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Class Notes 2006by Edward Wasserman January 06 A sharp falloff in news from classmates. Come on, guys. Invent something, shoot someone, get married again, mouth off, give birth something! The alternative is that I fill the space with some tone poem to fading autumn, which, as of this writing in mid-November, is still warm and radiant here in the mountains outside of Charlottesville. Worse, I offer comments on current events. Here I’ll point out that I just hosted a gathering of journalists at W&L, led by the indomitable Helen Thomas. I was struck by how apprehensive and demoralized our contemporaries are. This is the Watergate generation, who saw journalism as a branch of public service. Now they see the news business rolling up the linoleum, and they wait for buyout offers. I’ll have some information next time on forming a ’70 class council to handle, among other things, the legacy fund we seeded with the Doonesbury figures auction at the reunion. In news, I have this message from my friend and ex-roommate Gene Shapiro Eugene.Shapiro@Yale.edu, now a professor at Yale medical school: “Daughter Lauren left her job at the Yale Press for graduate school at the U. of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Daughter Amy, who was graduated from Yale in May, found a triceratops while on a dig in North Dakota this summer. Son Daniel is playing soccer for Stanford. My wife and I spent three weeks in New Zealand last winter — the South Island is truly awesome!” And this, from Thatcher Shellaby shellaby@bluewin.ch: “My wife Daria and I are enjoying life in Switzerland as much as ever after 25 years here. This year our son Jason will be finishing his BA in international relations at Tufts after spending an incredible junior year abroad in Paris at Sciences Po. Daughter Sarah is hard at work in pre-med studies as a sophomore at Yale. I'm sorry I missed the reunion, but I have had the privilege of witnessing the comprehensive renewal of our beautiful campus while visiting Sarah over the past 18 months.” To follow up on my addendum from last time, to post a remembrance for a deceased classmate on the Internet site Ben Slotznick has created for that purpose, go to: http://www.simtalk.com/epilogue/epilogue.php. Then just click on the classmate’s name. If you have trouble contact Ben, bslotznick@comcast.net, or, as with most tech questions, ask the nearest 12-year-old. March 06 I can’t say I recall coeducation at Yale with boundless delight. That’s because I don’t think I ever struck out with women as consistently as I did that year. The sturdy band of females that came to campus were smarter and cuter than we were, also quicker. Plus they were wily and seasoned quarry, wise to the dippy stratagems that we had road-tested in the age of mixers and weekenders. Besides, none of us had experience relating to girls we’d actually see the next day, let alone the day after that. We were sprinters, not Iron Man contestants. What a disaster. I might as well have had horns. Actually I think I did. And if, as they say, you can’t be truly lonely without other people around, I think coeducation taught that real sexual misery could be achieved only when good company was readily available and steadily denied. But coeducation wasn’t about giving us companionship, it was about basic fairness and an overdue institutional transformation. What prompts these musings is news that two Yale women, Vivian Reznik, ’71 and Sara Jones, ’91, have started a project to record the oral history of Yale’s move to co-education. They’ve sent word that they want to hear from you, since our class was pivotal. They plan to donate transcripts of their interviews to Yale’s archives, making the interviews a permanent part of university history. They write: “As the last all-male class at Yale, you carry with you connection to a 268-year-old Yale tradition that no graduate of Yale since can claim.” Already I’m starting to choke up. “You will have a profound perspective of Yale’s transformation to a co-educational institution. The Vassar proposal, Co-Ed Week, ‘super women,’ the first admissions season, the first day, classes, dining, dating, and everything in between we would like to hear your story.” “Please tell us your story, your experience, and your perspective of this formative time at Yale as well as what this unique time at Yale has meant to you beyond those significant bright college years. “ They plan to conduct weekend interviews in major cities to meet as many people in person as they can. Contact Sara (sara_jones@aya.yale.edu) to schedule a time that works for you. Now to the news: From Visalia, Calif., George Pilling georgepilling@hotmail.com sends word that his first grandchild, Benjamin Pilling Chappelear, was born in September. “Both grandfathers, father and two uncles all Yalies.” I received a note from Tom Scattergood, an old friend from U.S. Grant Foundation teaching days and a standout Yale soccer player. Tom’s in Philadelphia (215 848-4724) and has had serious health problems. “I worked at Germantown Friends School from 1976-1991 when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to retire,” he writes. “Kate and I recently celebrated our 25th anniversary. Son Joe is doing cancer research in New York City; Abby is a junior at Haverford College.” Paul Green clarilaw@aol.com writes from Delray Beach, Fla.: “I just returned from Rotterdam, where I performed at the First International Bass Clarinet Confernce. I am now coordinator of winds at the Conservatory of Music at Lynn University in Boca Raton.” This from Randall Kau rkau@xecapital.com: “Sons Andrew McLain Kau and Timothy Amson Kau have added the affiliations ‘P 2006’ and ‘P 2009’ to the name tag I am given on visits to New Haven. I can’t say they are following in my footsteps though, since each is engaged in campus life in a way I never was. I found the memorial service at our 35th reunion particularly moving, though I did not know any of our classmates whose lives we remembered. I for one would love to have the music played at the service available from a web server.” Can anyone help? I have only fragmentary information about the death in July of Randy Hudson in St. Louis. I phoned the number in the printed class directory which doesn’t indicate next of kin and got no answer. Google and Yahoo turned up nothing useful. He’s not in the online Yale directory at all. So I’m puzzled. Anybody with information, give a shout. Finally, the alumni office forwarded a message from Larry Oxford, in which Larry provided only his e-mail address. I’m taking the liberty of running it here in the hope that friends will get in touch: larryoxford@earthlink.net I’ll be getting in touch with the people who’ve indicated they want to take part in the class council. If you want to join them, let me know. I’m proposing we start with a listserv and see how much progress we can make on such matters as our class legacy gift without convening physical meetings. Til next time. May 06 The class council is starting to happen, and we’ll be kicking off an online listserv for those of you who want to take part. You should have gotten an e-mail invite by now. The AYA people have been very helpful, and the process seems painless. Our idea is that the council can start as a virtual organization or a body that isn’t quite a body (much like the one you’ve been seeing lately in the mirror.) It’s open to the committed and the vigorous, and we’ll see where it goes. We’ll have a legacy gift to discuss, mini-reunions (see below) and whatever other good or evil people want to collaborate on. From Cambridge, Mass., Scott Simpson ssimpson@stubbins.us sends word of the 39th reunion of staffers from The New Journal, held recently in Manhattan: “You may remember The New Journal — it was founded by Dan Yergin '68 and the first-generation staff included Howard Newman '69 and our own Jonathan Lear. The New Journal spawned an enormous number of future journalists, including not only Yergin (The Prize), but also Steve Weisman and Julia Preston (New York Times), Jay Carney (Time), James Bennet (Atlantic Monthly), Anne Hawke (NPR), Martha Brant (Newsweek) and Emily Bazelton (Slate).” Scott also writes that as a civic activist in nearby Carlisle, he helped arrange for Joe Wheelwright to create a sculpture to honor a local luminary who died. “Joe’s doing a superb job not only with the work itself, but also in charming members of the memorial committee, who think that he walks on water.” The town paper reports: “Two large boulders have been moved to Wheelwright’s studio in Dorchester for his unique and subtle carving.” Joe’s work can be seen at www.joewheelwright.com. Henry B. Smythe Jr. hsmythe@bmsmlaw.com wonders if there might be interest in a classwide 60th birthday party. Apparently, he learned, one of our elder classes held one recently in New York, and a blast was had. Henry adds: “I saw Earl Downing and Franklin Perry in San Fran and Skip Freedman in Portland, Ore., recently, and all are well.” He welcomes classmates who find themselves in Charleston, S.C., to get in touch. From LA, Robert Schechter rschecht@ucla.edu reports: “Several months ago, my wife decided to expand my cultural horizons by visiting half a dozen previously unseen states. Among those was South Dakota. I recalled that I knew a '70 Yalie from SD, Don Frankenfeld, whom I met on my first day moving into Farnham Hall on the Old Campus. Don was from Rapid City, a city of which I had never heard until then. (For years after, I mentioned how I met someone from Rapid City when I bragged about how enriching were the experiences and contacts one had at Yale.)” After a few keystrokes and e-mails, “Don and his wife Jean were unbelievably hospitable. We dined with them, got touring tips, and were their overnight guests at a Frankenfeld family cabin in the woods. (When I told him I wanted to see those Presidents carved into the mountain, he really started hurrying me.)” In Denver, John Boak johnboak@boakart.com recently got a visit from Bryan DiSalvatore, who was driving from Missoula to teach college in Monroe, La. John writes: “I've been helping out Rowan Claypool, '80, who won a Yale Medal this year, on his "Bulldogs Across America" program. There are now four Bulldogs cities with these collegial summer-intern programs. The programs place a big group of Yalies in summer jobs. It's been a good thing for students and the cities that receive them. ”I’m swamped with new clients, and I am also preparing five paintings for a show in November here in town. The oil paintings are of the now-invisible structural steel inside the Denver Art Museum's new addition; the building is the first to be built in America by noted architect Daniel Libeskind. You may view by images of the construction process (from March ‘05 to the present) at http://www.cubistro.com/libeskind.html. ” Finally, tantalizing news from my fellow Virginian George Gercke ggercke@adelphia.net about the forthcoming Saybrook mini-reunion, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, at the Wild Dunes Resort near Charleston, S.C.: “Since 2000, a group of Saybrugians has held a ‘rump’ reunion, without the good offices of the AYA, at various sites out West: South Lake Tahoe, Calif., in 2000, Santa Fe in 2002, and Anchorage in 2004. Ten to 20 of us (plus spouses and kids) have enjoyed each others' company more than we had thought possible. At the end of the first reunion, we all got together for a farewell party and decided this had been too much fun to drop, so we named a venue and appointed an organizer, and the tradition has endured. “In Anchorage, we thought we could expand the gathering if we set it on the Right Coast, and picked Charleston, pretty much out of a hat, because it has a lot to offer to overaged and underemployed children of the ‘60s (golf, tennis, beaches, good weather when not suffering a hurricane and a smattering of culture, ostensibly the well-preserved architectural gems, but also a lively dining, theater and night club scene). It was the horses with diapers that got to me. I was selected as organizer because of my ‘proximity’ (no one bothered to look up that word, since I am an eight-hour drive from there) and because I had vacationed there.” The AYA people provided an e-mail list this time, and George has tips for classmates interested in similar get-togethers in similar hard-luck locales, and who isn’t? July 06 News this time is brutish and short. I got word from Matt Schaffer matthew.schaffer@globaltactics.com of the death from heart failure of our unusually accomplished classmate, Bart Whiteman, in Chattanooga, Tenn., in March. Born in Nashville and raised in New Haven, Bart had been offensive guard on Yale’s ‘68 Ivy championship team, and after graduating studied theater at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and the Circle in the Square in Manhattan. He went to Washington, D.C., in 1972, where he became a leading figure in the revitalization of what had been the city’s largely moribund theater scene. As the Washington Post said in his obit, his “frenetic artistic impulses gave birth to the Source Theatre Company and helped to transform the theatrical landscape.” Bart and the vibrant and iconoclastic theater company he founded also helped revive the 14th Street Corridor, which had been left burned out and derelict after the late-‘60s riots. The Source handled everything from classics to contemporary drama, and at one point, Bart led a troupe performing "The Glass Menagerie" on a six-month, 250-show tour to London and then-Yugoslavia. As an actor, Bart performed in every major theater in the Washington area, from the Arena Stage to the Kennedy Center, and had numerous film roles, notably in “The Firm” and “Equus.” He left D.C. in 1992 to head the drama and speech department at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, then moved to Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga. He remained a frequent writer for Chattanooga.com. In 1998 Bart changed careers, and became a standout in the mortgage banking business with Mortgage South in Chattanooga. He’s survived by daughters Mary Bartlett and Elisabeth Monclin, and his wife, Melinda Whiteman. In a lengthy death notice that she wrote, and which I’ll post on the class website, Melinda mentions a forthcoming memorial service and adds: “If you can’t make it, just take a trip to your favorite theater and see a play you’ll find him there.” Memorial contributions are welcome to the Mary Whiteman Education Fund, c/o Mortgage South, 409 Germantown Road, Chattanooga TN 37411. In Seattle, Dr. Matt Schaffer, who initially sent word about Bart’s passing, has had disquieting news of his own. He was diagnosed with what was thought to be an especially awful cancer in February, started on chemo and given only a matter of days to live. “I could barely move,” Matt writes. “But my health improved to the point where the doctor ordered me out of hospice care after a few weeks. It's been a roller coaster. Much of the cancer has shrunk of disappeared, but I have to stay on chemo until hopefully it all Matt reports that classmates Kim Hart and Stafford Smiley flew out to Seattle to visit him, and he’s been in close touch with classmates Hugh Spitzer, Chase Haberkern, Barr Potter and Ned Kendrick. “Many wonderful things have happened despite all my difficulty. My wife Chris and two sons Ethan and Grayson have showered me with love. I've got a chance to get into remission. Yale has been like an extended family for me, a wonderful family.” Man oh man. That’s it for now. Send news. "Ed, if you mention in the class notes about my being in touch with various of our classmates, also mention, I've recently been back in touch with Chase Haberkern in Seattle, Barr Potter in LA and Ned Kendrick in Santa Fe. Thanks for your encouragement, and for taking care of getting the news out on our friend Bart Whiteman. He was of course on one of the most victorious football teams in Yale history, an actor who knew a great many people in the acting world, a theater founder, a successful business person, and a splendid human being. As for Fine to mention in the class notes that I got diagnosed with cancer and began chemo treatment in early February. I have been responding well to Warm regards, Matt" September 06 My summer earnings bubble sprang a fatal leak when a lawsuit in which I was an expert witness was dropped. It was an invasion of privacy case against a TV station, had lurched through five years of pre-trial rigmarole to the eve of trial, and was groundless. Still, even though I’m as eager as anyone to stamp out frivolous litigation, I felt kindly toward this particular waste of time — since in the few months I’d been involved it had been very kind to me. If you’re not a lawyer or don’t otherwise bill by professional hourlies, you’ve likely missed out on the exhilaration that comes when the moment-by-moment passage of time is monetized. Every tenth of an hour, ka-ching, another number on the Big Board, all calibrated on a per-hour rate equivalent to what millions of your fellow countrymen make in a week. Suddenly, hey, maybe we can redo that kitchen after all. Nothing could be further from the experience of being an academic. As a lawyer’s helper, every effort — even if only marginally useful — is minutely tallied and richly compensated. As a college professor, little of the supposedly most valued stuff you do makes you any money at all. You compose scholarly articles gratis, deliver conference papers pro bono, give lectures (unless you’re on the star circuit) for zippo apart from the occasional free meal. True, even if they’re unpaid, people (especially academics) may well be driven by ego, status, ambition and the like, motives no more praiseworthy than greed. But it’s worth remembering, no matter how incessantly the culture says otherwise, that oftentimes it isn’t all about money. Even if the kitchen will have to wait. From Boston Scott Simpson, SSIMPSON@stubbins.us, writes this after returning from New Haven, where he attended his wife Nancy’s 35th reunion as a “trailing spouse:” “Being a ‘trailing spouse’ is pretty good duty since you're not on display and don't have to explain anything to anyone. As it happened, the memorial service for Bill Coffin was held at 2 p.m. Saturday. From our class Charlie Pillsbury, Dan Warren, Jeremy Travis, Tim Bates and I were in attendance. Charlie spoke, representing all the deacons who served at Battell Chapel, recalling those many Wednesday nights when we would gather at Bill's house to drink beer and talk politics. The highlight of the service was the singing by the Yale Russian Chorus; they nearly lifted Battell off its foundations with their amazing sound.” Scott also journeyed to Charlottesville, Va., “where I had the distinct pleasure of watching our classmate John Calvin Jeffries Jr., who's dean of the law school at the University of Virginia, hand a diploma to my daughter Annie. John managed to look both dapper and dignified as he unleashed yet another generation of lawyers upon the world. He still has all of his own hair, in abundance, not one strand of which seems to have turned gray.” That’s all this time. Thanks to Scott for his dispatches. The rest of you, send news. November 06 Eric Rosenberg rosenberg@litigationproofing.com sends this report on a mid-August mini-reunion in Maine of former members of the “Yale Club of the Bronx,” hockey ex-teammates, and friends: “Brunswick Maine Reverend Dan Warren and wife Meg hosted a wonderful day of boating, hiking and dinner at his ancient family farmhouse in North Waterford. Joining in husking and consuming fresh corn were my wife, Helen, Jon and Faith Deveaux, Tim and Debbie Bates, Joel and Betsy Bard and the Honorable Tom and Carol Warren and son Andrew (Maine residents from the class of ’71). Larry Bragg and son Noah also came by during the day. “As former house manager at the now defunct ‘Yale Club of the Bronx,’ I especially appreciate Dan’s struggles to maintain buildings from the 18th century, which provided a magical setting for candlelight dinner under the watchful gaze of a Warren ancestor. Discussion veered from happily frivolous readings from 1970s Yale correspondence collected by Jon to deeply serious reaction to a moving audio tape of the eulogy delivered by James Carroll for the Reverend Coffin at Riverside Church. The next morning some of us gathered for brunch at the nearby Deveaux vacation home on a stunning bend on the Crooked River in Harrison. “The previous day,” Eric continues, “I had led a visit for Yale friends to the nearby Seeds of Peace International Camp on Lake Pleasant in Otisfield. More than 3,000 adolescents from areas of conflict in the Middle East have attended the camp over the last 15 years, and they are starting to have an impact as they move into positions of responsibility in the region. I strongly recommend involvement in this amazing organization by anyone interested in fostering Middle East co-existence. “When not helping SOP development, I am growing my litigation risk mitigation consultancy, LitigationProofing. We recently introduced an on-line course, ‘Think Before You Send: A Practical Guide to E-Mail in the Workplace.’ For a free demo check out www.litigationproofing.com. “Cell: (914) 649-0762 Fax: (914) 777-3069 Ben Slotznick bslotznick@comcast.net writes: “Got together with Ed Landler and his fiancee Elspeth in late August. Ed met her last spring at a screening of his film about the Watts Towers at the National Gallery of Art. (DVDs available at www.ibuildthetower.com .) I guess you'd call it a movie romance.” From Miami, my old friend and ex-roommate Steve Goldin makes what I believe is his class notes debut: “As you and others with whom I've stayed in touch know,” Steve writes, “my life has been rather constant over the past decades. This past fall, though, I made such profound moves that even I have been convinced by you to submit a note to all of my friends in the class of '70. After 35 years of immersion in my hometown of Santa Fe, I drove out of New Mexico for real, passing through the horrific destruction of the hurricanes (hopefully, not personally metaphoric), and arriving in the tropical craziness which is Miami. “Three days after my arrival, I was married, to Deborah Bussel, a Miamian for all but a decade (which included study stint Yale’s School of Management, by the way). A small private ceremony was followed by a quick trip to the Caribbean. Now Debby and I have begun our lives together in Miami proper. I am hoping that I can continue my social-justice non-profit and philanthropic-advisory work to which I have devoted so many years in the Southwest. Debby, whom I met five years ago at a professional meeting in Albuquerque, does similar work, and we wonder if in fact we shall be able to work occasionally as a team. If any old buddies are finding themselves in the humid zone, please get in touch at ire@nets.com. We would love to see you.” More good news, this from Matt Schaffer in Seattle, matthew.schaffer@globaltactics.com, who writes that he’s now free of visible cancer and has finished his last round of chemo. “So I am at the beginning of remission. What an incredible journey, after the very close call at the beginning. Thank goodness. I am very lucky and so grateful for support from friends. Now the doctors will test me every couple of months, and hopefully my remission will continue. Thanks again for your encouragement.” Finally, I’m passing along, once more, a suggestion from Henry Smythe hsmythe@bmsmlaw.com for a class-wide 60th birthday party, which would happen a couple of years before our next official reunion. Perhaps it would take the form of several parties in the cities where members are concentrated. Some of our elder I mean, elderly classes have done such things, Henry reports, and splendid times were had by all. Is there interest in such extra-curricular lunacy? More next time. Stay well. |