Where should this website go next? Your thoughts?
I had fully expected to “retire” as webmaster after the reunion. Yeah, yeah … the Reunion Committee said they wanted the site to continue, but I didn’t think there was enough “news” to sustain a community website.
Moreover, in the frenzy leading up to the reunion, I was burning out. If I didn’t retire, I would probably quit. <smile>
Then an odd thing happened: Many, many people approached me during the reunion, going out of their way to thank me for nurturing the website and saying they hoped it would continue in some form. And during the post-reunion wrap-up session with the Reunion Committee, lots of ideas came bubbling forth about re-organizing this website as a COMMUNITY site, not a site primarily doing announcements and stories.
What does that mean? At root, it means that you all will be contributing more … writing more. Yes, there will still be stories of interest. But unless participation increases, unless readers take advantage of the semi-private nature of this site (only logged-in classmates can see content), there won’t be enough content to matter.
So, what would YOU like to see on this site? Will you be willing to post comments? Or stories of your own? Would you participate in a “discussion board”? Or, and be honest here, is having the “Class Notes” every couple months what you want?
Let’s start by leaving comments below, with any thoughts you have. OK?
Whatever you do, make it public. Do not limit the readership to classmates.
If classmates/authors go to the trouble of writing and editors go to the trouble of editing, the articles should be available for everyone to read.
The bigger the audience the better.
Richard Seltzer, Calhoun ’69
The web site has been a huge endeavor. Thank you for all your time and effort. I would like to see a resemblage continue as an epilogue to the monstrous 50th class book. What an amazing, diverse group. Many of the class do not do Facebook. Do we even have a Facebook page? Obituaries are sometimes missed. It would be a place to post information, proposals for mini-reunions, etc. The ListServe is so 20th century, but then again, so are we. Time and change?
As I recall, back in the beginning, Wayne and I (and others in the Reunion group too, but I can’t remember exactly) wanted the website to be public. But the YAA (formerly AYA) wanted total privacy (no leaking of contact information). We were too timid at the time to argue about it. The Class of 1964 had a long battle with YAA almost two decades ago, on that same issue, and then proceeded to do what it wanted anyway. Go to http://www.yale64.org and check it out. Sam Francis ‘64 consulted with us in the beginning. Wayne and Harry picked up the ball and created this magnificent resource. Let’s not waste it. Just go there once a week, to see what’s going on and leave comments. Other classmates will pick up on that and do the same. Here’s the point: send in your ideas about what the website can do for us. And better still, take the lead and you create what you want. Harry and Wayne will guide us. Here is some of the stuff I’d like to do:
1. Mini-Reunions around the country, one in the Fall and one in the Spring every year, until we croak, with the website serving as information-central.
2. A writing workshop, where we can post and discuss work that we want to share.
3. A place where we can ask classmates who are doctors, lawyers, investors, etc…for advice. For example, I have acquired something called Peyronie’s disease. Look it up. It would be nice to know if there were something I could do about it. My wife Myra might like that too, insatiable girl that she is. My urologist’s response is a bit like Billy Wilder’s old joke about the old guy who went to his doctor. He says, Doctor, I can’t pee anymore. The doctor asks, How old are you? Patient replies, Seventy-two. Doctor shoots back, Seventy-two? You’ve peed enough!
There, too much information. At our age, who the hell cares? Deal with it; just join the conversation.
There is a treatment for Peyronie’s if you are not squeamish about injections. https://www.xiaflex.com/
Robert,
Thank you for the tip. I suspect my urologist has already considered it, and other treatments. This one sounds pretty grim! He is discouraging of them. I think he feels that 72 is a good age to stop. I just might agree.
But your response prompted me to read your Personal Essay in the ClassBook. You write a good story, especially the tango part! Thank you. Your mention of Stan Lawder reminded me of when our small group ran the Film Society, and I lived in the projection booth at 101 (then) Linsly-Chit, projecting classic films into the long night.
As I sit down to write, I’m conflicted about what to say. I really would like to think there is a “special” relationship among classmates that could be shared and developed through this community site. But realistically I don’t think there is. My “feel” for the written communications exchanged via this web site is that they are not very different from an overabundance of communications that I participate in with various blogs, book clubs, common interest sites, and personal emails that are already in my life.
We were students once, and young. That time forged certain emotional ties that I still feel strongly with my roommates and a very few others, but my contacts with that small group are more personal than a big public blog such as this one.
Jim Sleeper and I have shared several rewarding exchanges of views since the reunion. It started with a discussion of Jim’s protest spoken at the class dinner to Steve Schwarzman. Jim and I are mostly at opposite ends of the political spectrum but the exchange was surprisingly cordial, rewarding, and not as “polarized” as such discussions so often end up being these days. That successful interaction tempts me to think maybe there’s potential in this community web site. If we had posted our exhange on this web site, however, I suspect it would have degenerated with the addition of less personal joinders to the discussion. I am very conservative — and a libertarian in most matters. I can’t imagine voting Democratic. Jim, I think, is not so one sided and he’s an excellent writer so he is probably what made the exchange work. In our class of 1969 I feel I am in a very, very small minority and not one that is well tolerated judging from the writings in our reunion class book.
So, Wayne, I don’t think it will work. I hate to say that to you as you are one of that small number of classmates with whom I feel I have that personal emotional tie that originated in our shared Yale experience. I feel sad to write this. I would have hoped I was up to a challenge.
Editor’s Note: I got this email from a classmate who didn’t respond when I asked it I could publish it. I think it’s a valuable addition to our discussion, so I want to include it, even if it’s done anonymously.
First, it might be nice to widen the field. That is, create a larger website which includes more of the ‘Sixties’ classes, say 1969-1973, or 1968-1974. There are so many commonalities to that little blip of time, and the ‘head space’ of that era was so dissimilar to what came before or after. You would also then get comments, etc., from other smart people who no one presently knows, and theoretically pots would be stirred accordingly. One could also expand in a different direction, such as including Harvard and/or other Ivies.
Second, it might be stimulating to pose topics for discussion, such as: ‘Is Yale changing with the times, or is Yale pathetically degenerating?’ People could then write short informed essays both pro and con, and actually present those intelligent divergent viewpoints that everyone always claims that they value.
Third, instead of mini-reunions, our Class (or the expanded base) could put together its own ‘Yale’ cruises. My wife and I have been on several of the commercial lines (eg Holland America), and we have found a) that it’s very easy to ignore all the other cruise silliness, and b) that the ocean looks exactly the same as from an ‘exclusive’ cruise. A large bringdown is that it’s very hard to find interesting fellow passengers, But a ‘class’ cruise would solve that problem. We could also supply our own class experts. And by buying cabins in bulk we could easily bring the cost down to one-tenth of what Yale charges for their cruises. Which means ten times the cruising for the same price…
Now I’m not suggesting that you take any or all of this on by yourself. Obviously, others would also have to commit. But if anyone is fantasizing about a ‘permanent reunion’…
Oh, yeah, I like this idea. The aforementioned Sam Francis ’64 ( a sailor) used to charter sailboats, and groups of classmates would join the annual cruises in various places around the world. Check out http://www.yale64.org to read about them. I expect they might be running out of time.
Wayne, you have done a great service. I missed the reunion and received a castigation from my wonderful classmates for my failures. So I’ll respond out of guilt and try to do better.
I can commit to a weekly check-in to the website; sharing my random thoughts will be good for me. Those of you who know me will recognize my focus on self. I look forward to delaying dotage with this kind of stimulation. Already, I find the comments as stimulating as my happy youth, spent talking in commons rooms, dining rooms, classrooms, locker rooms, and theaters those four years.
Wayne, I endorse creating topics, sub-categories, to pursue our interests. Your knowledge of computer architecture might use hyperlinks in this “new media” with a Yale intelligence. Maybe my diatribe about solipsism should connect me to a reference in a weird chat on the Living Theater, but without your algorithm, I wouldn’t know.
Let the brainstorm of topics begin:
Memories in Memoriam: When we lose someone – like Derek Huntington for me – it would be great to get our thoughts out to this semiprivate community.
Academic refreshers: I lost touch with the progress of literary criticism about the time of deconstructionism. I should get up to date.
Politics, of course (Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!): If Jay Saccone and I can discuss stuff cordially, so can everyone else. It’s what we all learned to do at Yale after all. And our campus fomented, but never exploded. Wayne, your story about keeping peace on the Green after most of us we were gone is priceless.
Reflections on age: Let’s help each other live as well and as long as possible.
Invitations to other classes: Among my greatest convocations on campus came with connecting with other classes (and women!) at the YAA.
Forums for feedback on writing: My own hobbyhorse, where I take a queue from Drogseth, who pointed out that what you need as a writer is readers. Maybe I’ll be ready for my peers’ judgements someday.
Publicity: I cynically note the self-promoters among us, but ’twas ever thus.
Culture: the revolution in tech must be vetted for us to remain in control of destiny. We are the last of the old print generation. The Gutenberg culture is dying. We need to learn from each other and help the kids. Right away the private/public question presses. Am I the only one who has lost control of the distribution of an email chain to my great embarrassment? Have I yet popularized my Libertarian rallying cry, “Surveillance is Tyranny?” It’s complicated.
My time on the board of the YAA in the late 90’s complicated my view of Yale. I had become a businessman. So I contemplated the University as a business with marketing, finance, staffing, etc. – in the words of Zorba, “the whole catastrophe.” It was the days of the great temp, President Lamar, then the practicality of commuter Schmidt, the inauguration of the Great Levin with the celebration of pizza, thanks to classmate Suttle. I allowed myself to ask, what was my hero, fellow Andover/Yalie Giamatti thinking?
Now when I talk to Saccone I can understand his principled indignity better. And I bet Thompson shares my perception that institutions are much bigger – and more complicated – than any one of us.
Wayne, keep us going.