays can be either personal or philosophical, funny, serious or nondescript.  At the time of the Reunion, which runs from June 3rd to June 6th, our Class, like all others, will present a Reunion gift to the institution which played a central role in shaping our moral and intellectual personae.  Dave Clapp, John Levin, Jim Ottaway, and Dave Wood are co-chairs of the Reunion Gift Committee, working in concert with Tim Ritchie, who is our Alumni Fund chair.  Please be receptive to their entreaties. 

Stayoung.

November - December 2009

Although at an undisclosed location, Peter Parsons is ubiquitous.  That’s what computers can do. As the tireless and talented editor of the 50th Reunion Book, Peter is pulling together a disparate team of classmates, publishers, and AYA personnel to bring this momentous project to the printer by mid-November.  A major piece of the undertaking is locating members of the Class who have gone astray, some apparently to remote seaside retirement shacks in the Fiji Islands.  For those who have received the Reunion literature, you need to respond before Mike Dickerson, who is chasing down the procrastinators, comes knocking on your front door.  It’s better and probably safer to deal with Mike, the determined and dedicated domain master of the class website, in cyberspace.  Go to our website <www.yale60.org>, which will lead you to the reunion site for opportunities to submit, promptly and electronically, family photographs and humble essays for the Reunion Book.  Act expeditiously and don’t forget to hit save once you have entered the appropriate data and materials. (The deadline for these submissions has now been extended from mid-November to mid-January.)

Although the June Reunion may seem like an over-the-horizon commitment, tempus fugit.  I can guarantee that this will be a strictly egalitarian affair with no trace of the latent competitiveness which may have lurked in the corners of our 25th conclave.  The 50th will be more like crossing the finish line of a marathon which we have run together as a team rather than as individual competitors.  When we get to New Haven, some of us may be raising Cain, while others are raising canes, but at this stage it’s all for one and one for all. 

Brother Parsons is also recognized for producing a number of DVD videos documenting the resistance and guerilla warfare against the Japanese occupying forces in the Philippines during World War II.  One of the projects, Manila 1945, was a 2007 winner at the Myrtle Beach International Film Festival.  Mixing contemporary interviews with survivors and vintage film taken during the occupation, Secret War in the Pacific tells the story of how Chick Parsons, a long-time resident of the Philippines prior to the War, became the catalyst for organizing the armed resistance and also the escape of many unsurrendered American and European families from various hide-outs in the Philippine archipelago.  Adjectives such as courageous and inspiring only touch the surface of this amazing story of Peter’s remarkable father.  Suffice it to say, when General Douglas McArthur famously returned to the Philippines in October of 1944, he referred to Chick Parsons as “the bravest man I’ve ever known”.  A global citizen, Peter has lived for many years in the Philippines and can best be reached at petercparsons@gmail.com. 

In 1974, at the age of 36, Steve Johnson serendipitously realized that he was an undiagnosed inventor.  As the editorial cartoonist for The Sierra Club Bulletin, he was asked by the editor to “invent whimsical recreational vehicles”.  Steve surprised himself by coming up with 109.  Earlier this year, the New York Times published a feature story on Steve’s career as inventor, author, cartoonist, and urban planner, comparing him to the inimitable Buckminster Fuller.  (One admiring comment on the Times blog stated “My father Bucky Fuller would love this wonderful, provocative, thought stimulating article …”.)  Admittedly, many of Steve’s creations and illustrations cross the line from visionary to fantastical.  Not all of his concepts are impractical, however, as evidenced by his 1991 predictive drawings of a hands-free telephone.  Steve’s conceptual creations also include a work desk that converts into a napping cot.  A superb illustrator, with an unbridled imagination, Steve describes himself as being “sneakily outrageous”.  By the way, and actually by coincidence, it’s a good bet that Steve will be contributing a number of age appropriate illustrations for the Reunion Book.

Formerly nationally-ranked tennis player, Davis Cup Captain, Wimbledon television commentator, and extraordinary contributor to the game of tennis in many capacities, Donald Dell was inducted with this year’s Class into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport.  Ranked among the top five United States players in 1961, Don remembers perhaps his best match as a four-set loss to Rod Laver in the quarter finals at Forest Hills.  Don joins the late Gene Scott, who was inducted posthumously at Newport in 2008. 

Our class is connected to the world of tennis in many ways.  The Cullman-Heyman Indoor Tennis Center at Yale has received the 2009 USTA Outstanding Facility Award, and will be the site of the ITA Indoor National Championships this month.  Sam Heyman played a leadership role in the financing and design of this magnificent athletic facility.  Perhaps not by coincidence, this year’s freshman class for men’s tennis is ranked fourth best in the country. (Since the processing and publishing of these Notes in the Yale Alumni Magazine, Sam sadly passed away on November 9th.)

Ketchum, Idaho, once the redoubt of Ernest Hemmingway, is in the shadow of the Sawtooth Mountains, just downrange from Sun Valley.  That’s where you’re likely to find Anndel and Bruce Smith, with Bruce perhaps beginning a new work of sculpture.  Off to the west a bit, Renate and Joe Hixon are enjoying the natural wonders of Big Sky country at their seasonal cattle ranch and staying active with the Nature Conservancy.  From their home in Walpole, New Hampshire, Ellie and Fred Ernst, active in forest land preservation, often visit the Ketchum area, where their son Michael now lives.  That presents welcome opportunities for three old friends and their wives to get together for vittles and congenial conversation.  Bruce reports that a round-up of such good friends can also on occasion lead to a little trout fishing.   

Stayoung.

September - October

As the last days of May seeped into the first week of June, thousands of proud Americans visited the consecrated cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, the final resting place for those 8,000 brave countrymen who perished on the beaches of Normandy.  Among those who bowed in silence before the awe-inspiring diagonal rows of white crosses were Jim Ervin, Bill Peace, Steve Phillips and Charlie Weymouth.  Bill and Steve are ex-pat residents of England and France respectively.  All former Navy officers, as well as members of Yale’s NROTC program, these four classmates were in two different groups which spent several memorable and transformative days in the grip of history, tempered by the beautiful French countryside and the warmth of local townsfolk.  Just a few days later, our guys having formed a memorial beachhead, President Barack Obama and various European leaders arrived to recognize and honor the 65th anniversary of D-Day.     

Any keen-eyed classmates visiting the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico, which opened in 2006, will notice the name of Rob Hanke leading the list of founders inscribed on the left wall of the rotunda.  (The Museum is in Triangle, Virginia, about thirty-two miles south of Washington.)  A retired colonel, Rob’s distinguished career as a Marine pilot includes serving as Top Gun of the 2nd Marine Air Wing, more than 50 missions as a fighter pilot during the Cuban missile crisis, and as a NASA test pilot for the Gemini and Apollo programs.  The Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion of Merit are among his myriad decorations.  Rob and Lynn currently produce, and in some cases write, plays and independent films through their enterprise Polaris Arts Ltd., which is based in New York and London.  Included in these credits is Orlando, a British feature film co-produced by Rob and Lynn and distributed by Columbia Classics, which received two Academy Award nominations.  Based on a Virginia Woolf novel, Orlando features an Elizabethan nobleman who, bending both time and gender, morphs into a modern day woman. 

Peter Goss and John Negroponte, familiar by experience with the corridors of power in Washington, continue as impact players.  Porter authored an influential op-ed piece for the Washington Post defending the interrogation tactics of the Bush administration, during which he took a turn as CIA Director.  A former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence and United Nations Ambassador, John will be teaching both undergraduate and grad students as a Senior Research Fellow at Yale.  This assignment includes joining Paul Kennedy, John Lewis Gaddis, and Charles Hill in teaching Studies in Grand Strategy, the plum international relations course in Yale College.

When John Wilkinson takes some time to get away from it all, there are no half-way measures.  John’s initial destination is a remote cabin in Colorado, and from that command post he treks to the haunts of big horned sheep, mule deer, black bear, mountain lions, and coyotes who sing through the night under luminous star-filled skies.  Even in the land of singing coyotes, John doesn’t quite set himself free from all electronic tethers and confesses to reading the Times every day on the web.  

  It seems a strange coincidence that two of the best criminal lawyers in the Class both practice in West Haven, about eleven miles from the Old Campus.  I wonder if Bob Mirto and Ed Leavitt, a former prosecutor and Superior Court Judge, should think about joining forces. 

In response to my inquiry about secret party venues, Brad Miller ’89 reports that the largest suite in Silliman, known as the Beach Club, was always reserved for five seniors and, although there was nothing secretive about it, the occupants, including Brad, “were required to throw frequent parties in the cavernous common room (about 40 feet square)”.  The ambiance of their spacious lair, on the first floor facing Grove Street, was enhanced by “a mural of a beach scene, complete with palm trees” on one wall of the huge, 1600-square-foot common room.  Brad keeps an eye on our Class notes out of respect for Larry Gibbs, who originally helped steer him from Dallas to New Haven. 

Stayoung.

July - August 2009

Who knew there was an O’Reilly Street in Havana and an annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade celebrated by the multi-cultural Cuban population.  Among those joining the festivities this year was Tom Miller, who was in Havana to participate in an international arts festival.  He describes the atmosphere as one “where artists from around the world and Cuba have clearly made a political statement, and Cuba’s film industry is well-known for its critical assessments”.  Tom’s work as general counsel to Global Exchange, a San Francisco human rights organization which promotes contacts with Cuba, has provided him with an opportunity to assess the cultural and political dynamics of that neighboring country.  The same day I received Tom’s posting from Havana, a Tribune Newspaper wire report featured the St. Patrick’s Day parade and “Cuba’s historic connections to Ireland”, adding that “Havana is crawling with Americans these days”.  Another Cuba aficionado, Karl Robinson, reports that the old guard hard-line communist politicos are dying off and that liberalizing changes for the better are inevitable.  Having taught and practiced homeopathic medicine in Cuba and throughout Latin America, Karl is presently working with homeopathic physicians in Mumbai.  Both Tom and Karl believe that a fresh look at American policy toward the Cuban nation is long overdue. 

Dividing his time between Santa Fe and Sienna, Italy, Sam Bowles is a Research Professor and Director of Behavioral Sciences at the Santa Fe Institute, as well as a Professor of Economics at the University of Sienna.  After receiving his doctorate in economics at Harvard, Sam taught at Harvard from 1965 to 1973, prior to his extended tenure at the University of Massachusetts.  His scholarly interests include the evolution of altruistic behavior as a competing dynamic with the traditional theory of self-interest as the driving wheel of human behavior.  Sam’s upcoming book is entitled A Cooperative Species: Human reciprocity and its evolution.  As an aside, Chester Bowles, Sam’s dad, was Governor of Connecticut from 1949 to 1951 and subsequently served as President John Kennedy’s Ambassador to India. Of the former I have first-hand knowledge, since the Governor’s Mansion was one of our regular stops on Halloween. 

Two Hospitals -- Outstanding hospitals in eastern Pennsylvania and central Connecticut have recently benefited from the forward-looking leadership of classmates Dick Gwinn and Harry Mazadoorian.  Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia is a 618 bed teaching facility associated with the Drexel University College of Medicine.  Dick served as the guiding hand of Hahnemann during his term as chairman of the board from 2004 to 2008, and continues as an active member of the board.  Hahnemann, where Po-Wen Huang’s son is currently completing his residency in emergency medicine, is a major tertiary care facility renowned for its Intensive Care service and its prominence in the field of cardiac surgery.  Harry was chairman of the board at the Hospital of Central Connecticut from 2003 to 2005, and continues in a leadership position as a member of the board.  HCC is a 414 bed acute care teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.  Situated at separate campuses in New Britain and Southington, HCC is a product of the recent merger bonding New Britain General Hospital with Bradley Memorial Hospital. 

Three docs -- Speaking of the world of medicine, three of our class physicians are achieving new and diverse benchmarks.  Bob Resnick of Solana Beach, California has been elected President of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, the senior academic organization in the OBGYN specialty.  Professor Emeritus at the University of California Medical Center in San Diego, Bob reports that this new position will keep him fully occupied, and off the golf course, for another three years.  Walter Franck of Cooperstown, New York, having recently retired after 28 years as Chief of Medicine at Bassett Healthcare, continues as a Professor of Clinical Medicine at Bassett.  An affiliation of hospitals, community health centers, physicians, and other medical providers in eight counties covering 5,000 square miles, Bassett Healthcare maintains a strong academic program through its affiliation with Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.  Walt’s outstanding influence on the medical profession has been memorialized by Bassett’s establishment of the Dr. Walter A. Franck Excellence in Medical Education endowment fund.  Rob Northrup, after a distinguished academic and international medical career, including his work with Project Hope, has undertaken a new adventure as a full-time vocalist and jazz piano player.  Rob has solved the country life versus city life dilemma by splitting time between his home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and an apartment in Washington, which he uses for “rehearsal night and theater”.  

Dave Carls advises that our Class piggybank has a balance of $85,603.  Needless to say, Dave distains dabbling in derivatives. 

All you have to do to find the Class website, managed by Mike Dickerson, is enter Yale60.org into your favorite computer or laptop in order to access more info about your classy classmates. 

Stayoung.

May - June 2009

So what’s all this buzz about discreet party suites at certain residential Colleges during the days in New Haven when we were young pups?  I’m told that there might be a future feature story in this magazine concerning vintage haunts and hideaways reserved for celebrations with lubrications.  Was there really an underground party venue in Silliman known as the Beach Club?  Did Calhoun actually have a party palace with the unlikely name of Bookworld?  If there are any untold stories out there which would animate our fondness for the good ole days, perhaps with Harry Belafonte or The Kingston Trio as the mood makers, I’d be happy to pass them along to the gang. 

According to Jim Sale, the best medicine for balky backs is swimming.  Jim and his wife Janet were advised by Dr. Dave Johnson, a Yalie and an Olympic freestyler, that swimming was the most effective way to alleviate those nasty signals sent to the brain by cranky joints and rusting parts.  Jim not only feels a lot better, but he also won six gold medals at the 2008 Washington D.C. Senior Olympics in freestyle and backstroke events.  In several of those races, Jim, who competes on a masters swim team, achieved qualifying times for the national Senior Olympics.  After retiring as a senior planner and analyst for the federal Department of Transportation, Jim was offered long-term opportunities to work on transportation planning in Russia or China, which he diplomatically declined due to the length of those commitments.    

The Yale Medal is the highest honor awarded by the Association of Yale Alumni and is conferred annually on four or five alumni/ae for outstanding service to the University.  A recent mailing from the AYA listed the Yale Medal recipients from 1988 through 2008.  Two mates were deservingly on that list:  Al Puryear (1991) and John Pepper (2007). 

Having returned to Ridgefield, Connecticut after fourteen years in St. Charles, Illinois, Jean and Steve Cole are pleased to be back in scenic New England.  In addition to working as a substitute teacher, Steve also coaches girls junior varsity soccer and tennis at Ridgefield High School.

It’s likely that many classmates, particularly members of Beta Theta Pi, knew Steven Adams ’59 during our first three years in New Haven.  Steve has done pretty well for himself in various fields of endeavor, including his significant influence on changing the community banking, outdoor advertising and recreational vehicle industries, to say nothing of his extensive wine-producing vineyards in Bordeaux.  The tale to tell, however, is that Steve and Denise Adams have recently surfaced as the anonymous donors of $100 million to the Yale School of Music in 2005.  Steve’s philanthropy has allowed the Music School to amazingly declare on its website that:  “A full tuition award and fellowship are made to all students who are admitted”. 

Although a nightingale still sings in Berkeley Square, the Whiffs no longer sing at Mory’s on Mondays.  It seems that the tables down at Mory’s, due to financial problems, have been quiet since January.  Most observers view this as a temporary situation, and the new Mory’s, at the same location, will have a tap room and a modernized menu, although the Welch rarebit and Yorkshire buck will presumably survive.  Whiffenpoof board member Peter Wells is among the optimists who predict a return of the Green Cuppers to Mory’s later this year, along with other undergraduate a cappella singing groups.  Meanwhile, the Whiffs, in their centennial year, are in great demand, with updated versions of their signature songs, including A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.  That’s the London Berkeley, pronounced bark-lee, where the nightingales have no fear of being displaced from their musical muse. 

Stayoung.

March - April 2009

When flatlander Talmage Rogers climbed the tallest peak on the African continent, he abjured the use of portable oxygen, a resource which some short-winded members of his party gratefully indulged.  The ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro was actually a side trip during a Yale-sponsored Tanzanian safari, an experience which Jean and Talmage greatly enjoyed.  Though not an experienced climber, Talmage was thrilled with the high adventure, which he describes as “the most punishing, physically draining week” of his life.  Jean wisely opted out of the 19,340 foot climb, with temperatures bottoming out at a chilly 16 degrees.  Exploring East Africa and its exotic and diverse wildlife was sufficiently vigorous for Jean and her intrepid husband, who was a bit leg-weary from his vertical trek.  After a stopover on the isle of Zanzibar, Talmage and Jean returned to their sea-level home and haunts in Vero Beach.

If you’re passing through Spain anytime till June, stop by the University of Barcelona, where Ambler Moss is serving a semester on a Fulbright Senior Lectureship.  If you can’t find Ambler at the University of Barcelona, he’s also lecturing at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.  After their Catalonian gig, Ambler and Serena will head back to Coral Gables, where our guy is a Professor of International Studies at the University of Miami.

Edda and Harry Hare have been traveling regularly between Philadelphia and Germany to visit Edda’s family.  The Hare household is still celebrating 2008, delighted by the double victories of the Phillies in the October World Series and Barack Obama in the November election.  As a newly-minted naturalized citizen, Edda was able to cast her vote for the winning candidate.

Two Writers from Boston -- Les Epstein’s place in the world of American fiction, as a brilliant and imaginative novelist, is well-established.  Evidence for this proposition can be found in John Crowley’s compelling piece in the November issue of Boston Review.  Crowley, who teaches creative writing at Yale, examines Les’s body of work, but with particular emphasis on King of the Jews (1978) and The Eighth Wonder of the World (2006).  In his laudation of these works, Professor Crowley admiringly embraces an overarching and provocative theme, which he describes as “the collision between organized human activity and an unstoppable impulse to chaos”.  The emergence of Mussolini as a character in The Eighth Wonder is “a tour de force of narrative management that is a continual surprise not only for what happens but for the chutzpah of the enterprise”.  As the Director of Creative Writing at Boston University, adjacent to his beloved Fenway Park, Les has taken his stand as an acclaimed writer of serious and at times surreal fiction. 

Another of our Boston-based classmates is playwright Sandy Campbell, co-author of The Patriot Act, which received positive critical reviews at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival.  Recognized as the world’s largest drama festival, with over 2000 productions during a period of approximately one month, Edinburgh is a head-spinning experience for international theatregoers.  Co-authored with Lydia Plumbleigh-Bruce, The Patriot Act concerns a character inspired by Arthur Miller and played at the Festival by Will Lyman.  By the end of its run, Sandy and Lydia’s work was designated a “Hot Play” and received Five Stars from The Scotsman, the gold standard for Festival reviews.  When not writing plays, Sandy treks over to MIT, where he teaches a course in engineering design. 

One Writer from New York -- After many decades of providing legal representation to elderly clients who could not otherwise afford such services, and a year in Italy as a Fulbright Scholar, Jonathan Weiss has co-authored a book in philosophy entitled Right and Wrong: A Philosophical Dialogue Between Father and Son, published by Basic Books and in paperback by the University of Southern Illinois Press.  Many classmates will remember Jonathan’s dad as a popular teacher of existentialism in the Department of Philosophy.   

A tip of the hat (or perhaps helmet) to Hugh Wyatt, who led the North Beach High School football team to a 2008 record of 7-3, having taken over a program with a dismal 1-9 season the previous year.  Life as a successful head coach along the sparsely-settled Pacific Coast in southern Washington made for a highly enjoyable and rewarding year.  As a player, general manager, and coach, Hugh has had a long and rewarding run with what he calls “the greatest game in the world”.  After a decade in business following graduation, Hugh started playing some semi-pro ball in Maryland, which eventually led to being recruited as the Director of Player Personnel for the fledging Philadelphia franchise in the World Football League.  The next year, in 1975, Hugh accepted an administrative position with the WFL Portland (Oregon) Thunder and, along with his wife Connie and their four children, planted his roots deeply into the soil of the Northwest.  After the demise of the World Football League, Hugh became a very successful high school coach in Oregon and Washington.  As an expert on the double-wing formation, Coach Wyatt has conducted clinics and produced teaching videos relating to the sport that runs through his veins.  A defensive back at Yale, Hugh has a long history with the game, and has won the respect of the athletes and their families that he has come to know through his coaching career.  That respect was demonstrated last Fall when, as a surprise, the North Beach band played traditional Yale football songs at one of his home games.  A nice touch and tribute to a good man. 

Stayoung.

January - February 2009

It’s interesting to look at the scatter patterns for the souls of ’60, our origins and destinations, geographically speaking.  When we lined up on September 13, 1956 for freshman registration, 987 of us had traveled to New Haven to join the 29 classmates who already resided in the Elm City, 16 of whom had graduated from Hillhouse High School, virtually on the Yale campus across from the Gym.  And of the five mates who now live in New Haven, only Harvey Feinberg, a semi-retired history professor at Southern Connecticut State University, was also among those 29 New Haven natives of 1956.  In those days before jet plans and the Interstate Highway system, many of us did not have to travel far.  New York State barely edged Connecticut, 186 to 184, as the primary breeding ground for the new class of bulldogs.  Pennsylvania was third, with 85, while New Jersey (57), Ohio (55), Massachusetts (53), and Illinois (50) were all on essentially equal ground in sending their sons to New Haven. 

Our 2005 Reunion book provides some notable contrasts with those yearling profiles.  Where do the approximately 870 surviving classmates, less the 69 ensconced at undisclosed locations, now dwell?  California, which contributed only 36 Elis to our incoming class, is now home to 83 of us, while Arizona’s original number has doubled to 12.  Our 37 members now living in Florida significantly outnumber the stalwart nine who made their way in 1956 from the Sunshine State to the Elm City.   Although the Class census from New York State has dwindled from 186 matriculants to 106 alums, the number for New York City has actually increased over the intervening years from 52 to 58.  And while the current numbers for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio and Illinois have substantially declined to 32, 20, 19 and 21 respectively, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which originated only 53 class members, is now home to an impressive 69. 

Of those who walked through Phelps Gate that long ago September, 16 had traveled from foreign lands, including three residents of Havana.  There are now 28 of us living outside  the United States, none of whom travel on Cuban passports.  I have no data regarding our departed comrades, but if post-mortem habitats exist, I’m confident that all of our colleagues have found their way to the Promised Land and signed up with the Yale Club of Heaven. 

John Hetherington has been added to the political endangered species list, having survived as one of the few Republicans elected in November to the Connecticut Legislature.  Of the state’s 24 shoreline towns, John’s homestead of Darien was the only one to vote for John McCain. 

The University of Michigan has recently honored Carl Akerlof with a Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.  Carl is a leading researcher in the area of astrophysics and has pioneered breakthrough science in the esoteric field of tera-electron-volt gamma-ray astronomy.  Prominent on a planet-wide level, the citation recognizes Carl for “his creation and leadership of a collaborative, international team of about 45 physicists and astronomers who study gamma-ray bursts that had been a persistent mystery for many years”.  One of the astronomical instruments that he developed has observed the brightest optical object ever detected.  In addition to his outstanding research, Carl has also designed innovative lab courses at Ann Arbor, dramatically increasing student enrollments and outstanding evaluations for those courses. 

Out in Greeley, Colorado, Bill Garnsey stays busy mentoring and life coaching adults and married couples.  With golf in the summer and skiing in the winter, Bill is setting a good  example of physical fitness through outdoor activities for his eight grandchildren. 

The Yale Center for British Art recently staged the world premiere of Gilbert and George, a documentary produced by Lynn and Rob Hanke.  The film relates the story of Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore, two well-known contemporary British artists who, as Rob puts it, “work as one artist … permanently compelled to be inseparable from each other and their art”.  This story traces the humble beginnings of these two talented artists and their unique collaboration in producing world-class works of art.  Television and DVD distribution is anticipated in 2009. 

Don Catlin found himself at the epicenter of last year’s controversy over the doping allegations leveled against Tour de France multiple winner and celebrity Lance Armstrong.  Prominently featured in the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, Don was retained by Armstrong to investigate the allegations.  The SI article bills Don as “one of the world’s top antidopping detectives”.  The former head of UCLA’s Olympic Analytical Laboratory, Don is now the chief science officer of Anti-Doping Sciences Institute, where his son Oliver is the ceo.  One of the Times articles quotes Don as saying that he would “post Armstrong’s biological information online for public scrutiny”.  That may be a first for professional athletes.  Don and the aforementioned Harvey Feinberg were both members of that distinguished and productive Hillhouse High class of 1956.

Stayoung.

RE:                     1960 Class Notes – November/December 2008 Issue

   Anyone within driving range of Louisville should find his way to the Speed Museum, where Yale has temporarily deposited the heart and soul of its 18th and 19th century collection of American Fine and Decorative Arts, including renowned works by Frederic Church, John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, Charles Willson Peale and John Trumbull, as well as Stephen Decatur’s gold sword and silver crafted by Paul Revere.  Quite the coup for Louisville, which has a strong and loyal contingent of Yale alumni.  This unprecedented roadshow includes American treasures from the birth of the nation to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1863,  emphasizing the richness and strength of American arts over a period of two centuries.  David Wood, a proud citizen of the Blue Grass state, was among those instrumental in bringing the Yale exhibit to Louisville and raising the funds necessary to underwrite this unprecedented venture.  Following its stay in Louisville through January 4, 2009, this marvelous collection will transit to Seattle (February 26, 2009 to May 24, 2009) and Birmingham (October 4, 2009 to January 10, 2010), before finding its way home to New Haven. 

Not many of us know that Baguio was once the summer capitol of The Philippines, but I have been informed that Peter Parsons, operating from that city, continues as a determined and dedicated force in preserving and teaching the wartime history of this South Asian archipelago.  At times Peter’s efforts in this regard have been something of an irritation to the Government, which encourages tourism from North Asia, including Japan.  But with his strong ties to that country, and his dad’s heroic role there during World War II, it’s no surprise that Peter, like Douglas MacArthur, has returned. 

A Guggenheim Foundation fellowship has been awarded to Dan Horowitz for his sabbatical research relating to the manner in which European and American intellectuals, during the second half of the 20th Century, analyzed and identified an emerging consumer culture which created “both pleasure and forms of symbolic exchange”.  As the Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of American Studies at Smith College, Dan will resume his teaching responsibilities during the next academic year.  His scholarly work entitled The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, was awarded the 2004 Eugene Kayden Prize for the best book published by a university press in the field of humanities. 

An incisive Op-Ed commentary by Ned Cabot, who is teaching public policy and law at Trinity College, shines a bright light on the failure of both national political parties to take ownership of the uncontrolled deficit spending required to support an aggressive federal agenda.  Ned wisely observes that “… when politicians fail to level with us … it’s because they fear we’ll punish them for telling us hard truths”.  Ned’s astute and thoughtful manner is also demonstrated by his recent move from Brooklyn to Hartford. 

Gene Scott has posthumously been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island.  In 1963, when he was ranked 4th in the country, Gene successfully competed in both singles and doubles for the victorious United States Davis Cup Team.  His contributions to the sport of tennis were far reaching, including the management of tournaments, twenty books on the subject of tennis, and his role as a television commentator.

The Class of 1960, in its own kind of way, is a business, at least in the sense of having revenue, expenses, and a Treasurer.  Dave Carls is the watchful keeper of our modest treasure.  By his latest calculations, Dave reports that we as an entity have a cash balance of $71,288.  In addition to earned interest, our revenues include fees from various events and tax-deductible contributions made by class members.  An impressive number of   classmates shared their personal treasures with the class during the most recent fiscal year. 

I heard a somewhat quixotic feature on National Public Radio not long ago reporting on the challenge of writing a six-word autobiography.  Several clever examples were recited, the only one I remember being the rather poignant:  Road less traveled, now know why.  Send me an email if you’re inclined to conger up such a mini-bio and share it with your classmates. 

Stayoung.

September/October 2007 Issue

Two Books to consider when adding to your current reading list.  I recently received a complimentary copy of Bart Giamatti, A Profile, by Robert Moncreiff, Yale ’52, published by Yale University Press.  This 200-page volume appears to be a splendid biography of Bart, with an emphasis on his legacy as a dynamic teacher and as President of Yale.  Although I have yet to read the book, I noted on the final page a reference to “… that unadorned black granite bench in a corner of the Old Campus … commissioned and paid for by Giamatti’s college classmates …”, with the inscribed quote from Bart:  “A liberal education is at the heart of a civil society, and the heart of a liberal education is the act of teaching”.  For those who have not yet read Joe College by Tom Perrotta ‘83, it is a well-written, very funny and somewhat racy novel centered on undergraduate co-ed life at Yale, circa 1980.  Perrotta is a competent and successful novelist, though his work is not of a kind to be taught in any 20th century literature class.  The main characters reside in Jonathan Edwards, sometimes wandering over to a Wall Street eatery across from Silliman, which in our days flew the banner of George & Harry’s.  Here’s a teaser:  “Naples at that time on a Tuesday night seemed like the hub of the universe, in one of the few scenes at Yale that actually approximated stereotypical images of ‘college life’ – crowds of more or less rowdy students gathered around dark tables littered with beer glasses and pizza crusts, laughing, arguing and occasionally bursting into song, though the general aura of medieval revelry was softened by the presence of numerous violin cases stowed under the tables, as well as the healthy population of loners scattered throughout the restaurant, holding folded pizza slices in one hand and open books in the other”.  

Bart would have been proud to see his friend Harry Mazadoorian receiving an honorary degree in May at Quinnipiac University.  The citation for the Doctor of Laws degree reads in part as follows:  “An avid baseball fan, you were a close friend of Fay Vincent and the late Bart Giamatti, the former Commissioners of Major League Baseball”.  As a member of the Quinnipiac Law School faculty, Harry concentrated in the area of alternative dispute resolution, a field in which he gained national recognition prior to entering the academy. 

Poised and eloquent as always, Steve Baruch accepted a Tony Award on national television last June for the category of Best Revival.  Company, an energetic musical starring Raoul Esparza, was brought to the bright lights of Broadway by Steve as lead Producer. 

              Also starring in Gotham is Bill Ellis, recently recruited as senior counsel by McKenna Long & Aldridge.  Bill’s luminous career as general counsel to a number of major corporations included a hitch with Guinness during its muscular period of acquisitions, giving us a pretty good idea of what kind of suds Bill keeps in the fridge. 

Moving to the core of the Big Apple, The Wall Street Journal featured commentaries from two classmates within three days in May.  Jim Ottaway, lamenting the impending change of ownership, offered a powerful and thoughtful statement supporting the principled journalistic standards which Jim and Dow Jones have long represented.  Two days earlier Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte authored an optimistic assessment of political and economic developments in Iraq.  Thanks to John Levin for pointing out these important contributions to the public discourse.   

Try to catch the big screen version of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Ultimatum, where you might just spy our guy Peter Wells doing a stand in for Albert Finney. 

Whatever you wanted to learn about the wine industry in Oregon, encompassing more than 300 vineyards, can be answered by Jeff Lamy, who has written extensively and enthusiastically on that subject.  Jeff is currently working on other vino-related projects, including a study on the impact of solar radiation and a thesis on the microeconomics of the wine business.  There are several dimensions to Jeff’s life as an author, including a germinating historical novel set in Burgundy during the French Revolution. 

              Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, according to Yogi Jensen’s latest communiqué, is the point on our planet “closest to the sun”.  Yogi attributes this conclusion, obviously dependent on the time of day, to the anomaly that “the Earth is somewhat flattened at the poles and has an equatorial bulge”.  He has been spending time recently in South America visiting with his brother Bob, Yale ’63, and exploring the Iguacu Falls at the convergence of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

              A perfect June evening in Bethesda was the setting for a splendid dinner at the stunning home of Tazuko and Chuck Schmitz.  The Zen Modern design of the commodious accommodations includes a cantilevered bistro, surrounded by glass, which gives the feel of dining in the high pines.  Included in the convivial assemblage were Jean and Randy Barry, and Lana and Doug Guiler.  Nicki and I were invited to join while camping in Bethesda for a conference.  Randy and Doug, decommissioned after long careers in the Navy and Army respectively, have both been working for the benefit of Uncle Sam as senior military and arms control analysts.    

               Stayoung.

July/August 2007 Issue

              Six times a year I have the opportunity, as a labor of love and respect, to write of matters concerning a group of guys in their 60’s appropriately known as the Yale Class of 1960.  Where does this varied collection of bipeds fall on the spectrum of human associations?  It must be somewhere in the vast chasm between a cohesive team, say the Boston Red Sox, and the survivors of the Titanic.   Several members of the Class, our own little lost sheep, have gone astray.  Either we cannot find them or they would just as soon not be found.  For many others, however, there is a strong but undefined force pulling us together, somewhat like an extended family of second and third cousins with their wives and girlfriends.  And for us that force grows as the years pass. 

              And so it was in Boston.  The early May New England weather was perfect for our three-day gathering of the clan.  Thursday featured the history of Boston, including a tour on the amphibian Ducks, a multi-purpose vehicle which doesn’t know whether it’s a bus or a boat.  Following a visit to the well-preserved U.S.S. Constitution, known to the original New England Patriots as Old Ironsides, there was an evening cruise on Boston Harbor, sans the Tea Party. 

              Friday began with a tour of the Edward Hopper special exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts.  We were well prepped for viewing Hopper by Carol Troyen ’71, whose introductory lecture brought the artist and his work into historic and stylistic perspective.  Carol, the curator of the Hopper exhibit, was introduced with humor and panache by Ted Stebbins, the distinguished curator of American art at Harvard’s Fogg Museum.  Friday night was reserved for a concert by the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall, where conductor Keith Lockhart delighted the audience with music from the ‘60s  and ‘70s.  The energetic and limber Lockhart reprised lively scores from both stage and screen, including My Fair Lady, Mary Popins, Lawrence of Arabia and The Sound of Music.  The program concluded with an audience sing-a-long, opening with Margaritaville and finishing with a spirited rendition of American Pie.  (We then left the Chevy at the levee and danced our way back to our respective hotels.)   

              Charlie Nesson, an engaging and provocative professor at Harvard Law School, started us off in Cambridge on Saturday morning.  Two secrets were revealed during Charlie’s talk:  (1) Harvard has sold the digital rights to its entire library collection to Google, and (2) the aforesaid Ted Stebbins, who introduced his old card-playing friend, runs the “best poker game in Cambridge”.  Following a talk by Yale Professor Paul Bracken, who discussed the surging economies of Asia, Peter Knudsen introduced three Yale undergraduates who have been awarded summer study grants through the Aspin, Heinz and Branford Fellowships.  These articulate students, and many others who have greatly benefited from the opportunities underwritten by our class, impressively represent the future leadership of our country. 

              A Class dinner at the Harvard Club on Saturday night brought this magnificent Reunion to a conclusion.  Peter Wells, our dynamic ceo, gave special recognition to Mike Dickerson, the keeper of the Class website at yale60.org, and to Pete Knudsen for his coordination of the three fellowship programs, which include interviewing panels headed by Chuck Schmitz (Aspin), Bill Weber (Heinz), and Arvin Murch (Branford).  (One of our erstwhile compatriots, Harry Mazadoorian, had to duck out a day early in order to receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Quinnipiac University.) 

              This highly successful Reunion was diligently organized and skillfully executed by Jim Taylor, Bob Ackerman, Al Durfee, Dave Carls and Ted Stebbins.  It was not only an intellectual and aesthetic success, but more importantly an opportunity to renew old acquaintances and forge new friendships, not just among mates but also among the many wives and special companions who brought the total participation to over 100.

              For those who invest in the uncommon stock of the Class, I can report that our net worth as of March 31, 2007 was $59,899, an increase of $822 from the prior year.  This portfolio continues under the guidance and administration of Dave Carls. 

              Talk of a possible Reunion in China has attracted the attention of Boris Shlomm, who has two joint ventures operating in that vast entrepreneurial land, including one in the exotic province of Inner Mongolia.  Boris reports that his son Daniel ’96, who studied Chinese at Yale, is now responsible for the management of these Sino-American enterprises.

We can add Dr. Bob Schmidt to the class club of aviators.  Bob reports that his “few years behind the stick” were something of an adventure, including several dicey flights due to nasty weather conditions, with diversions to landing locations far from the original destination.  A retired general and vascular surgeon, Bob hangs out in Milwaukee.

An encrypted postcard from Ecuador gives proof of Yogi Jensen’s interest in the development of oil reserves on the remote Ecuadorian frontier with Brazil.  Whether Yogi’s interestin the subject is of a professional nature or merely the keen observation of a perceptive tourist could not be deciphered from the cursive script on the card.

               Stayoung.

May June 2007 Issue

  If you happen to be driving on Periwinkle Way up the spine of Sanibel Island, keep an eye out for Porter Goss, who has finally found a season of leisure after high-level service in the legislative and executive branches of our federal government.  With some time on his hands, Porter is becoming a hot commodity in the public speaking arena, always mindful to clear any potentially sensitive material with his former comrades at The Company.  Once the chief executive officer of Sanibel, prior to his election to Congress, Porter is right at home on this beautiful island wrapped in sea, shells, and sand.  For those who haven’t explored the lower west coast of Florida, an easy flight into the new International Airport at Fort Meyers is the geographical predicate for taking the causeway to Sanibel, where the seasonal populace of twenty thousand shrinks to about seven thousand during the dog days of summer.  Ted Sheldon, retired from his career in corporate public affairs, can also be found among Sanibel’s year-round settlers.  Prior to decamping for Baguio City in The Philippines, Peter Parsons had been another happy inhabitant of this treasure island.  At the far tip of Sanibel, be sure to take the short bridge to Captiva Island, where the trees are uniformly taller than the buildings.  The quant village on Captiva will remind one more of small town Maine than high-rise Miami.  The historic Bubble Room and the funky on-the-beach Mucky Duck, having survived the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, are casual, fun-loving eateries that are guaranteed to please the palate. 

After exploring Sanibel and Captiva, one might drift southward on I-75 for the thirty mile drive to Naples, which is now home territory for Terry Upson, Jon Hamill, and John Aymar.  An attractive and bustling town, Naples is to Florida what Carmel is to California, but bring a big wallet if you’re thinking of buying a retirement bungalow at either of these lovely localities.  For those more interested in the southern side of coastal California, Santa Barbara receives high praise from Tom Dent who, after retiring as a clinical and academic surgeon in the Philadelphia area, relocated with Joan to this old Spanish mission town north of Los Angeles.  According to Tom, who occasionally participates in grand rounds at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, there is much ado about many things in their adopted city, including a highly-regarded annual film festival.  Also enjoying life on the sunny shores of Santa Barbara are Richard Blake, Tony Granito and Dudley Morris. 

Another convert to southwest Florida is Dan McFadden, who reports from Estero with considerable pride that in his part of the state there are “no problems with voting machines or getting to the polling place”.  Dan has been honing his golf and tennis games, while also enjoying visits from old friends.  And just down the Gulf from Naples on Marco Island, I hear it is not difficult to track down Doug Whittemore.  

                After retiring two years ago from law practice, Don Worley has gone Hollywood on us as a film and television actor.  “It’s been a lot of fun and very interesting getting involved in a whole new industry”.  He recently shot a love scene for an episode of the American Heiress, which will probably broadcast later this year.  Don has also been shooting a feature film in Belize, in which he plays Joe Dawson, who was a real life missionary working with “the Yanomamo, a fierce warlike indigenous people right out of the Stone Age”.  His lines are all in either native Mayan or Spanish, so if you get to see The Enemy God be prepared for subtitles.  Check out donworleyactor.com for further credits. 

              If there was a need in Nashville for a non-profit fundraising advisory service it has been met by Feldman Consulting Group LLC, which Bob Feldman recently created upon his return to Tennessee. 

              The highest award that can be bestowed upon a tax attorney is the Kenneth Liles Award for Distinguished Service, which this year was given by the Federal Bar Association to Larry Gibbs.  Needless to say, his Washington firm of Miller & Chevalier is extremely proud of Larry, who was IRS Commissioner from 1986 to 1989. 

              In Memoriam.  There was an extraordinary assemblage at Christ Church in Greenville, Delaware last January, including several classmates, to celebrate the life of Richie Jones, who had a long and distinguished career as a wise attorney and trusted counselor in Wilmington.  With a deep dedication to community service, he served on the Board of Brandywine Hospital and several other non-profit institutions and organizations.  Richie loved horses and was involved in the operation of Christiana Stables, which has produced a number of elite racing thoroughbreds.  Former roommate Charlie Weymouth remembers Richie as a warm and sensitive person who had “a brilliant way at getting to the truths”.  Charlie and many other classmates enjoyed lifelong friendships with this forthright and gracious man of many talents, who touched so many lives in such a positive way. 

               Stayoung.

March April 2007 Issue

The Aviators.  In 1686 Isaac Newton published the first volume of Principia, in which he scientifically explained why, when we leap straight up into the air, we immediately fall back to the ground.  Two hundred and seventeen years later, Orville and Wilbur Wright discovered a way to overcome the affects of Ike Newton's law of gravity by means of powered flight.  And ever since that auspicious adventure at Kitty Hawk in 1903, when the Wrights proved the skeptics wrong, the spirit and ingenuity of man have propelled us into the wild blue yonder.  Flying as a passenger is one thing, but piloting the craft is quite another.  Many of our mates have displayed that special kind of courage which is required to coax a plane into the troposphere and, more importantly, bring it safely back to earth.  Mike Dickerson and Rob Hanke both learned to fly at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, with advanced training at Kingsville, Texas.  Mike flew land-based A4 Skyhawks during two tours in Viet Nam involving close air support. Rob, who was the first person to obtain a perfect score on the Pensacola physical fitness test, went on to have a distinguished career as a Marine combat aviator flying F4 Phantoms off the decks of carriers.  As a fighter pilot during both the Viet Nam War and the Cuban missile crises, Rob logged over 175 missions and was Top Gun of the 2nd Marine Air Wing.  He also flew helicopters, and was shot down (but not captured) during one of his 23 missions as a chopper pilot.  A retired Colonel, Rob's honors include the Distinguished Flying Cross.  Following his military service, Rob was a test pilot in the Apollo and Gemini projects for NASA.  Our favorite architect in Wilmington, Delaware, Charlie Weymouth, buzzed around the east coast from 1967 to 1998 in his Cessna 182.  In addition to frequently flying into Tweed Airport in New Haven, Charlie was also known to touch and go at Hammonassett field, a venerable general aviation runway in Madison, Connecticut.  Dave Sellers of Warren, Vermont, is also known to have shunned commercial aviation in favor of piloting his own craft.  For eight years Dave flew his Piper Tripacer in the Northeast sky, including a harrowing night landing when his lights went dark.  Eventually Dave’s co-owner experienced an impromptu landing in a Maine field and the unsecured Piper was blown away.  Reporting from Phoenix, Bob Daehler has logged extensive hours in the air, and is rated for both commercial and rotorcraft equipment.  As previously mentioned in this column, Wilse Keithline of Simsbury, Connecticut continues his solo junkets in his club's Cessna 172 when the spirit moves him.  All Class pilots are invited to join the aforesaid club by contacting me at banburysixty@aol.com.                     

Do not resist the temptation to fly into Logan International for our May reunion in Boston.  The initial event will be a luncheon at the Harvard Club on Thursday, May 10th, when Peter Vanderwarker will lecture on Beantown history and architecture.  Our Boston Reunion Committee of Bob Ackerman, Dave Carls, Al Durfee, Ted Stebbins, and Jim Taylor has designed a terrific three-day buffet of events invoking and exploring the rich cultural heritage of a great American city.  If you've misplaced your mailing for this New England celebration, contact Jim at jctslf@comcast.net.                 

The number of our Class marathoners has increased to 23.  Oscar Wand ran his first and only 26-miler in Honolulu last December.               

The AYA assembly attended by Dave Toomey last November emphasized student involvement in both volunteer work and international study.  One example, as reported by Dave, is a fledgling organization named Engineers Without Borders, which was started by Yale students and has undertaken a project for a Honduran village in which students designed and constructed a water collection, filtration and distribution system to replace the insufficient and polluted water supply that previously existed in that community.  Over 3,000 Yale students contribute 120,000 hours per year of volunteer service in the New Haven community.  Dave also tells of a talk by Tom Beckett, which revealed the fact that Yale has spent $101 million in the last ten years on athletic facilities, including $30 million toward the magnificent restoration of Yale Bowl.                

While many mates are phasing out of the legal profession, Bruce Duggar has formed a trusts and estates practice in Jacksonville.  As a member of the Gator Bowl Committee, Bruce frequently meets with athletic officials at various campuses touting Jacksonville as a superior venue for New Year's Day kick-offs.              

For the past nine years, Pete Dickinson has been a tutor and teacher's aide at the Elihu Yale elementary school, which is located in one of Chicago's most economically disadvantaged communities.  The Yale Club of Chicago has adopted Elihu Yale, not only providing extensive tutoring, but also sponsoring field trips, bringing in a music educator, and donating books and athletic equipment to the school.  Approximately 75 Yale alumni have participated in the program, which has substantially benefited the students, as well as bringing great satisfaction to Club members from stimulating the growth and development of young minds.  This life-affirming story was the subject of an article which Peter wrote for the YAM last November.                

The concept of a reunion in China next year remains on the agenda of the Class Council and its Executive Committee.  Po-Wen Huang of Beijing would be our local contact for organizing such an event.  Since Pete Knudsen and his company, Ecoair, are doing joint ventures in China, his contacts in that country and his discussions with Po-Wen are propitious for a Far East rendezvous.   

Stayoung.

January/February 2007 Issue

              Our Class has once again been challenged!  You may remember that the Class of 1961 had engaged us in a lifetime marathon contest, in which we prevailed with the most runners (22) and the best time (Jon Blake).  A golfing gauntlet has now been thrown down by a bold crew from the Andover Class of 1955.  The Summons was served on Dick Sigal, who chipped the challenge to Steve Lasewicz, the competitive captain of our legendary linksmen.  It should be anticipated that the Andover slicers and hookers will attempt to sneak a ringer or two onto their audacious squad.  Meanwhile, our guys have been sharpening their skills for match play on various courses at Dafuskie Island and Hilton Head.  The gracious hosts for this senior tour were Helen and Bob Payne.  The Melrose, Sea Pines and Harbour Town courses taxed our team and took their toll on even our most talented players.  Mike Harris emerged as winner of the Alling Cup, having both the low gross and low net cumulative scores, as well as carding the most pars.  Shooting the most birdies was Tom Nolting.  As always, this open-enrollment roving band of fun-loving classmates shrugged off the triple bogies and immensely enjoyed the company of each other.

              Dr. Tamara Harris works for the National Institute on Aging.  Her research, as forwarded by Guy Robinson, claims that there is a scientific basis for the reassuring  bromide that you’re only as old as you think you are. “Rigorous studies are now showing that seeing or hearing gloomy nostrums about what it is like to be old can make people walk more slowly, hear and remember less well, and even affect their cardiovascular systems.  Positive images of aging have the opposite effects”.  Sounds like science is finally catching up with common sense in recognizing the power of positive thinking. 

There’s more to it than a positive attitude.  Swimming is a good way to maintain a healthy housing for the vital organs stored within.  John Le Bourgeois is a nice example.  He ranked in the top ten finishers in all six long-course freestyle events at the 2004 US Masters competition for our age group.  After retiring as a Dean at the Temple University School of Business in 2003, John pursued intellectual as well as athletic distinction.  His Art and Forbidden Fruit:  Hidden Passion in the Life of William Morris (Lutterworth Press), has been praised by pre-eminent Yale scholar Harold Bloom.  Morris was a 19th Century man for all seasons, known as a great poet and successor to Tennyson as Poet Laureate, as well as an outstanding designer of stained glass and fabrics.  When not engaged with his amazing creative talents, Morris rose to the leadership of the British socialist movement, which eventually became the modern Labour Party.  The provocative title reflects a central thesis of John’s book: an explanation of how Morris’s obsession with his sister drove him to greatness and caused havoc in his personal life.  Sounds like a great read and perhaps a story for the producers of Masterpiece Theatre.

              Nice to get an update on Gary Ashcraft, who retired from the federal government and is living in Columbia, Maryland.  Gary was one of the first computer programmers in that hefty bureaucracy, and his talents were utilized in establishing the computer gears for Medicare and Social Security Disability programs.  Gary and Penelope have been married for 46 years, with a family consisting of daughter Jennifer and granddaughter  Lora.  The note, presumably from Penelope, observes that, with one wife, one daughter and one granddaughter “you could call him a one woman man”. 

              Diane and Herrick (Bill) Garnsey ventured east from their home in Greeley, Colorado to visit with Ann and Dick Lindgren while homesteading at the Yale Club in New York.  They camped in Manhattan in order to celebrate the ordination of daughter Elizabeth into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church.  A recent graduate of the Yale Divinity School, Elizabeth is now on staff at St. Bartholomew’s in mid-town Manhattan.  Describing himself as semi-retired, Bill spends half of his time working as a marriage counselor and the other half earning bonus points at home while performing honey do’s.

Our trustworthy Class fiduciary, Dave Carls, has issued his annual financial report for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2006.  Despite unquestionably sound fiscal management, we sustained a nominal operating loss of $3,951, based on income of $43,943 and expenses of $47,894.  It turns out that we actually had a good year, however, since the expenses included a special charge of $18,745 to cover close-out costs for the 45th Reunion.  Cash on hand at the end of the year was $56,183.  Those who don’t pay Class dues should try to shake loose $95 bucks.  Among other things, your dues pay for the Alumni Magazine, which the lower portion of your bi-focals are right now helping you to read.  By the way, Dave’s report also reveals that there are 848 members of the Class, miraculously 17 more than our census from the prior year. 

               Stayoung.

November/December 2006 Issue

Mickey Mouse got lucky.  After a decade of litigation over executive compensation, and a lengthy period of intra-corporate turmoil, the Walt Disney Company has sailed into calmer waters with new Board leadership.  Disney has announced that John Pepper will assume the position of Chairman in January of 2007, following a transition period during which George Mitchell, the former federal Judge and Senator from Maine, has been at the helm of the Good Ship Disney.  Our ubiquitous classmate, having retired from his senior administrative position at Yale, joined the Disney Board in January of this year.  John welcomes the new challenge, noting that “Disney is a very exciting company and it has enormous contact with people’s lives.  It is a great force for good in the country and I am proud to have been asked to do this”.  CEO Robert Iger, who succeeded Michael Eisner, has high-praise for John’s contributions to the Board, stating that he “… has quickly immersed himself in our business and shared his broad and deep expertise in corporate management, global brand building, and leadership development”.  One inevitable result of that immersion is John’s newly acquired appreciation for animated films, influenced no doubt by Disney’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar Animation Studios.  Once again Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Snow White and Sneezy’s band of seven can be seen dancing in the streets of Kissimmee and Orlando.  Even Pluto, who was in a funk over his namesake’s banishment from the solar system, has rediscovered his sunny disposition and starry optimism.

              If you are driving through Hartford during the early morning hours, take a gander skyward and you might see Wilse Keithline ascending from Brainard Field on his way to breakfast at some exotic eatery near another of the general aviation aerodromes.  Goes to show that not all former Navy guys prefer the sea to the sky.  There must be at least a couple of dozen licensed pilots in our Class, an intrepid group who should become  known to each other.  Let me know by email (see above) or otherwise if you belong to this select club of adventurers, so that the roster of flyers may be published herein.  Skywriters are invited to leave an altitudinous message over Lake Terramuggus in Marlborough. 

              The plot revolves around an American architect who wins a design competition to celebrate Mussolini’s triumph over Ethiopia and how his attempts to build the ceremonial tower affect the endangered Jewish population in Italy.  Les Epstein observes that the protagonist in his tenth novel, The Eighth Wonder of the World, is “more Ezra Pound than Frank Lloyd Wright”.  Pre-publications reviews have left the author smiling. 

Certainly an inspiration to us all, Judge Barry Schaller reports that he finished first in his age group in the 2006 Madison, Connecticut triathlon.  None of the approximately 400 other competitors were born before Barry, but a good many of them crossed the finish line after our guy. 

              What were Pete Knudsen and Po-Wen Huang hattering about during Pete’s recent trip to Beijing?  Could they possibly be planning a secret sinological seminar for a certain cerebral class of Yalies? 

               Stayoung.

AYA ASSEMBLY REPORT

TO:   Executive Committee, Yale College Class of ‘60

FROM:   Dave Toomey, AYA Representative

RE:   AYA Assembly LXVI, 11/9-11/ 2006

DATE:  11/20/06

I attended the AYA Assembly on November 9-11 on behalf of the Class.   There were two other members of our class there – Terry Upson representing the Yale Club of Western Florida, and Peter Van Dine representing the Yale Science and Engineering Association.

The subject of the Assembly was “The Importance of Service at Yale and Beyond.”  While the title spoke of “and Beyond”, the focus was largely on what Yale students do, and what Yale does to instill in the students a culture of service.  It is estimated that at least 70% of Yale students are involved in various service organizations.

After a brief plenary session addressed by the Assembly Chairperson, Kathy Edersheim (an AYA Board member and the first lady President of The Yale Club of New York) and Mark Dollhopf,  the new Director of the AYA,  the delegates broke out into a series of pre-assigned sessions. My first session involved student-inspired service organizations.   Two women from an organization called Engineers Without Borders described a project that was completed last summer to bring clean water to a destitute village in Honduras.  The students designed and constructed a water collection, filtration and distribution system for the people, who previously had insufficient and polluted water, with all the diseases that accompany that situation.  They will start a new project in Cameroon this summer.

Three students from the School of Public Health told us about a project entitled “Community Health Initiative for Latin American Immigrants in Danbury, CT”, a project in which they identified existing health resources for the poor immigrants in Danbury, created a program to inform the residents of the resources that were available and developed a plan to break down the immigrants’ perceptions that created barriers to their use of the resources.   There were plenty of resources available, but language problems and fear of government programs after bad experiences in their native countries were preventing them from using them – as, of course, were the fears of those who were illegals that they would be caught if they availed themselves of health resources they needed.

Finally, a student in the Medical School reported to us on the Haven Free Clinic in the Fairhaven section of New Haven, a 1-year old program to provide free medical service to uninsured people. The program provides free primary care and counselors to help the patients find insurance. There are 150 students working in this program.

A second breakout session featured University-sponsored service organizations.   The first speaker addressed the Yale Alumni Community Service Fellowship Program.  This program was formed by alumni in 1989 and has provided stipends and housing with alumni to over 800 students for 8-10 weeks in the summer. Two students who had been involved with the program described their experiences, one with a non-profit in Boston, the other on a research project in Minnesota to study racial differences in the criminal justice system there.

A second speaker described the Urban Resources Initiative run by the School of Forestry and Environment. This program works in Enterprise Zones in New Haven to develop pocket parks, plant trees and do other “green” projects in these poor areas.   It works with approximately 50 community groups each summer in beautifying their neighborhoods.

Reggie Solomon of the Yale Office of New Haven and State Affairs then described the public services provided by his office.   The office coordinates Yale service to the community. At this time, 10,000 New Haven students participate in free Yale programs, including 600 children who are involved in free educational classes. In the impoverished Dwight area, Yale students redesigned a school and tutor every third grader; and SOM students did the financial work which persuaded a major New England grocery chain to open the first urban supermarket in Connecticut in the last 40 years. President Levin’s Public Service Fellowship has funded 400 students and over $150,000 in community projects.

We were then treated to an informative and humorous lecture by Professor Douglas Rae, who is both a Professor of Political Science and a Professor of Management in the SOM.   He has been very involved in public service activities in New Haven and expressed himself as very optimistic for the future of the City.

The next session was with Mark Dollhopf, and involved a give-and-take on what AYA could do to better serve the alumni.   Suggestions included better support for shared interest groups, better ways to engage the alumni of the graduate schools, publishing a list of student service organizations and their addresses so that alumni could become involved both as volunteers and financiers, more “Connect with Yale” programs around the country with intellectual content, and making the alumni data base easier to access and use.

The day ended with a session entitled “Achieving Economic Justice through Community Service”.  This was essentially about what Dwight Hall is doing today. We were told that in the the last year, Dwight Hall has coordinated 73 groups involving over 3,000 students (undergraduate and graduate) providing over 120,000 hours of service to the New Haven community.   The specific organizations discussed were the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Project, which runs a soup kitchen and collects excess food from the dining halls to distribute to homeless shelters;  the Urban Fellows Program, which runs an Immigrant Rights Project and provides services, programs and advocacy to a Latino group named “Junta” in Fairhaven; the Roosevelt Institution, which describes itself as a progressive student think-tank on how to improve public policies, such as those dealing with HIV/AIDS and local emergency preparedness; and the Elmwood Enterprise Fund, which is the only student-run microcredit organization in the world.  This group has given out over $43,000 in loans and has had a 90% repayment rate (100% in the past two years); it also does counseling work on how to develop business plans, basic accounting, and good business practices to the recipients of the loans, which generally run in the hundreds of dollars apiece.

The second day was somewhat less packed and was more focused on Yale’s internal activities. The morning was devoted to numerous smaller gatherings. I first went to the meeting addressed by Shauna King, the new Vice President of Finance and Administration, who is the successor to Jack Pepper. She was previously an executive with Pepsico. We were amazed to learn that she has over 2,000 employees in her department.

While the Department of Finance and Administration has many functions, its principal focus at the moment is on the administration of research grants, particularly those provided by the government. After a preliminary government audit of one program revealed failures to comply with government regulations on accounting for research grants, the University received a very broad subpoena seeking information on its financial administration of all of its government grants. These mostly involve medical research and in total exceed $500 million a year. In short, this is serious business. Yale’s internal investigation has determined that there is no university-wide system for accounting for these grants, and that there were instances in which different departments collaborating on the same project accounted for the projects in different ways. While these differences may not be illegal, Yale is instituting a crash program to develop common procedures which comply with the federal regulations, educating professors on how to account for their projects and building an integrated accounting system.

On a more positive note, Ms. King reported that the “Best Procedures” initiative begun by Jack Pepper to improve labor relations is working well, and that collaborative resolution of problems and employee morale were much improved.

I then went to a session on Yale Athletics addressed by Tom Beckett, the Athletic Director. He told us that, since 1995, Yale has spent $101 million on the physical plant for the athletic programs, $30 million of which has been spent refurbishing the Bowl.   In the new funding effort, the physical plant is allocated $70-100 million. Yale is hoping ultimately to be able to endow all 30 of its sports; at the present time, 10 are endowed with funds sufficient to run the entire programs.

As to athletic accomplishments, there is a system which allocates points to each sport in each university to establish how the university has done across the board in its athletic programs. In the most recent year, Yale finished 53rd out of the 300 programs in the country, an improvement from 300th in 1993. In the Ivy League, Yale placed second to Princeton, which was first for the 22nd year in a row!

After lunch, I attended the session for Class Delegates. The discussion centered principally on the experience a number of classes have had in having multi-class mini-reunions.  For example, three classes have set up a series of three events leading up to their 30th reunions; five classes had a joint tailgate at the Princeton game; and three classes had a joint cocktail party at the Yale Club in New York that drew 200 people.  The notion is that we knew people in other classes, and that it would be fun to have an event at which they were present as well. A further advantage is that one can count on more people and thus can plan bigger events. A disadvantage is that they’re harder to plan.

We then all adjourned to hear Rick Levin’s annual address. Yale’s themes going forward will continue to emphasize science, the arts and becoming global. In the science area, a new biology building is being designed and is probably 3-4 years away; the Sterling Chemistry Building will be entirely renovated, and all undergraduate labs in all disciplines will be centered there; and building up the medical school will continue to be a priority.  In that connection, the school has just received  a $59 million grant to become a major center for clinical research.

In the Arts area, the renovation of the Arts building and the Art Museum is just about finished, and the extensive renovation of the Art Galleries is underway. A new building for sculpture will be built and a new building for History of Art will be finished next year.   This is the largest investment in the Arts that any university has ever made.

In the International area, Yale supported over 900 students in studies abroad. The goal is to have 1300-1400 students abroad at any one time. A new campus in Beijing was just about to open (Levin was leaving the next day) and leaders programs are underway with China and Japan, and being explored with India.

At Yale College, the big news was that there is now a reasonable prospect that two new residential colleges will be built. Land has been acquired in the area between Prospect Street and Hillhouse Avenue. The decision is not final, because other decisions have to be made, i.e, the impact on the number of faculty, the number of classes, etc.

As to the Fund Raising Campaign, $1.3 billion of the $3 billion goal has already been raised. 

And finally, Linda Lorimer was introduced to tell the delegates that, within the next year, Yale will start putting its courses on the Internet so that they can be downloaded  free  through the POD mechanism. There will be much more on this in the future.

The Assembly ended with the annual Yale Awards Dinner in Commons, at which five medals were awarded.            

Dave Toomey

1960 Class Notes:  September/October 2006 Issue

Richard F. Banbury

  The next gathering of the clan will take place over a period of three days beginning on May 10th in the historic city of Boston.  (I hesitate to use the phrase mini-reunion, since the prefix suggests a minimization of the scope and size of the enterprise.)  Although we will be 231 years too late to witness the Boston Tea Party or join Paul Revere on his ride through the colonial suburbs, the planning committee is arranging a lively litany of activities to challenge the intellect and excite the senses.  Featured explorations include (1) Italian Renaissance sculpture and an Edward Hopper retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, (2) traversing the decks of Old Iron Sides, (3) an evening with the Boston Pops, (4) a panel discussion involving Yale Undergraduates who have benefited from our various summer fellowship programs, and (5) professorial ruminations by a couple of academics whose wit and wisdom are normally pronounced within the courtyards of that institution on the other side of the Charles River.  Those venturing off on their own should consider visiting the JFK Library and Museum, where one can reprise, through archival video and otherwise, that extraordinary campaign and election which took place in the immediate aftermath of our graduation ceremonies in New Haven.  While in South Boston, don’t miss the opportunity to have a great seafood dinner at Anthony’s Pier 4, which has its own historic collection of photographs (downstairs) and early Boston paintings (upstairs).  The talented crew of Bob Ackerman, Dave Carls, Al Durfee, Ted Stebbins, and Jim Taylor, who are running the show for the Boston Retreat, have reserved a number of rooms in advance.  You may contact Bob Ackerman at backerman@watermill.com in order to secure lodging and register for events. 

Don’t get into any lacrosse scrimmages with the Curran family in their backyard in West Hartford, or at any of the parks in Newport, where Mike and Nancy have a second home on historic Pine Street.  It is indeed rare for a father and son (or daughter) to not only compete on the same varsity team at Yale, but also to have the honor of serving as captain of that team.  Nonetheless, Mike Curran captained our varsity lacrosse team in 1960, while Mike’s son Jeff was elected captain of the 1992 laxmen.  Having previously sojourned to the Antarctic, Mike and Nancy are now planning a trip to the Artic Circle, where they plan to study Polar Bears and other indigenous creatures of the far north. 

              The China institute recently honored Oscar Tang at a dinner in New York, as featured in the Styles section of the Sunday New York Times.

              The ranks of our globetrotting golf team continue to grow.  Last May seventeen classmates attacked various courses in Monterey, where the Pacific Ocean can quickly swallow up a badly sliced drive.  Steve Lasewicz reports on the latest tour, including the “lightening fast greens and spectacular ocean views” of the Monterey Peninsula Country Club.  Tom Trowbridge was the advance man, coordinating on-course and extra-curricular activities for the rest of the guys, and Merrill McGowan of Hillsborough was a congenial host at the Cypress Point course.  Having rented a home in the area, George Rieger showed the team how to enjoy a good meal without breaking par, including his personally selected tastes of the grape.  It was no surprise that the low scorer was Keith Kittle, whom Lazz describes as having stroked three “sensational rounds”.  Honoring the memory of Duncan Alling, The Alling Cup was won by Tom Nolting for his low net score.  The other participants in this fun time on the fairways were Mike Dickerson, Matt Freeman, Rick Jones, Howard Levine, Bob Payne, John Reese, Dave Sellers, Dick Segal, Bob Schmidt, Dave Toomey, and Peter Wells.    

              As far as I can tell, no one has seriously considered creating an Ivy League Football Hall of Fame to permanently honor the great athletes and national leaders who have played on the fields of the Ancient Eight during the past 140 years.  The natural location for such an undertaking would be New Haven, where the modern version of football came to life under the imaginative leadership of Walter Camp.  The site might be proximate to the restored Yale Bowl, or perhaps across Central Avenue where the old Armory, constructed in 1916 for the United States Cavalry, now serves as an indoor Equestrian and Polo Center.  With the dominance of the National Football League and the scholarship programs, there is a tendency for the rich tradition of football at Yale and its brother institutions to fade from the collective consciousness of the community.  The Ancient Eight should not become the Forgotten Eight.  Just an idea. 

               Stayoung.

An e-mail from our Class Notes Correspondent to Yale

Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 09:00:42 EDT
Subject: Ancient Eight
To: thomas.beckett@yale.edu
CC: Rick.Levin@yale.edu

Tom -- Vision, leadership and commitment have made possible the grand restoration of the Yale Bowl. An equally proud project would be the creation of an Ivy League Football Hall of Fame, the natural location of which would be New Haven, the birthplace of football as it is played today. Yale could donate the land and all eight Universities, as well as their football alumni, would contribute to design and construction costs. An Ivy League Hall of Fame Foundation would underwrite the maintenance costs. Admission would be free to all comers, with an opportunity for upkeep donations. The natural location would be on Central Avenue across from the Bowl, perhaps where the Armory is now situated. (Polo is not an apt symbol for modern, egalitarian Yale.) With the dominance of NFL and scholarship programs, there is a danger that the rich traditions of football at Yale and its brother institutions will continue to slowly fade into the twilight. The Ancient Eight should never become the Forgotten Eight. Something akin to a trust obligation, to both past and future generations, calls on us to be guardians of that history. So many great athletes and national leaders are woven into its fabric. One vision is of a grand opening of The Ivy League Hall of Fame in the fall of 2016, with an undefeated Yale team playing across the street, coached perhaps by Bill Belichick. 

Richard Banbury, ' 60, '63L

Class Notes

  1960 Class Notes:  July/August 2006 Issue

In this year of half-century high school reunions, it’s great to see so many mates vigorously pursuing athletic distinction.  Former Assistant Hockey Coach Bruce Wolanin ’91 lauds Jim (Iron Man) Trowbridge for his competitive play during the most recent alumni hockey game.  Jim was awarded a dubious honor as the Most Experienced Player still chasing pucks around Ingalls Rink.  Bruce also mentioned Guy Robinson who, although no longer chasing those pucks, has become a master for disseminating interesting and amusing stories on the internet, as well as spectacular birds-eye photos of cities such as Shanghai and Singapore.  Robo recently warned his network about the Great Apes Project, an apparent scheme to expand the universe of bipeds entitled to the protection of human rights.  No shrinking violet when it comes to opposing radical platforms, Robo is rallying the troops against this monkey business.   

              Celebrating the 50th anniversary of their Yale acceptance letters, Ken Blackford, Harry Clein, Owen Cylke, Tom Dent, Mike Griffin, and Harold Hammett recently gathered at Laguna Beach with their wives and significant others.  Owen reports that this band of Durfee/Calhoun lads discovered that “whatever chemistry brought us together back then seems still to be at work – only enhanced by the addition of the ladies”.  They also took some special time to remember a seventh compadre, P. V. Foster, who passed away in 2000.  

              It’s no secret by now that John Negroponte has succeeded Porter Goss as the articulator of the daily intelligence briefings for the guy who sleeps in the East Wing of the White House. 

From Emerson, New Jersey, we learn that Don Segal is enjoying part-time work as an actuarial consultant, thereby joining a rather long list of blissfully ambivalent half-retired classmates.  Don also reports that he has been elected as a Vice-President in the American Academy of Actuaries. 

              The May class conclave in New York is reported to have been a hugh success.  The marquee event was Fay Vincent’s oratory at the dinner on Friday night, a remembrance of his good friend Bart Giamatti, whom he met through Peter Kinpe.  Though a Williams grad, Fay is closely associated with our Class, particularly through numerous Yalie buddies he knew at Hotchkiss and Yale Law School, including his dear friend Harry Mazadoorian.  Fay’s affection for Yale also derives from the fact that his dad captained both the football and baseball teams as a Bulldog.  His closest connection, however, involved his relationship with Bart, as they entered the national fray together when first Bart, and then his deputy Fay, became successive Commissioners of Major League Baseball. 

              Those classmates who annually select the undergraduates receiving Aspin, Heinz, and Branford fellowships consistently report on how impressed they are with the Yalies of today.  Arabic, Farsi and Mandarin have replaced French, German and Spanish for many students twisting their tongues in New Haven language labs.  Their field work with governmental or NGO agencies, sponsored by our fellowships, now reach all points on the globe.  A large number of well-traveled mates assisted Pete Knudsen in the screening and selection of the most recent cadre chosen for such fellowships.  Among those contributing in this regard were Matt Gardner, Arvin Murch, Matt Freeman, Peter Cooper, Nick Storrs, John Wilkinson, Ben Erdreich, Owen Cylke, John Dwyer, Bill Martin, and Chuck Schmitz.

The state of the Class Treasury remains quite healthy, with a shifting balance in the range of $45,000.  Dave Carls, our Class Treasurer, is grateful for the dues and program contributions which totaled $27,880 with about three months left in the fiscal year.    

              In Memoriam.  Within a period of 27 days last Spring, we lost three outstanding and distinguished members of the Class.  A member of the United States Davis Cup Team in 1963 and 1965, when he was ranked 11th in the world, Gene Scott was admired and respected by generations of tennis players and aficionados.  He was the founder, Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of Tennis Week Magazine, and over the years authored twenty books on the game and sport of tennis.  Gene was also the director of more than 200 tennis tournaments throughout the world, and was still competing at a world-class level in 2005.  Among those speaking at the services for Gene in New York City were his friends Billie Jean King and John McEnroe.  In addition to his grand achievements in tennis, Gene also was a member of the Bar in the State of New York and served on the Board of Arbitration of the New York Stock Exchange. 

Oregon bar, where he was widely known for his expertise in commercial and insurance law.  Bill’s advice was often sought on matters of professional ethics, and his reputation for integrity and decency was legendary. 

              Charles Newman was a young instructor in the English Department at Northwestern in 1964 when he became the Editor of TriQuarterly, which he nurtured into a journal with an international reputation for publishing the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates, Carlos Fuentes and other literary luminaries.  A Fulbright Scholar at Oxford, Charles became a prolific writer, including his 1984 novel White Jazz.  He was also the author of two non-fiction books, including A Child’s History of America in 1973. 

              These three men, who will be well remembered, were a great credit to our Class. 

               Stayoung.

Richard F. Banbury

Class Notes

  1960 Class Notes:  May/June 2006 Issue

Richard F. Banbury

            With so many events and activities competing for our attention at this time of year, it should be no surprise that half-century high school reunions are at the top of the priority list for many classmates.  I’ll stuff the trite clichés and phony phrases about how quickly the calendar turns.  Reflections on the scheming of Old Man Time are left to the philosophy majors.  In addition to the bi-century high school affairs, our mini-reunion in New York should be taking place just at about the time this issue of your favorite alumni magazine is being mailed to classmates around the globe.  Fay Vincent’s oration on his good friend Bart Giamatti will be the centerpiece of this weekend banquet.  The New York conclave has been conceived and delivered by Peter Wells, whose management of the Class has been characterized by energy, enthusiasm and efficiency, all in the tradition of his multiple predecessors as Class Secretary.  In that spirit, Peter must be forgiven for circulating some updated info about “all the girls we’ve loved before …”.  I’m sorry to break the news, but Sophia Loren and Bridget Bardot are both 71, two years younger than former fantasy Liz Taylor. 

              Enjoying his retirement from the entertainment and business world in Boston, Lew Lloyd joined Sandy Campbell for Grandparents Day at The Park School in Brookline, where Sandy’s grandson Jackson and Lew’s granddaughter Lilian Rose are ensconced.  Lew also reports that Dunc Yaggy, his old sidekick from their days at the Yale Dramat, is thriving as Chief Planning Officer at Duke Medical School. 

Eleven American citizens were awarded National Humanities Medals in 2005, including four who are Yale alumni or faculty members.  Among those honored was Lew Lehrman, who was recognized by President George W. Bush for numerous scholarly and historical initiatives which have “… deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities (and) helped expand America’s access to important humanities resources”. 

              As our relatively new Class Delegate to the AYA, Dave Toomey is finding the semi-annual Assemblies not only highly informative, but also an opportunity to fraternize with folks from other classes, leading to the exchange of novel ideas for class activities.  Dave reports that a number of delegates were “amazed at our fellowship programs and sought more information about what we do and how we do it”.  For the full text of Dave’s report, visit our class website at Yale60.org. 

              It’s a 10 hour bus ride from Yerevan to Tbilisi, but that’s the only alternative when the airport is indefinitely closed down as a result of “unrelenting thick fog”.  So reports Stew Cole in reviewing the unusually harsh winter in Armenia, with sub-Celsius

temperatures in the minus teens.  Snow removal is nearly non-existent, resulting in three-foot accumulations which eventually turn to slush.  In a marvelous example of State Department creativity, Stew quotes an Embassy bulletin to American citizens as follows:  “walk like a penguin for better balance – it lowers your center of gravity”. 

              In memoriam.  We have learned in a long note from Ned Cabot about the loss to our Class of Estil Vance.  Ned and Estil were roommates for four years and remained good friends through our 45th reunion, which Estil attended.  A brilliant scholar, Estil was a junior year Phi Beta Kappa, a varsity football player and an outstanding debater.  After graduating first in his University of Texas Law School class, Estil practiced law in Fort Worth and became chair of his firm’s litigation department.  Estil had a strong commitment to the community, as evidenced by his service on the Fort Worth’s City Council and as Chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party.  He is survived by his wife Melinda, who has enjoyed a distinguished career as a practicing attorney and municipal court judge in Fort Worth.  Their two children, Terry Kathleen and Estil, like their dad, both graduated from Yale with Phi Beta Kappa keys. 

               Stayoung.

CLASS TREASURER'S REPORT - DAVID H. CARLS

Summary Interim Report to Class of 1960 Executive Committee-4/12/05

              Our Class as well as the University as a whole operates on a fiscal year ending May 31st.  Our Class funds are co-mingled with those of the other Classes and invested by the University.

              For the interim period June 1, 2004 through February 28, 2005 receipts from Classmate dues and optional contributions equaled $28,605 against University administrative charges assessed to our Class of $8,012.77 for a positive difference of $20,592.  For the same interim period for the previous year receipts from Classmate dues and optional contributions equaled $28,379 against University administrative charges of $6,396.13 for a positive difference of $21,982.87.

              This flow of funds representing receipts in excess of charges was augmented by interest allocated to the Class from University earnings during those periods of $3,642.14 and $3,415.18.

               It must be remembered, however, that this rosy report is interim in nature and somewhat misleading because it reflects the periods when the Class receives virtually all of its receipts that must cover Class charges during the remaining months of the fiscal year.  These charges include additional administrative costs, summer fellowship grants, and a reserve to prepare for the next reunion, namely the 45th Reunion.

              At the end of February the Class treasury balance was $89,377.17, a great part of which will be consumed by costs related to this Reunion.

              During the current interim period 61.7% of the 355 participating Class members made contributions of $95 of more toward dues and fellowships as compared to 64.4% of the 334 participating Class members who made both dues and optional contributions during the same period of the previous year.

              Respectfully submitted,

              David H. Carls, Treasurer

PS. Classmates who have questions may submit them to me at: dhcarls@aol.com or by clicking on my name.

To view Dave Toomey's report for the 2005 AYA Assembly, click here.

Class Notes

Richard F. Banbury

March/April 2006 Issue

Many corporate leaders are said to be high-profile, ego-driven, shoot-the-wounded alphas, who thrive on being the dominant male in the room with a glass floor.  This stereotypical, or perhaps mythic, image could not be further from reality in the case of John Pepper, whose modest and unassuming style has been so effective during his tenure as Yale’s Vice President for Finance & Administration, a position from which he retired in January.  Prior to undertaking that assignment two years ago, the former Navy officer was twice tasked by the Board to captain Procter & Gamble, having been recalled on the second occasion to steer the drifting ship back on course.  In announcing John’s return to Cincinnati, Rick Levin described him as a “transformational leader of thousands of Yale employees who provide administrative support for faculty and students … John has taught us to appreciate that everyone in our community makes an important contribution … Invariably modest yet entirely secure in his own identity, John is a person of complete integrity and deep caring.”  With similar leadership styles and many of the same personal qualities, John and Rick were obviously a good match.  In his remarks at the time of his departure from New Haven, John made the following observation concerning Yale:  “It has meant and given much to my life over the now almost fifty years since I walked through Phelps Gate as a freshman, never having been on the campus before, filled with a mixture of apprehension, excitement and curiosity”.  Reflecting on his management philosophy, and particularly on his assignment to improve relations with organized labor, John emphasized the value of appreciating the uniqueness and dignity of every individual.  “Our trust is the greatest gift we can give each other … tell me what you think; act on what you believe to be true”.  Back in Cincinnati, John has now assumed the role of CEO for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, another of his leadership projects, which welcomed over 300,000 visitors during its first year of operation in 2004-2005. 

              Steve Baruch is internationalizing Broadway theatre.  His production of The Sound of Music has been touring throughout East Asia and was the first Broadway musical ever to play in such venues as China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia.  Several other productions are in the planning stage, beginning with The King and I, which hopefully will open in Bangkok.  Using hundreds of “small investors” for each show, Steve and his partners are able to keep a number of balls in the air at once, including Hairspray, Sweeney Todd, and The Producers, all currently running as big hits and tough tickets in New York. 

              Capitalism and free market enterprise are gaining traction in Armenia, thanks in part to Stew Cole’s work as a technical advisor to various financial institutions in Yerevan.  The objective is to “kick start capital markets” by the issuance of traded market securities.  A number of the investors are expatriates with an interest in commercial development and the export of Armenian goods.  Yerevan is an Old World city of 1.2 million, where one can find the locals strolling the streets, going to movies, and lingering in cafes late into the evening.  Getting around town, however, is risky business, since there is a total lack of enforced traffic laws and no test to obtain a driver’s license.  Stew reports that high-speed U-turns in the middle of an intersection are a “favorite maneuver”, and the carefree pedestrians are dangerously on their own. 

              Having bought himself a couple of new knees, Fred Jacobson is again hiking his beloved Val d’Anniviers in the Swiss Alps.  Fred is often joined by Chad Dilley, who decamped for the pleasures of Old Europe many years ago. 

              From Versailles, Steve Phillips recommends the wine but laments the dearth of classmates visiting his villa to enjoy it with him.  Steve reminds us, and it was news to me, that “the Peace Treaty giving the American Colonies their independence” was signed in Versailles. 

              Rob Hanke had no problem rooting against the Yale basketball team in its encounter this season with Providence College.  The starting center for Providence was Rob’s towering son Randall, whose 14 points were pivotal in a competitive 13-point win over the young but highly athletic Bulldog squad.

              From the east bank of the Mississippi in New Orleans, Mike Mackenzie reports that he survived his encounter last Fall with an emotional lady named Katrina.  By the end of the year, Mike was describing New Orleans as “a giant very, very slowly awakening … candles of life gently coming back on”.  Also dodging the big storms, Janey and Austin Church, along with their two cats, hunkered down in their Coral Gables home through the 2005 hurricane season, reporting that Rita and Wilma were the wild ones in their neighborhood. 

              Lew Lehrman, was one of eleven citizens to receive a 2005 National Humanities Medal during a White House ceremony late last year.  Lew and Richard Gilder were honored for having founded the Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale.  Ed Elmendorf, still living in Washington, D.C., has been serving as President of the local United Nations Association, as well as a consultant to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program. 

              Secret War in the Pacific, a video documentary recently produced by Peter Parsons, tells the story of his father’s valiant role with the resistance movement in the Philippines during World War II.  Chick Parsons was imprisoned by the Japanese in Manila but escaped within months and found his way to Australia, where he reported to General MacArthur in Brisbane.  Chick was then transported in and out of the Philippines by submarine, as he organized and coordinated guerilla forces throughout the archipelago.  The video includes extensive documentary footage, as well as many interviews.  Additional information is available through www.chickparsons.com or by contacting Peter in the Philippines at ppars@aol.com. 

               Stayoung.

January/February Issue

Richard Banbury, Notes Correspondent

21 Cheney Road Marlborough, CT06447

E-mail; banburysixty@aol.com

When Peter Green’s father was a Marine Private on Guam during the Second World War, he fell into the job of operating WXLI, the local armed forces radio station.  Peter’s new book, Dad’s War with the United States Marines, is described by the author as “a family memoir with some first-ever reported information about what transpired on Guam toward the final days of World War II”.  It turns out that on August 14, 1945, Ben Green intercepted a Japanese government transmission indicating that the acceptance of the surrender terms would soon be announced.  He then broadcast that news over “the Mosquito Network” of Armed Forces Radio, having scooped the worldwide radio and print media.  You can check it out and buy the book by going to www.dadswar.net.

Now 60 years later, we have a much different relationship with the Land of the Rising Sun.  Kan’ichi Asakawa, a Yale Professor of the History of Japanese Civilization, will hopefully be remembered by the creation of a pan-Asian peace garden next to the Center for the Study of Globalization on the Yale campus.  That project and many others involving Yale’s connections with Japan are being promoted by Chuck Schmitz, who has been working with Rick Levin to expand the University’s links with Japan and restore “some balance in its Asia perspective”.  Ryozo Kato, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, has been an inspirational influence on the bilateral initiative to establish visiting faculty and student fellowship programs connecting New Haven and Tokyo. 

              Do you know the way to Santa Fe?  For those who haven’t yet visited this 16th Century Spanish outpost, the history and culture of the city are well worth the trip.  Nor should one ignore the local artists, including Peter Lewis Chapin.  Retired from his academic career as an art history teacher at Drew University in New Jersey, Peter has established himself as an acclaimed painter and printmaker.  Prior to his westward migration, various shows in Manhattan helped to enhance Peter’s reputation in the art world.  With a little advance notice, classmates are likely to get a tour of Peter and Honey’s beautiful home in the mountains just north of Santa Fe.  Peter recently defended Vincent Scully’s new book Yale in New Haven:  Architecture and Urbanism in the Letters column of this magazine.  Rebutting certain comments made by an earlier critic, Peter lauded Scully’s work as “a vivid and compelling spiritual and ideological history” relating to the architecture and social dynamics of American cities. 

On the flight out to New Mexico, you might even find Susan and Phip Hirsh seated in the row behind you, as Nicki and I did during a recent excursion to that tri-cultural state.  Phip and Susan were headed for Santa Fe to visit friends and attend a pediatrics conference, and we were fortunate to run into them again at the impressive Santa Fe Museum of Fine Arts.  From considerably south of Santa Fe, Bob Severance, retired from his position as a software designer, reports from Las Cruces that he is spending his spare time taking advanced math courses. 

              There has been quite a bit of press recently about the four Kenney brothers and their very generous gift as part of the Yale Bowl restoration project.  Brian Kenney and his three brothers all played varsity football at Yale, and the Kenney family gift is earmarked to enlarge and modify the “Halftime Room”, used by Yale team-members, coaches, and the officials on game days.  The project is being spearheaded by Jerry Kenney, ’63, who is deservedly proud of the fact that one or more of the Kenney brothers played every Saturday in the Bowl for a period of 14 consecutive years.   Athletics at Yale have also animated the philanthropic energies of Sam Heyman, who has made a significant leadership gift for the expansion and renovation of the Cullman Courts, the all-season indoor tennis facility at Yale which will now be named the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. 

              Traveling from San Diego to Washington D.C., Dr. Bob Resnik leveraged his assignment as a medical conference speaker to enjoy a tasty dinner at Sam and Harry’s Steakhouse in Alexandria with Lana and Doug Guiler, his old roomie in Pierson.  When back on the West Coast, Bob teaches baby docs at UCal San Diego Medical Center. 

              If you are looking for a litigation lawyer in Milwaukee, you would be wise to retain Bill Levit.  Although he concentrated on East Asian History at Yale, Bill was subsequently captured by the world of justice and jurisprudence, and has now been awarded by his inclusion in the 2006 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. 

              Moving South.  After serving as Senior Vice-President for a myriad of the major hospitals in Rhode Island, Bob Feldman has returned to Nashville, where he expects to find more time for tennis, golf, and digital photography.  Bob’s thirty years of experience in fundraising for colleges and medical centers will be put to good use while he performs some part-time consulting in that field.  The road from Providence to Nashville ran through New Haven last Fall, where Bob could be seen at Yale Bowl with daughter Alexandra, class of ’99, who is now laboring as a lawyer in Manhattan.

              Mates with a background in government service, and particularly those with experience in international and military affairs, are encouraged to contact Pete Knudsen, who is coordinating our undergraduate summer fellowship programs.  Pete can be reached at (203)230-3000 or pknudsen@ecoair.com.           

               Stayoung.

November/December Issue

Richard Banbury, Notes Correspondent

21 Cheney Road Marlborough, CT06447

E-mail; banburysixty@aol.com

I write these notes in the recent aftermath of Katrina and the diaspora of countless citizens from the coastal counties of Louisiana and Mississippi.  My attempts to reach Michael MacKenzie of New Orleans and Donn Byrne of Biloxi have been unsuccessful, with landline telephone communications no longer available.  Mike and Donn are the only two known members of the Class residing within the penumbra of Katrina’s grievous assault.  Originally a member of the Class of 1958, Mike is the owner of Petroleum Geology on Common Street in New Orleans.  Donn lives on Veterans Boulevard in Biloxi.  If anyone has news with respect to these two classmates, please pass it along to me as noted above. 

              The Chairman of the Political Science Department at Heidelberg College does not lack for opportunities to explore the globe.  Temporarily forsaking his classroom in Tiffin, Ohio, John Bing signed on as an English teacher at Tianjin Normal University in China this past summer.  The campus of Tianjin Normal is not what you would consider traditional.  The entire university, consisting of twenty-five buildings up to nine stories high, was constructed in twelve months with 10,000 workers committed to three 8-hour shifts seven days a week.  An interesting illustration of a muscular economic engine which clearly does not suffer from a labor shortage.  During a side trip, John wandered into a meeting of the Yale Club of Beijing, where 27 Eli undergraduates were being recognized for their summer internships.  Po-Wen Huang, as the President of the Yale Club of Beijing, presided over the ceremony.  The Bulldogs in Beijing initiative is a modern version of the venerable Yale in China programs familiar to us a few decades past. 

              While on the subject of Bulldogs, Dave Jeffery of Saint Michaels, Maryland forwarded a wonderful video of an athletic Bulldog skateboarding.  This not-so-handsome Dan is quite the clever canine, pushing off, accelerating, turning and stopping a skateboard like a professional biped. 

              Steve Lasewicz is the reigning honcho for the irrepressible band of gallivanting golfers who have become something of an institution within our Class.  I gather this is not an exclusive club, as new names and faces regularly appear on the roster.  About fifteen fellows have signed up for the November assault on the legendary courses of Kiawah Island off South Carolina.  Hopefully, Lazz will report back with respect to the highlights of this latest linksmen adventure. 

              Have gavel, will travel.  That is the theme for Judge Barry Schaller, who continues to ride circuit during the Connecticut mini-triathlon season.  Barry regularly finishes first in the over 55 age grouping, but candidly confesses that he is usually competing against himself as the only entrant in that exalted grouping.  Not to say that Barry doesn’t also outpace numerous younger competitors, frequently because someone takes a wrong turn on the bicycle leg, with others in hot pursuit, and then they all have to double back to find the finish line! 

              Retiring in Big Sky country, Dave Dominick is renovating a 280-acre ranch on the Greybull River upstream from “the cowtown” of Meeteetse, Wyoming.  He’s getting some help from a pair of quarter horses and a mule while he builds barns, corrals, and a cabin.  Just downstream from the famous Pitchfork Ranch, and with a population of 356, Meeteetse is a gateway town for campers, hunters, and outdoor adventurers.  A stalwart on the state and national boards of the Audubon Society, Dave credits the recently elected Democratic governor, whom he actively supported, as implementing a “more responsible thoughtfulness for conservation values”. 

  

              It was great to see Mike Griffin at the Reunion in New Haven last May.  In addition to being Chairman of Money-Media, Inc., appropriately located on Broadway, Mike is also a longstanding member of the Honorary Ushers of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. 

              For a former Army guy, Paul Capron has turned into quite the sailor.  A few years back, Paul and Joan found the ideal retirement spread at Hilton Head, which is now Paul’s homeport for racing a 14¢ Laser and enjoying recreational sailing on his 30ft Trimaran.  During his 27 years at IBM, Paul was responsible for installing first generation customer service systems for ConEd and other utilities in the Metropolitan area.  In recognition of Paul’s contributions, he and Joan were awarded a five-year assignment in Japan.  After retiring in 1990, Paul did some consulting work and could also be found racing American Beauty, which he describes as “a gorgeous Alden 44 sailboat”.  Migrating temporarily to the Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, he became heavily involved in the Bermuda Races and also developed a satellite tracking system, which provides high quality television reception for sailors at sea. 

              Congratulations to John Levin, Jim Ottaway, and John Wilkinson, who raised $22,308,121 for our 45th Reunion Gift, establishing a new record by more than $2.6 million.  This was truly an extraordinary effort by the tri-chairs, the Reunion Gift Committee and Class Agents led by Tim Ritchie, as well as the 62% of the Class who contributed to the cause. 

              Memory Lane:  During the Fall of our senior year, the cumulative score after the first five games of the football season was a surprising 95 to 0.  The continuing purity of the Bulldog endzone after 20 quarters of competition caught the attention of the national press and resulted in an AP ranking of 13th in the country.  In the mud and rain of the sixth Saturday, however, both streaks ended with a tough 12-8 loss to Dartmouth in the Bowl.  An impressive win over Princeton highlighted the remainder of the season and presaged the undefeated campaign of 1960.  But for the first five Saturdays of our senior season, the gods of football had blessed our team with an immaculate performance.

               Stayoung.

Class Notes

We saw Cinderella Man yesterday and highly recommend it to classmates. It's the story of Jimmy Braddock, the Irish pugilist from New Jersey who became a national figure four years before most of us were born. Braddock has a compelling personal story to go along with his unlikely boxing triumphs. Relevant to the Class of 1960, Paul Giamatti turns in a near-perfect performance as Jimmy's erstwhile manager/trainer, Joe Gould. A man with some ambivalent character traits, Joe's intuitive nature is a necessary element of Jimmy's surprising success. Paul's interpretation of the character is nuanced and nicely underplayed. A real step up from Sideways. Bart would be proud. Russell Crowe's performance as Braddock is Oscar-worthy, which will be no surprise to Peter Wells, our new class CEO, who struck up a casual acquaintance with Crowe during the filming of A Beautiful Mind, in which Peter plays a Princeton professor of all things! 

Richard

Richard Banbury, Notes Correspondent

21 Cheney Road Marlborough, CT06447

E-mail; banburysixty@aol.com

May/June 2005

Wire service reports flooded the front pages of daily newspapers across the nation announcing that a member of our Class had been put in charge of the nation’s most vital secrets.  One such dispatch, under the convenient attribution of combined wire services, stated that John Negroponte would control a gargantua which includes “15 secret bureaucracies … that jealously guard their turfs’ cultures and budgets”.  Unlike E.F. Hutton, when John speaks with Porter Goss in confidence, nobody listens, including Steve Hadley, Condi Rice, and George Bush.  With Porter serving as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it appears that our Class has been given major responsibility for the entire Intelligence apparatus of the Executive Branch, although I suppose Rumsfeld will continue to operate a credible sideshow in his five-sided building.    

              There are several other members of our Class who have contributed significantly to the work of the Intelligence Community, coming home at night trying to distinguish which newly-assimilated items were top secret as opposed to highly classified.  With so much delicate information swirling in the head, remembering what can be discussed over dinner with close friends must be something of a chore.  (When in doubt, discretion always prevails.)  All of this, of course, has been examined by Yale Professor Robin Winks in Cloak and Gown, which chronicles the long tradition of Eli spymasters, a mantle now assumed by our most trustworthy mates. 

              Still serving ’em up and chasing ’em down, Gene Scott won the 2004 World Senior Singles Tennis Championships in Philadelphia.  As a student-athlete in New Haven, Gene achieved the rare distinction of earning nine varsity letters.  In an era when freshman were ineligible for varsity sports, Gene accumulated three letters each in soccer, hockey and tennis.  He had an unprecedented tenth at hand when he joined the combined Yale-Harvard Track and Field Team as a high jumper for the quadrennial competition against the Oxford-Cambridge squad, participation in which would have assured another varsity letter.  At the last moment, however, Gene had an opportunity to enter the qualifying rounds at Wimbledon and was lured away to that tennis classic by the enticing aroma of strawberries and cream.   

              Speaking of class jocks, it’s reassuring to learn that Pete Riddle is still enjoying athletic success.  His preferred competition continues to be the 10K mud run at Camp Pendleton, although he and Betsy also travel on a regular basis to Colorado for a literally breathtaking challenge known as the Bolder Boulder 10K.  Leaving land sports behind, Pete and Betsy ventured off to Honolulu, where they completed a 10-mile side-by-side crossing of the Maui Channel.  No neophyte in swimming circles, Betsy was recently inducted into the International Masters Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale. 

              Sailing continues to be the sport of choice for Jim Porter, who catches the sea breeze in Aria, a ketch he describes as “my little doubleender”.  (Well it’s not technically a ketch, but ketch is a catchy word.)  Living in Chatham, New Jersey, Jim keeps Aria at anchor with the venerable Harlem Yacht Club, located on Eastchester Bay, where the tidal waters of Long Island Sound refresh the shores of City Island. 

              Yet another item from the sports desk.  Arv Murch and Pete Knudsen were spotted at Payne Whitney for the home basketball game against Harvard.  Yale pulled out a 54 to 53 win, which turned out to be a good omen.  The following week the Eli hoopsters easily swept perennial powers Penn and Princeton.  Serving as the President of Ecoair Corporation in Hamden, Pete regularly sneaks out early to work the abs at the Yale Gym.  Arv has been laboring to restore and remodel his shoreline home in East Haven, after a long and rewarding career in higher education.  With an academic interest in criminology and sociology, Arv ventured off to the business side, working in the development area at Yale, Stanford, Smith and Williams.       

              While on the subject of shoreline construction, Marshall Streibert reports that he has taken on a new job building castles in the sands of Sarasota.  His rookie construction manager is his three-year-old son Nathaniel.  Anyone seeking employment in the castle-building business should contact Marshall at (941) 361-2468.  Age discrimination is obviously not a concern for prospective employees. 

              Although technically retired as a general partner and chair of the Public Finance Department at Goldman Sachs, David Clapp still gets called on from time to time to lend an experienced hand in delicate matters involving client relations.  Connie and Dave divide time between Manhattan, a horse farm in Millbrook, New York, their ranch along the Madison River in Montana, and a southern outpost at the Jupiter Hills Club in Tequesta, Florida.  These diverse venues yield a nice recreational spectrum, including fly fishing, horseback riding, shooting, and that ubiquitous game called golf, not to mention the more strenuous endeavor of chasing after five grandsons.  With all of this, as well as dining according to Dr. Atkins, Dave has been contributing time and energy to the pro bono world.  He serves as chair of the New York Arthritis Foundation and chair emeritus of the Museum of the City of New York; his volunteer commitments also benefit Scenic Hudson and Kent School, where Dave serves as a trustee.  Classmates are encouraged to contact Dave and Connie at (212) 772-6899. 

              Cynthia Alling has sent a letter to the Class, through Matt Freeman, advising that the Tandem Friends School has achieved its goal of raising one million dollars.  Cynthia and her family “are everlastingly grateful for the overwhelming generosity from the Class of ’60 whose contributions to the Duncan Alling Fund made a major difference”.  The Class Memorial Service will be conducted on Friday, May 27th and Cynthia will be with us to honor Duncan and other departed classmates on that occasion. 

              Stayoung. Richard

 

March/April 2005

Having moved back to Birmingham from Washington, D.C., Ben Erdreich is working on a number of urban projects, including the largest downtown loft development in the city.  Among his partners in these ventures are his architect son Jeremy (Yale ’90)  and his developer daughter Anna.  Ben had previously represented the good folks of Alabama’s Sixth Congressional District from 1983 to 1993, and then served by Presidential appointment as Chairman of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

              Running simultaneous political campaigns on opposite coasts last fall were Phil Rockefeller of Bainbridge Island, Washington and John Hetherington of New Canaan, Connecticut.  Both are veteran members of their respective state legislatures, with John running unopposed last year in a strong Republican district.  Phil returns to Olympia as a floor leader of the Democrats in the state Senate.

Norman Rockwell spent much of his celebrated career as a master illustrator in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, now known for the magnificent Rockwell Museum and a summer theater of deserved renown.  It was in this charming township, snuggled among  the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, that Sharon and Larry Nazarian, Mary and Andrew Erickson, and Jan and Harry Mazadoorian recently retreated to explore and reminisce.  Retired from his pediatric practice, Larry has undertaken the responsibilities of Editor-In-Chief of Pediatrics in Review, a respected international journal.  Living in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, Andy has retired from his senior position with AMICA Insurance Company.  Harry, chairman of the board of New Britain General Hospital, received the 2004 Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Community Service Award for outstanding contributions on behalf of his native city.  Harry’s longtime comrade Fay Vincent, the former Commissioner of Baseball, traveled to the ceremonies at Central Connecticut University in order to offer his public praise to the large gathering of local leaders. 

The City of Brotherly Love was the location last November for the matrimonial celebration of Natalie Collins and Ralph Hirshorn.  Natalie, a graduate of Connecticut College, knows a thing or two about Yale, with her father, brother and sister all having spent four years neath the elms.  While on the subject of weddings, Bob Bose, Colin Gardner, Monroe Price, and Tim Ritchie were all in attendance last fall for the nuptials of Tom Yamin and Patricia Schulte. 

             

              Off-islanders traipsing around Martha’s Vineyard may have wandered into one of the galleries featuring professional photographs by Tony McClellan, who has undertaken a new career as a fine arts photographer.  With a homeport of Baltimore, Tony is working on a Reunion program exploring interesting and unusual solutions to the riddle we call retirement.  Speaking of which, Burt Danet is the co-founder of a not-for-profit entity known as A Better Community for All.  Seeking solutions across a wide range of social problems, ABC4ALL has promoted a number of initiatives addressing environmental issues and efficient transportation modalities, including light rail and high speed rail.  A current project involves community health through exercise and nutrition.  In his earlier professional life, Burt worked in the field of clinical psychology.  Anyone interested in learning more about his present endeavors can reach Burt at abc4all@att.net.

              Doug Guiler is back to work after a sixteen month retirement from the Department of Defense.  Doug is now engaged as a contractor “supporting Army G-3 and its National Security Policy Staff” with regard to arms control issues. 

              From Portland, Oregon, we learn that Bill Stiles has signed on as the seventh certified member of the Class Hole-In-One Club.  Bill’s ace came off the blade of a six iron on May 29, 1970, at a Bar Association tournament on the eighth hole of Colwood National in Portland. 

              If the Yale Dramat is looking a bit flush lately, it may be due to the fact that the Yale Dramat Alumni Association, under the strong leadership of Lew Lloyd, has been raising significant gifts for the Dramat’s capital fund.  Since the YDAA is now an “affinity group” within the AYA, Lew had the opportunity to attend the Assembly last November.  Poking around New Haven was something of a hoot, since the jazz club and recording studio in the old firehouse on Crown Street represents the fulfilled vision of Lou’s son Nick, class of ’97.  Others at the Assembly included Bing, Dickinson, Dickerson, Harris, Ilten, Seidman, Toomey, Upson, VanDine, and Weber.

              The Free Speech Movement is alive and thriving in Berkeley!  Our Class was well-represented at the 40th Anniversary of that signature event of the sixties by Bob Mallano, Tom Miller, and Rich Winkler.  The atmosphere was a whole lot tamer this time around, including mock re-enactments of protesting professors surrounding and immobilizing police cruisers.  Miller playfully reports that “we didn’t smash any imperialist institutions this time.” 

              Matt Freeman wishes to encourage classmates who knew Duncan Alling to help celebrate his memory by making a gift to the Tandem Friends School – Duncan Alling Fund, 279 Tandem Lane, Charlottesville, VA 22902.  Duncan had been a driving force behind the founding of the Tandem Friends School in the early 1970s, and it continued to be a cause close to Duncan and Cynthia’s hearts.

              Many of us have seen Paul Giamatti as Miles Raymond in the widely-acclaimed Sideways, the big screen story of two former college roommates from southern California and their somewhat sophomoric middle-aged road trip.  But who was that familiar figure in the photo atop the dresser from which Miles absconds with some liquid assets?

                Stayoung.  Richard

 

January/February 2005

I am dictating these notes on deadline, a week not yet having passed since the Presidential election.  From various comments I have received, I gather that we as a class were rather evenly divided, with some very strong feelings on both sides.  Those who supported John Kerry are currently seeing red and singing the blues.  Those who favored President Bush for another term are toasting the red states with Blue Nun vino.  And, of course, our Class had a familial connection with both campaigns.  As a result of the election, Buck Bush will continue to have an open invitation to his nephew’s White House, while Teresa Kerry, the widow of John Heinz, will not be moving there.  Nor will Porter Goss and John Negroponte be looking for alternative employment.  

              From the beautiful blue state of Hawaii, we can discern the visage of Dan Feldhaus on the cover of the Iolani School Magazine.  The inside feature story relates a remarkable career of 43 years for Dan as a teacher, mentor, football coach, and college counselor.  It all began in 1961 when Dan ran into Burt MacLean, then the Iolani headmaster, who was interviewing teaching candidates at the Harvard Graduate School.  Then a student at Harvard, Dan recalled Rev. MacLean from their mutual affiliation with Dwight Hall during Dan’s undergraduate days.  He stopped by to renew the acquaintance and walked out of the room with a contract to teach at Iolani.  Burt MacLean had asked Dan if he might be interested in going to Hawaii.  Years later Dan reflected that “it was a no brainer making the choice between Hawaii and going back to Cincinnati”!  Soon after arriving at his new post, Dan met and married Joyce Kawamoto, who was working at the Iolani Bookstore.  The magazine article is a virtual scrapbook of photos and memories, dating back to Dan’s early years in Cincinnati and culminating in numerous glowing  recollections by former students and fellow professionals.  The recurring theme of these testimonials is a profile of Dan as a dedicated and compassionate educator, as well as a funny and fun loving friend. 

              Having relocated to Florida last September, Bob Kramer arrived just in time to meet up with meteorological intruders known as Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.  Fortunately, none of those ominous phenomena wreaked havoc on Bob’s new redoubt in Bradenton.  Recently retired as general counsel to Nexus Properties and Sherwood Industries in Trenton, Bob and his wife Midge have started FUNtastic, a travel agency specializing in adventure trips and “ultra-luxury” excursions.  Either or both of those appetites can be satisfied by contacting Bob at bob@funtastictravel.com. 

              The new guy hanging around the Annenberg School for Communication at UPenn in Philadelphia, as an eclectic visiting professor, just happens to be Monroe Price.  Monroe is finding graduate students to be a wholly different breed from the law students to whom he normally transfers jurisprudential wisdom and insight.  His charter at the Annenberg School is to provide “more of an international research and policy agenda”, an assignment which somehow resulted in a rather hazardous tour of Iraq last year. 

              Homeopathy is defined by Webster as a “system of medical practice that treats a disease by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in healthy persons produce symptoms of the disease treated”.  Karl Robinson has been a practitioner and teacher of classical homeopathy for over 25 years.  In addition to teaching homeopathy in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Karl maintains a homeopathic practice in Reynosa, Mexico.  Previously, while working for Homeopaths Without Borders, Karl taught homeopathic medicine in Havana until “the current administration refused our non-profit organization permission to continue in Cuba”.  It should be noted that Karl’s professional endeavors in Central America, Cuba and Mexico have been facilitated by his becoming fluent in the Spanish language at the early age of sixty. 

              Blake Bidwell sent along a nice article announcing the retirement of John Mitchell as Senior Vice President of Pfizer.  John enjoyed a productive and distinguished career over 40 years with that pharmaceutical giant.  His daunting responsibilities included leadership of Pfizer Global Manufacturing, where he was responsible for “worldwide manufacturing operations that produce and distribute all the company’s human healthcare, consumer healthcare and animal healthcare products”.

              I am not so sure how he pulled it off, but Mike Harris has managed to return to Yale as an undergraduate student.  He provocatively asks “How often is it that one can return to relive one’s youth?”  Mike reports that the campus looks better than he has ever seen it, a judgment informed by his observations from the guest suites of  Branford, Calhoun and Morse Colleges.  Mike also managed to talk his way into one of the most coveted of all undergraduate seminars, Grand Strategy of the Great Powers, taught by Paul Kennedy, John Gaddis and Charles Hill.

              Having retired as general counsel to the Union Camp Paper Company, Dirk Soutendijk has found a neat retreat in the Muskoka Lakes Region of Ontario.  When not relaxing north of the border, Dirk resides in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, where he continues to interview high school students for the Alumni Schools Committee.

              Dave Toomey and Dick Gwinn hosted the class golfing tour at several select courses in eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware last Fall.  The tee to green group included John Bing, Huntley Davenport, Mike Harris, Richard Jones, Keith Kittle, Steve Lasewicz, Howie Levine, Tom Nolting, Dave Sellers, Dick Sigal, Bob Sugarman, and Peter Wells.  A few members of this roving golf team attacked the very challenging course at Pine Valley, where the team’s unanimous choice as MVP, Keith Kittle, inscribed his scorecard with an impressive 77.  If they keep it up, these guys will be shooting their age in another 20 years

                Stayoung.  Richard

1960 Class Notes, Richard Banbury

21 Cheney Road

Marlborough, CT 06447

banburysixty@aol.com

1960 Class Notes – July/August 2008 Issue

Sturdy and stalwart like a bulldog, the Yale Club of New York still stands across Vanderbilt Avenue from Grand Central Station, nicely convenient to those arriving by train for our Class Dinner on April 18th.  This event occurred as the result of Peter Wells’ leadership, with a timely late-inning assist from Rob Hanke.  A well-attended meeting of the Class Council took place on Friday afternoon, which included an informative briefing on the continuing success of our Les Aspin, John Heinz, and Branford College summer Fellowships.  There were several reporters who spoke of the talented undergraduates who benefit from these programs.  The winners are selected after probing interviews by various panels from our Class.  Members of the Fellowship team who spoke were Peter Knudsen, Arvin Murch, Chuck Schmitz, Rob Hanke, and Bill Weber. The walls of the Trumbull meeting room were then treated to an interesting discussion relating to the concept of a four-day preamble to our official 2010 affair in New Haven.  Based to some extent on a tradition initiated by the Class of 1958, the idea is to take up waterfront lodgings in Westbrook or Saybrook and invite faculty members to share their scholarship with our yet inquisitive minds.  Knudsen has composed an impressive list of classmates and Yale faculty to present their views on four subjects, to wit the environment, world health, cultural and religious conflicts, and the United Nations.  Feedback to Peter at pknudsen@ecoair.com would help determine whether this teaser gets traction.  John Wilkinson and Steve Lasewicz, along with Knudsen, are working as tri-chairs for the Reunion.  Others in attendance at the Class Council caucus were Blake Bidwell, Dave Carls, Peter Felfe, Mike Harris, Bill Martin, Harry Mazadoorian, Ed Pearson, Carol and Barry Schaller, Gus Weidlich, Charlie Weymouth, Howie Wilkins, and your correspondent.

The feature event at the Yale Club gathering was a dinner lecture by Professor Minh Luong, a highly-regarded academic in the field of International Security Studies at Yale.  Professor Luong also drives the Ivy Scholars Program, which brings outstanding secondary school leaders from around the world to New Haven for a rigorous academic program, with the intent of recruiting these dynamic scholars and leaders for Yale’s undergraduate brain team.  Professor Luong’s presentation was on China at the Crossroads, wherein he postulated that the China bubble may well burst under convergent pressures from a deteriorating environment, increasing unrest in the countryside, an aging population, and shortcomings in the area of public health. Having posed the question, Professor Luong then pronounced that the answer will not be known until the decade of 2015 to 2025.  On Saturday, thanks to some timely hitting by host Rob Hanke, the bases were loaded at the Asian Society for a splendid lunch.  The total headcount for this April adventure was half a hundred classmates and fast friends. 

With an academic career in preventative medicine, public health, internal medicine, and medical administration, Bob Reynolds is retiring this summer.  The last 20 of his 44 working years have been at the University of Virginia, where he held a number of high-ranking administrative posts in addition to his role as a professor of medicine and public health. 

The number of Class authors continues to expand.  The History Publishing Company has agreed to publish David George Ball’s manuscript entitled A Marked Heart.  The pre-publication teaser, with a supporting photograph, reports that Dave’s story began when, as a Yale student, he “… gave the relatively unknown Martin Luther King his 30th birthday party”.  Energized by his encounter with Dr. King, Dave decided to work for social and economic progress in a professional career starting after his graduation from Columbia Law in 1964.  His eventual appointment as Assistant Secretary of Labor by the first President Bush presented an unusual opportunity to bring about positive changes for the benefit of working Americans, and the photograph of Dave and Dr. King hanging on his wall was a continuing inspiration in that regard.  Dave became the chief federal officer responsible for enforcing ERISA, and in 1992 he “published a regulation fostering the rapid growth of 401(k) plans”, then described in the New York Times as a watershed event in the pension industry.  The pre-pub bulletin describes A Marked Heart as “A magical chronicle of how one person inspired by Martin Luther King made a difference in the world”.  Dave’s book is scheduled for national release next January.

Bill (Jamie) Kunz and a fellow Cook County Public Defender were bound to silence for 26 years after being told by a client that he murdered a McDonald’s security guard during a Chicago robbery, all the while knowing that an innocent man had been convicted of the crime.  This Kafkaesque conflict between legal ethics and ultimate justice was recently explored on 60 Minutes, with Jamie, released from confidentiality by the death of the client, telling his wrenching story to segment reporter Bob Simon.

At least one renowned architect likes to hang out in Dakar with the Ministers of Tourism and Economic Development.  Dave Sellers was camped in Senegal while designing a sports academy promoted by the National Basketball Association and Nike, where African teenage athletes will combine studies and sports with a goal of obtaining scholarships to U.S. .  Describing Senegal as “safe and friendly”, Dave reports that he has encountered several 17 year-olds surpassing seven feet, sans their Nike Liftoffs.  As an aside, Dave mentions a potential role in the design of a billion-dollar port project in Dubai. 

Stayoung.

 

1960 Class Notes – May/June 2008 Issue

                                                                                                                                                                       

Previously in this column I made reference to Robert Moncreiff’s 2007 biography entitled Bart Giamatti, A Profile, published by Yale University Press.  Having now read this rather short volume of 200 pages, I thought a few comments might be warranted.  Moncreiff gives high marks to Bart as a scholar, teacher, and charismatic personality.  On the first day of his tenure as President of Yale, with a mirthful nod to Milton, Bart proclaimed in a circulated memo that “… henceforth, as a matter of University policy, evil is abolished and paradise is restored”.  From the author’s perspective, however, Bart’s old world values and hierarchical view of governance in a higher education setting did not match up well with the changing times during his reign as President from July 1, 1978 until July 1, 1986.  Bart and Yale went through a difficult time with labor relations resulting in prolonged battles for which Moncreiff believes  Bart was not well suited.  Bart’s taste and temperament served him well as President of the National League and then Commissioner of Baseball, a game which he greatly appreciated for its visual splendor and metaphorical message.  To him, baseball was a modern enactment of the literary and poetic epics in which the protagonist sets forth on a grand quest and returns home safely.  In this context one can visualize an heroic Jackie Robinson stealing home to the roar of the Brooklyn faithful.  Given Bart’s romantic and idealistic reverence for the sanctity of baseball, his banishment of the gambling and dissembling Pete Rose was clearly fated. 

Although Robert Moncreiff gives Bart middling marks as Commissioner of Baseball, George Will has a different view.  The eminent columnist and inveterate Cubs fan made the following observations in his 1990 baseball treatise entitled Men at Work:  “Giamatti’s career (as Commissioner of Baseball) had the highest ratio of excellence to longevity ….  If his heart had been as healthy as his soul … Giamatti would one day have been ranked among Commissioners the way Walter John Johnson is ranked … among pitchers:  As the best, period”.  Referring to our classmate as “the designated metaphysician of American sport”, Will accepts and adopts Bart’s notion of baseball as an individual sport played as a team member. 

The Moncreiff volume makes reference to the wise counsel of John Wilkinson, Secretary of Yale during the Giamatti administration, including John’s successful mediation involving the controversial shanties erected on Beinecke Plaza by anti-apartheid undergraduates.    The biography also recognizes Peter Knipe as instrumental in bringing Bart together with Fay Vincent, then CEO of Columbia pictures.  Vincent became Bart’s good friend and trusted adviser during his short term as Commissioner of Baseball and succeeded Bart in that position following his premature death at Martha’s Vineyard on September 1, 1989. 

And wouldn’t Bart have been proud of his son Paul ’89, excelling in the title role of John Adams in the acclaimed television series adapted from David McCullough’s prize-winning biography.  Having studied his character, Paul referred to our second president as “more open, more human” than the other Founders, at the same time noting that Adams “was kind of a neurotic guy with horrible depressions – a complicated man”.  John Dwyer conveys yet another Bart vignette by way of his son Patrick, who works for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  When a senior manager at the Bank was asked during an interview who had influenced him most in his life he responded “Bart Giamatti, my professor at Yale”. 

Fred Jacobson offers testimony in favor of prosthetic knees, having inserted a pair into his lower extremities prior to renewing a vigorous schedule hiking and guiding in the Swiss-Italian Alps.

History Professor Jay Winter will be the academic leader on a Yale Travel excursion to the Normandy coast in May of 2008.  The code name for the trip is Retracing D-Day, which is designed to capture the karma of June 5, 1944.  Charlie Weymouth encourages classmates to join him for this study of military history within the context of coastal French culture. 

Dave Carls, our class treasurer, reports that we began the year with a balance of $82,000, a tidy sum as we turn the corner toward the festivities in 2010. 

As an addendum to my last column I can report that, despite a bad game with Harvard, football is alive and well in New Haven, perhaps best illustrated by last fall’s dramatic triple-overtime victory at perennial powerhouse Penn.  

Stayoung.

 

              1960 Class Notes -- March/April 2008 Issue

                                                                                                                                                                       

              On a miserable Saturday afternoon last November, a number of mates converged on Yale Bowl, joining 52,000 other spectators for The Game, the largest 2007 event by attendance in Connecticut.  Although the weather was cold and damp, the misery arose from the decisive loss to Harvard, paradoxically the more difficult to endure in light of our otherwise perfect season.  Nostalgic class veterans from the Trumbull football team, including John Hill, Jake Bennett, Dick West and Tom Yamin, tossed modesty aside during halftime in proclaiming the preeminence of their juggernaut squad.  Bob Walsh and I eagerly reminded them of Davenport’s upset victory over the Terriers in the inter-college championship game, as well described on page 140 of our Class Yearbook.  This good natured exchange was followed by some friendly emails, and I was glad to send along photographs of the Trumbull team, taken from the ’57 – ’59 Harvard/Princeton football programs, to Hill and Yamin.  Tim Ritchie reports having seen Bob Bose, Al Durfee, Herb Hodos and Dick Sigal at the Bowl.  The handsome guy sitting a couple of rows in front of Pete Knudsen and me was a youthful-looking Dick Gwinn. The old Davenport-Trumbull football rivalry sparked memories of Trumbull quarterback Bob Lewis, who was lost to the Class in 1961.  Although he shunned varsity sports, Bob may well have been the best all-around athlete in the Class, save the recently-departed Gene Scott. 

Residing in the metropolis of Washoe Valley, Nevada, the afore-mentioned Dick West  and Joanne, grandparents of twelve, are celebrating their 50th anniversary this month. 

Our class graduated seven Millers, including two Bills.  Our Florida Bill Miller, having retired from the law practice, is filling his newly discovered leisure time with travel, having recently explored Amsterdam, Vienna and Budapest after visiting his son in London.  His Pierson roommate, none other than the other Bill Miller, hangs out in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.  Double-dating with the two Bills must have been interesting.  In a pinch, just say “No, this is Bill Miller”. 

Rosemary and Lew Lloyd celebrated last Columbus Day weekend by hosting John Blampied and Harold Hammett, with their respective wives, at the Lloyd retreat in New Hampshire. 

When President James Buchanan decided to replace Brigham Young as Governor of the Utah Territory, the armed conflict which followed became known as the Utah War of 1857-1858.  Bill MacKinnon has written a definitive history of that conflict, described as a “remarkably bloody turning point in western, military and Mormon history”.  At Sword’s Point, an illustrated volume of 544 pages, is “a lively narrative linking firsthand accounts … from soldiers and civilians on both sides”.  Bill’s inspiration for this opus, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, has its early roots in Howard Lamar’s great course on the American West.  Bill and Pat have relocated to Santa Barbara and he can be reached at (805) 565-1592 or mackbp@msn.com. 

Yale, with its recent emphasis on developing links with China, has also re-discovered its historical ties to Japan, thanks in no small measure to Chuck Schmitz.  Chuck was a driving force behind Yale’s decision to create the Asakawa Peace Garden within Saybrook College.  Kanichi Asakawa is a hero to the Japanese children in his hometown of Nihonmatsu.  A scholar who taught at Yale for 36 years, Asakawa was the first Japanese professor at a major American University and also the first curator of Yale’s East Asia Collection.  In Japan, his enduring fame derives from his reputation as a tireless advocate for peace.  Prior to World War II, Asakawa  was a strong critic of Japan’s militarism and colonialism.  Chuck and Tazuko, along with a 40-person delegation from Nihonmatsu, recently traveled to New Haven for the dedication of the Peace Garden.

If you are looking for a contrarian in the global warming debate, check out the top geologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science.  In a recent interview, Bob Giegengack was described as “a slim man of medium height with a very high forehead”, and was quoted as saying “I traded my hair for eyeglasses”.  Known to his students as Gieg, Bob is an outspoken critic of Al Gore and his popular documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  After receiving his doctorate at Yale, Bob was hired by Penn to create an environmental studies program, which he subsequently directed for over three decades.  With a geologist's perspective of 20,000 years, Bob argues that the Earth today is a relatively cool planet.  One factor in determining climate change is the alignment of the other planets, whose gravitational forces can affect the elliptical shape of the earth’s orbit around the sun.  Professor Gieg, relying on an epochal analysis, is unpersuaded that man-made carbon gases are influencing current climate changes.  Though disagreeing with Gore, Gieg promotes energy-saving programs, but warns that, due to the industrialization of China and India, “If CO2  is the problem, we’ve already lost”. 

Stayoung.

 

                              January/February 2008 Issue

  The multitude of impulses and inclinations which motivate various members of the class to think and act in the first person plural continue to be expressed in a number of adventures.  Some but not all of these projects spring from the collective imagination of the class executive committee, acting as the operational arm of the Class Council.  In October, around a table down at Mory’s, several initiatives were discussed and dissected by the e/c over ice tea, Caesar salad, and other morsels from the traditional luncheon menu.  As a result, the likely locale for our next off-campus reunion has shifted from Beijing to St. Petersburg.  The one that’s considerably south of the other.  There may be some competition for Marty Adelman, and his Tampa/St. Petersburg contingent, from the east coast crowd, who observe the Sun rising out of the Atlantic from Vero Beach to West Palm.  There was also much discussion about the big event scheduled for 2010, with Pete Knudsen, Steve Lasewicz and John Wilkinson as the troika in charge of that celebration.  One concept, practiced by various classes, is to gather for a few days prior to the formal Reunion, perhaps at one of the beach towns somewhat to the east of the Elm City.  Madison was mentioned as a venue, with the Class of 1958 having formed a beachhead there under the leadership of Madisonite Jack Embersits.  An alternative approach involves several days of academic stimulation in New Haven, including seminars or lectures with willing Yale scholars, perhaps within a cluster of other classes bound for New Haven.  Anyone interested in working on the Reunion plans can contact John Wilkinson at (203) 777-7917 or john.wilkinson@yale.edu.  Those participating at the October executive committee gathering  were Bob Ackerman, Dave Carls, Rob Hanke, Pete Knudsen, Ed Leavitt, Barry Schaller, Jim Taylor, Peter Wells, John Wilkinson, and the author of this column.  Testifying to our continuing solvency, Dave Carls reported that our cash on hand is $57,000. 

A great note from Ken Fujii, recalling that he frequently encountered Bart Giamatti, who was often found lounging on the Old Campus fence as Ken meandered from Silliman to the School of Architecture.  With Nathan Hale as the only witness, they spoke of English literature and American League baseball.  There presumably would have been less concentration on the Red Sox and Indians, Bart’s and Ken’s favored teams, if they could have foreseen Bart serving as president of the National League prior to becoming Commissioner of Baseball in 1989.  Ken also reprised an article that Bart wrote for Harper’s in 1977, memorializing Tom Seaver’s farewell.  The Mets pitcher must have hailed from Fresno, which Ken calls home, since his contemporaneous correspondence with Bart concerned Seaver’s Fresno connection.

Marty Adleman’s most recent tour of China was in the company of Jean and Randy Barry, as part of a small group coordinated by Marty’s wife Priscilla, an enterprising and experienced travel consultant.  One very special evening involved dinner with Po-Wen Huang, who “negotiated the menu at a very wonderful but exclusively Chinese Restaurant”.  Marty, having retired as a physician, has developed a scholarly interest in the Far East, and highly recommends China Shakes the World by James Kynge.  After six sojourns to the most populous  country on earth, Marty observes that the speed of China’s growth is “amazing and … a little scary”. 

Another recently retired doc, Dave Mendelson, practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 40 years in the San Francisco and San Jose area.  Dave wishes to note the outstanding success of roommates Ben Erdreich, with a decade of service in Congress, Dale Purves, a neuroscientist at Duke, and Peter Workman, for his leadership of the Workman Publishing enterprise.

The most inspired and diligent troop of classmates is undoubtedly the vagabond golfers.  Their latest venue was San Francisco, including assaults on the most challenging of courses.  Merrill Magowan was the host at the San Francisco Golf Club, and at the Orinda Country Club   they were welcomed by Tom Trowbridge.  According to Steve Lasewicz, who organizes and chronicles these events, an amazing dinner at Orinda was “… selected by Tom to replenish the calories lost on the battlefield …we felt like honored triumphant warriors …”.  The three-day tournament concluded at the Olympic Club Lake Course, the site of four United States Opens.  Keith Kittle emerged with the low gross score and Lazz garnered the low net.  Lazz summed up the experience as follows:  “It is absolutely impossible to try to capture the magnitude of the camaraderie that these reunions generate among us”.  In addition to Merrill, Tom, Keith, and Steve, the participants were Mike Dickerson, Matt Freeman, Dick Gwinn, Mike Harris, Howie Levine, Tom Nolting, Jack Reese, George Rieger, Dave Sellers, Dick Sigal, Bob Sugarman, and Dave Toomey.

               Stayoung.

 

                            November/December 2007 Issue

Seniors can be juniors.  Governor Jodi Rell, using exceedingly good judgment, nominated Barry Schaller to the Connecticut Supreme Court in August.  Having been unanimously approved by the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, Barry was sworn in as the junior justice of that esteemed Court, and has settled into the important tasks of hearing oral arguments and rendering scholarly Opinions, a role which he previously fulfilled with distinction on the Connecticut Appellate Court.  Unlike New York and a few other odd states, the Supreme Court in Connecticut is indeed supreme, acting as the final authority on all civil and criminal matters, subject only to review by the United States Supreme Court.  The breadth of Barry’s legal scholarship is further illustrated by his new treatise entitled Understanding Bioethics and the Law, which is being released this month by Praeger Publishers.  Among the accolades is the following from Carolyn Mazure PhD, a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale School of Medicine:  “With remarkable clarity, Judge Schaller identifies the pressing issues at the interface of law and biotechnology.  He illustrates convincingly that the use of litigation to resolve ethical concerns raised by the development of science, medicine and technology should be the method of last resort …”.  John Paris, a Professor of Bioethics at Boston College, lauds Barry’s ability “… to explain the arcane and sometimes mysterious ways in which courts transform ethical issues into a legal context”.  Bioethics is a cutting edge academic field and a subject about which Barry has lectured and taught at Wesleyan, Trinity, and Yale. 

Congratulations to Carolyn and Stew Gilman who were recently married and have settled into their “newly remodeled nest in Westwood”.  Stew is still laboring as an architect in

Los Angeles, while Carolyn is the executive assistant to the Dean of the Pepperdine Business School.

As an unofficial goodwill ambassador to Bhutan, Dr. Frank Williams continues to perform volunteer medical care and teaching during his semi-annual trips to that Himalayan kingdom.  Frank’s home base is in the Sunshine State, practicing ophthalmology in Clearwater at an elevation barely above sea level, in rather stark contrast to Gangkhar Puensum, the highest peak in Bhutan, which is reported to be 24,835 feet.

On the other coast of Florida, Palm Beach Gardens is the new home for Susan and Dick Seidman, who is finally retired after forty-three years of practicing law in Connecticut.  Don’t assume that this loyal Bulldog will not be seen at Yale Bowl this year, which will be his sixty-seventh consecutive season attending at least one home football game.  That’s not a misprint, and not even surprising in light of the fact that Dick’s dad, Judge Saul Seidman, walked through the portals of the Bowl during an amazing run of 77 consecutive years. 

Another class doc, Kevin Harrington, reports from Mill Valley that he has retired from the practice of orthopedic surgery and academic medicine in San Francisco.  Kevin is now flourishing as a painter and antiquarian book collector, but floundering in his attempts to master the mysteries of golf. 

Back from Baghdad, where he managed oil, gas and electricity reconstruction operations, Tom Cranmer is optimistic about the future of that troubled land.  He reports that, despite an antiquated infrastructure, “the fully staffed Iraqi government ministries are doing all the work of running the operations”.  Tom further observes that 95% of Iraqi citizens just want to educate their children and “live normal lives in a democracy”.  Having returned unscattered to Great Falls, Virginia, Tom is now striving to become a professional portrait painter. 

The new Cullman-Heyman tennis center will include eight indoor courts and an area dedicated to the history of tennis at Yale.  Athletic Director Tom Beckett, in announcing the state-of-the-art facility, thanked Sam Heyman for his generous leadership role in underwriting the project. 

The Fort Lewis College Board of Trustees has renamed one of the school’s buildings  Jones Hall to honor Joel Jones, who served as President of the school for over a decade and retains the title of President Emeritus.  Under Joel’s leadership, Fort Lewis, situated in Durango, Colorado, significantly expanded its enrollment and the number of academic majors, as well as undertaking the construction of several new buildings, including a Center of Southwest Studies.  Joel entered Yale with the class of 1959 but received his degree in American Studies with our class.  He subsequently earned a Master’s Degree in English from Miami University and a Doctorate in American Studies from the University of New Mexico.  On a personal note, I played with Joel for Davenport on our two-time inter-college championship football team.  Joel was a terrific quarterback and instrumental in our back-to-back victories over Winthrop House,

the Harvard House champ both years.  Bob O’Connell, Fred Reker, Bob Gould, Tom Miller and Bob Walsh were among the gritty gridiron guys on those teams. 

               Stayoung.

 

 

October 27 , 2007: Steve Lasewicz report of Yale 60 Golf Outing to San Francisco, October 15 - 18.

And just when we thought that it couldn't get any better!

Although it is not with forethought that we plan each new venue to top any previous ones, it seems that we experience just that . To be sure, our San Fran outing was totally First Class, thanks to meticulous attention to details of every day's itinerary.  

From our arrival at the the Pacific-Union Club on Knob Hill and our welcoming dinner to our farewell dinner at the St. Francis Yacht Club, all of our senses enjoyed one treat after another.   Our first venture on the links of the San Francisco Golf Club awed many and humbled those whose expectations were unrealistic. One of the nations most exclusive and prestigious courses, SFGC was designed by A.W. Tillinghast and is ranked among the best in the world. Our host, Merrill Magowan, who was able to introduce 15 other classmates to this special golf experience, could not have been more gracious or accommodating. Once again Merrill, your generous offer to share a coveted golfing experience, unavailable to just anybody, with our Y60 Golf Group will be a memory we will long treasure--------------MANY THANKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dinner followed at the historic "Trader Vics" where many of SF's socialites used to long to be seen munching on exotic Polynesian cuisine.  

On day two, we left the rain back in SF and went across the bay to Orinda C.C. where Tom Trowbridge hones his handicap and were put to the test again challenging its many relentless hills and doglegs as if to punish us for daring to think it would be a piece of cake after SFGC. Our bruised egos were later soothed by the ample supply of fine adult beverages and the warm reception by Tom and his lovely wife Lynn at their award winning home on top of the ridge. Truly an architectural masterpiece reflecting the warmth and personalities of the Trowbridges, we all fanaticized at what it must be like to enjoy this spectacular retreat day after day. To that issue, Dave Sellers offered an impromptu explanation of the many subtle features embraced in the design that made one feel so comfortable and content to be there. Congratulations Lynn & Tom --- You deserve the best --- and thanks for opening your wonderful home to us !!!!!!!!!!!

Dinner at the Orinda C.C. was carefully selected by Tom to replenish the calories lost on the battlefield and we felt like honored triumphant warriors being catered to by the watchful and attentive staff.  

Onward to the home of four U.S. Opens, two Tour Championships and two Amateur Championships, The Lake Course at The Olympic Club. Folks, it just doesn't get any better ! Incredibly fine weather set the stage for our last memorable contest. The scenery was so dramatically distracting that at times it was tough to focus on our golf. That and the hectic schedule endured by these gracefully aging minds and bodies was reflected in some of the daily scorecards.   When The Czar finalized the three day tallies, to no ones surprise, Keith Kittle once again copped Low Gross Honors and to many people's surprise, Steve Lasewicz found enough of his old swing to rescue Low Net Honors for the second time since our very first outing in Chattanooga in 2000.  

Sadly, some of our gladiators had to catch some early flights back home. Those remaining, once properly lubricated, enjoyed the splendid view of SF Bay and the Golden Gate from the Commodore's table at the St. Francis Yacht Club while pondering "wudda, cudda, shudda's"over our last supper.   It is absolutely impossible to try to capture the magnitude of the camaraderie that these min-reunions generate among us. Truly we are blessed to enjoy such treats. God willing, we will continue them as long as our health holds out. We invite all who are able to join us on future venues and share in the memories.  Available from our webmaster are the summary score sheets with all the "believe-it-or-not" details, the Prize Awards recap and the Past Champions list.

 

October 20 , 2007: Posting of Banbury Notes on the Class Notes & AYA Report Tab above.

Postings below are dated but represent an interesting list of past Class activities.

 

From the Boston Mini Reunion Leadership Team!

Dear Classmates
 
Re:       Mini Reunion in Boston on May 10th 12th, 2007
 
We write to give you the details of the up coming mini reunion scheduled for May 10th  through 12th, 2007 in Boston. This is a beautiful time of year, for the dogwoods, lilacs and other spring flowers are in full bloom. The climate should be ideal and the city is not yet inundated with parents attending graduation ceremonies. We have put together an itinerary which provides access to the best of Boston while still allowing plenty of free time. All these activities are within the heart of Boston/ Cambridge and thus accessible by foot, T(subway), bus or taxi. The day to day itinerary follows:
 
Thursday, May 10th
12:00pm Luncheon at The Harvard Club of Boston
Speaker: Peter Vanderwarker, an expert on Bostons history and architecture.
 
2:00pm Historic tour of Boston on the acclaimed Ducks, amphibian craft which navigate the streets as well as the Charles River.
 
3:30pm Arrival at the U.S.S Constitution Old Ironsides, and its Museum.  Tour of ship and museum.
 
5:00pm Evening cruise of Boston harbor with historic talk. Beverages will be available at a cash bar.
 
6:45pm Arrival in downtown Boston. Dinner on own. There are many excellent restaurants in the immediate area. A list of suggested restaurants will be provided.
 
 
Friday, May 11th
10:00am Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)
Talk by Carol Troyen, Curator of the Edward Hopper Show.
Thereafter, you will be able to view the Hopper Show as well as an exhibition on Italian Renaissance Sculptures and whatever else interests you.
 
12:30pm Luncheon in dining room of MFA
 
2:00pm Free time
One can spend more time viewing exhibits at MFA, walk one block to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, visit the Christian Science Center with the walk through of the globe or shop.
 
7:00pm The Boston Pops, Symphony Hall
Dinner and drinks available at Symphony Hall but their cost is not included in the number below.
 
Saturday, May 12th
9:00am We will go to Harvard where we will addressed by two outstanding scholars. Q&A will follow each talk.
 
Charles Nesson, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and founder  and faculty co-director of The Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
 
Paul Bracken, Professor of Management and Professor of Political   
 Science at Yale. Prof. Bracken is a leading expert in global competition with a particular knowledge of Asia. He was a visiting Professor at Beijing Univ. He is consistently rated as the best teacher in Yale's executive programs.
 
11:30am Discussion by recent Yale graduates as to how their lives were affected by the Branford, Aspin and Heinz Fellowships which are
annually provided by the Class of 1960.
 
12:30pm Free for lunch and afternoon.
Suggested activities include: tour of Harvard campus, visits to the Fogg Museum of Art and/or the world famous collection of glass     flowers, take in an athletic contest or just wander along the Charles River.
 
6:00pm Dinner at Harvard Club of Boston
Lew Lehrman has arranged for General Josiah Bunting, one of the noted historians associated with the The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to address us. Gen. Bunting is currently superintendent of Virginia Military Institute. He was formerly headmaster of Lawrenceville School. He is an accomplished author, a respected historian and an outstanding orator.
 
The cost for all the activities listed above, excluding liquor, wine, beer and ,if required, local transportation is:
2 days: Friday & Saturday:                   $285.00 per person
3 days: Thursday, Friday & Saturday:      $375.00 per person

Reservation Form 1960 Boston form
 
Accommodations
Rooms have been reserved at the following 3 establishments. It is up to you to make your own reservations. When calling, please reference the Yale Class of 1960 room block. These blocks of rooms will be held until April 27, 2007.
 
Harvard Club of Boston
374 Commonwealth Avenue
Room Rate: $200 for double
Reservations: 800-957-6667
This establishment is very similar to The Yale Club of NYC
 
Chilton Club
287 Dartmouth Street
Room Rate: single $200; double $269
Reservations: 617-266-4860
Located in the heart of Copley Square approximately a 15 minute walk from the Harvard Club & Eliot Hotel area. This ladies club is an incredibly fine place with lovely rooms.
 
Eliot Hotel
370 Commonwealth Avenue
Room Rate: Junior Suites $275
Reservations: 800-443-5468
This is a boutique hotel located next to the Harvard Club.
 
Reunion Reservations
If you are interested in attending, please send your check made out to Yale Boston Mini Reunion for the full amount per person to Bob Ackerman at 274 Beacon Street, Boston, MA.02116
 
Please note that as some of the venues are not that large, we must limit the number of participants. Thus it will be on a first check basis.
 
We have given this itinerary alot of thought and hope that you find it interesting. As we approach May, we will see if some of those coming would be interested in either some golf or an early morning bird walk through the beautiful Mt. Auburn Cemetery. We look forward to seeing you in May.
 
Sincerely,
 
Bob Ackerman

David Carls                            

Al Durfee
Ted Stebbins                               

Jim Taylor
 
 

Attendee list as of Jan 1, 2007:

Ackerman, Bob & Meg
Adelman, Martin & Priscella
Amenta, Tom & Jan
Barry, Randy & Jean
Belin, Dorrance & Susan
Berry, Ken & ??
Bush, Bucky & Patty
Curran, Michael & Nancy
Dickerson, Mike & Lynn
Dunckel, Nicholas & Donna
Goddard, Allan & Abby
Griffin, Michael & Molly Hart
Guiler, Doug & Lana
Hamill, Jon
Hamilton, Lewis & Lucy
Hanke, Rob & Lynn
Harris, Mike & Alison
Hazelwood, John & Anne
Heyman, Phil & Ann
Hirshorn, Ralph
Johnson, Vard
Knudsen, Peter
Langenbach, John & Mary
Latimer, Earl & Barbara
Naples, Ceasar
Ottaway, Jim & Mary
Pillsbury, Jock
Reese, Jack & Pam
Robinson, Robo and Elizabeth F. Stribling
Sampsell, Dave & Martha
Schaller, Barry & Carol
Schmidt, Bob & Sally
Seger, Chris
Sellers, Dave
Severance, Bob & Sallee
Sucoff, Mark & Roberta
Taylor, Jim & Lyn
Toomey, Dave & Virginia
Wells, Peter & Lisa
Weymouth, Charlie
Wilkinson, John & Virginia

 

 

Yale Class of 1960 Mini Reunion

May 5& 6, 2006

New York City

Summary of Events

 

A Class mini-reunion was held in New York City over the weekend of May 5 & 6, including a dinner Friday night and a Class Council meeting Saturday morning at The Yale Club of New York City and a Saturday luncheon at the home of John and Betty Levin overlooking Central Park.

Class Dinner

Cocktails and dinner started at 6:15 with approximately 75 classmates and guests in attendance.  After a sumptuous repast and much catching up with old friends, we were treated to remarks by Fay Vincent on the subject “Bart”.  Fay was Hotchkiss ’56, Williams College ’60 and Yale Law School ’63.  His background includes being President of Columbia Pictures, on the board of major corporations (e.g., Time-Warner) and successor to Bart as Commissioner of Baseball.  His insights into life with our classmate and friend Giamatti were wonderful and his thoughts on other subjects were interesting indeed.  Of note was Fay’s prediction that, sometime in the near future, colleges like Yale will no longer charge for tuition.

Dates for the next mini reunion, May 10-13, 2007, in Boston were announced.

Class Council Meeting

The Class Council met at 9 AM in the Tap Room of the Yale Club, chaired by Class Secretary Peter Wells.  Our upcoming 50th Reunion was discussed and Co-chairs of the reunion were announced:  Peter Knudsen, Steve Lasewicz and John Wilkinson.  Each has attested that they have spousal approval to assume the mantle.  An announcement of who will be spearheading our class gift effort will be made in the near future.

Peter Knudsen provided an update on the Class Fellowship programs, and the idea of including a panel of past recipients at our next mini reunion was discussed.

Dave Toomey, our class AYA rep, discussed the AYA meeting format and schedule, the next one being scheduled for the Harvard Game weekend this fall.

Mike Dickerson, Class Webmaster, made a plea for content submissions for the website.  Including Class Fellowship proposals and activity reports on the website was suggested.

As Dave Carls, our Class Treasurer could not be in attendance, the Treasurer’s report was omitted from the agenda other than to say that the Class is in a healthy position financially.

Attendees at the Class Council meeting were the following:  Peter Wells (chair), Mike Dickerson, John Wilkinson, Ken Barry, Gus Weidlich, Rob Hanke, Bill Weber, John Dwyer, Peter Knudsen, Bob Feldman, Dave Toomey, Harry Mazadoorian, Chuck Schmitz and Bob Ackerman.

Class Luncheon

Once again, Betty and John Levin opened up their lovely apartment to the Class and sponsored a wonderful luncheon.  40 classmates and guests took advantage of a glorious day, a spectacular setting, great food and good fellowship, thanks to the generosity of Betty and John.

Respectfully submitted

Peter Wells

Class Secretary

From Richard Banbury, Class Notes Correspondent.

Now that most of the Class has caught up with the Internet and developed basic e-mail skills, we are initiating a bulletin board for chatty or curious classmates. You can view contributions at the Classmates and Activities Tab above.

If you a have a contribution or question, e-mail it to our webmaster  or me. The purpose of this site is to post news or comments that would be of general interest to our classmates or to voice responsible opinions concerning current events, literature or metaphysical ruminations or anything else that animates an intelligent and reflective collection of brain cells.

Let everyone know if you saw a great show in New York or discovered a terrific restaurant in Sioux Falls.

Rumor, slander, platitudes, and other unpleasantries are unwelcome and will be gently spiked by the webmaster.

Richard Banbury

 

To return to this home page, click on the 6Y0 logo in the upper left of any tab.