Yale Alumni Magazine Class Notes

                              September/October 2008

                                 Robert B. Semple, Jr.

                             Corresponding Secretary

As day follows night, the usual suspects -- Hallas, Griffith,
Piroumoff, Barbara McClendon if we can entice her, your corresponding
secretary -- will gather in parking lot B-Special next to Coxe Cage
for all Yale home games, beginning with Georgetown on Sept. 20 and
Holy Cross on Oct. 4. It's BYOB, and always enjoyable. The schedule
is listed on the Yale athletics website.

You have in hand the surveys and other materials related to
the 50th Reunion Class Book. Sandy Wiener, the editor of this massive
undertaking, would greatly appreciate your honoring the October
deadline, preferably on-line but by snail mail if you wish. Also, in
October, you will be receiving first mailing regarding reservations,
etc. the class website will also keep you up to date on reunion plans.
I have already received a couple of very thoughtful responses to my
request for ideas about panels and panelists.

Ed Greenberg calls my attention to an in-depth article on Steve
Adams and his various wineries in the June issue of "Wine Spectator."
The piece describes how Steve got into the business and how he's doing
(very well, but I'll let you see for yourselves). Warning: the canny
editors of Wine Spectator do not provide online access without a
subscription, although the magazine is on many newsstands.

One piece that you can and should access fairly easily one
written by Dave Fogg (the byline is C. Davis Fogg) in the June 20
issue of the Providence Journal. It is an altogether compelling, frank
and well-written account of Dave's long struggle with bipolar disorder
-- a disease that afflicts 5.7 million Americans, or two in every one
hundred people. Beginning in his sophomore year at Yale, Dave has
lived a life of recurring mood swings, cycling from manic highs to
severe clinical depressions (20 such cycles altogether) while
managing, remarkably enough, to educate three children, run two
companies and write three successful books on management, strategic lanning and marketing.

Dave attributes his ability to cope to a caring family and to
excellent and timely medical advice (he has decidedly mixed feelings
about the pharmaceutical brew to which he was subjected -- some
treatments were helpful, others little more than "black magic").What
he is too modest too mention is his own personal resolve, which
carried him through some terribly grim times. This is must reading
and available at the Journal's website.

Jim Lineberger kindly sent along a copy of a Hotchkiss School
publication called 24/7, published by the school's development office.
It contains a lengthy article, "Family Affairs," about an
exceptionally generous gift from Terry Williams, Yale '54,
establishing a scholarship in honor of his father, Hunter, who
graduated from Hotchkiss in 1926 and later from Yale. Three
generations of Williamses -- -eight people altogether -- attended
Hotchkiss and some of them went to Yale, including my Yale roommate,
Tommy, who died 10 years ago last April. The magazine brought back
wonderful memories of a great guy from a remarkable family.

Sadly, three more of our classmates have passed away. I have
no further details to report at this time on Edwin Zemo, who lived in
Pikesville, Md., and died in April, and Stephen Kwass, a prominent
therapist in the Washington area who died in March. Jim Swanson died
in April at his home in New Orleans. A native of Orono, Minn., he
became an expert on grain exports and served as an executive with the
Peavey Company and ConAgra. He also advised the Agriculture
Department, the Agency for International Development and several
major trade associations. He is survived by his wife, Susan, two
children, Jim and Lynn, a brother, sister and three grandchildren. Our
sympathies to them all. Donations in Jim's name can be made to the
American Cancer Society.