Class Notes

July/August 2019

Note: Classmates' names in gold font are links to a pre-addressed email form (if your browser is properly configured). Other links (underlined) take you to more information about the topic. A shorter version of these Notes is published in the Yale Alumni Magazine.

By tradition, I devote this issue to a recap of our recent 55th Class reunion, except for the inclusion of the names of recently-departed classmates. In the next issue, I will return to coverage of classmate events, classmate activities, and classmates in the media. If you attended our 55th reunion, please email me with your impressions and feedback. If you were unable to attend, I will provide the highlights here, though it’s a poor substitute for being there. If you took photos and would like to share them, please send them to Sam Francis via WeTransfer.com. Please include names as captions so we can identify people.

On Wednesday, even before the official reunion program got underway, Neil Hoffmann and Ted Jones organized a Class golf outing on The Yale Course followed by dinner at Mory’s that evening. There were 31 golfers on the Course and over 78 at Mory’s. A special award was presented to Peter Pulaski, the Director of The Course at Yale, naming him a 1964 honorary classmate. Another pre-reunion event, organized, by Chris Getman on Thursday morning, was a tour of New Haven community-based greenspaces and land stewardship sponsored by Urban Resources Initiative. URI dedicated a new park bench to the Class of 1964 in appreciation of our support for SFES interns over the years.

Hats off to our reunion co-chairs Tony Lee and Jon McBride, who organized a most stimulating program that provided lots of opportunities for classmates’ dialogues. Our reunion headquarters were in Pierson College. A total of 202 classmates and surviving partners attended along with 138 spouses and guests. Special thanks to attendance chair Sam Callaway and his college captains for surpassing the attendance estimate by almost 25%! As always, our webmaster Sam Francis published a most-informative website, complete with a slideshow of current photos of most attendees. Also, special thanks to Jan Truebner, surviving partner of Pete Truebner, who made special outreach to the surviving partners of classmates, of whom 10 joined us. In recognition of her dedication to the Class, the Class Council named Jan a 1964 Honorary Classmate. We also thank Jim Rogers for his generous gift that enabled surviving partners to attend at no cost.

The theme of the kickoff panel discussion on Thursday afternoon was “Contentious Issues,” and featured Len Baker (who reflected on the “renaming” decisions while he was on the Yale Corporation), Paul Steiger (who offered observations on his career as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal), and Wally Winter (who expounded on the Quaker principles of simplicity and harmony). They provided a blueprint for conversations throughout the reunion. Thursday evening, we took a break from serious issues for a sing-along with our 1964 Whiffenpoofs.

Woven throughout our classmate-facilitated programs, Yale offered a wide range of faculty-led lectures that also provided insights to the intellectual life on campus today. On Friday, President Peter Salovey joined us for lunch in the Pierson tent to give a first-hand account of dynamics on a campus that has no shortage of controversial issues. Friday afternoon, we could choose from a wide range of themes for group “Conversations” that were facilitated by either classmates or spouses. Al Rossiter and Don Edwards generated themes and recruited facilitators to encourage the most attendance and discussion. I would like to thank each of the facilitators by name, but that would exhaust the word limit of this column. Suffice to say that the toughest decision of the week was choosing two topics to attend from among the 25 topics offered. Late Friday afternoon, there was a memorial service for departed classmates in Saint Thomas More Chapel that was organized by Steve Klingelhofer and Jan Truebner. It was moving to hear tributes about each of our 58 classmates who had departed since our 50th reunion. Friday evening we gathered under the tent for our quinquennial Class Dinner to elect Class Officers and Council Members. We also presented Class Service Awards to Sam Callaway, Don Edwards, John Evans, Howard Gillette, and Neil Hoffmann. Steve Norman, who headed-up Special Gifts, announced a Class gift of $11.6 million, surpassing expectations.

On Saturday, there was more Yale-sponsored programming in the morning. In the afternoon, under Edward Massey’s guidance, we reprised Kaleidoscope of Passions, a very popular theme from our 50th reunion that included 15 new “passions,” ranging from A ("Appalachian Trail" by Soren West) to & ("Power of Ampersand" by Nancy Upper). After a University-wide "Celebration of Singing" in Woolsey Hall, we relaxed at a Pierson dinner with entertainment by the Bales-Gitlin Band. Edward Massey also organized a table under the Pierson tent during lunch on Saturday for classmate authors (of which Edward is one) to present their books for sale. At breakfast on Sunday, Giles Crane played his bagpipes to send us on our way. So ended our 11th quinquennial class gathering since graduation. Among other things, it brought to mind the research finding of Brigham Young University’s Julianne Holt-Lunstad, “Positive social relationships are second only to genetics in predicting health and longevity.” Love live the Class of 1964!

While space prevents me from including more items about classmates and what they’ve been doing, I do want to call your attention to articles in Class News on our Class website. You’ll find interesting articles about Bob Kaiser, Sam Low, Chris Getman, Joe Lieberman, Dan Berman, and John Lee. There is also a reprint of a personal opinion piece that I was asked to write in the Yale Daily News reunion issue.

Since the last issue closed, I was notified that we lost four more classmates: Fran Paul died suddenly on May 7 in Norwalk CT. Fran served in the Navy as a neurosurgeon in Vietnam and continued in private practice after the war. Foster Fargo died on April 14 in Lincoln MA. Foster had a long and distinguished career in the computer technology industry. Hank Satterthwaite died peacefully on March 10 in Branford, CT. Hank had a distinguished career with IBM, Anderson Consulting, and Gartner. Miguel Marin (whose full name was Miguel Marin Bosch) died in April 2017 in Mexico, his home country, where he was a distinguished diplomat. Obituaries for these men can be found on our Class website's In Memoriam section. We remembered these and other departed classmates at a memorial service during our 55th reunion. In late April, twelve classmates attended a memorial service for David Plimpton in Brooklyn. Joe Wishcamper and Pete Putzel gave moving remarks at the service.