My book, Caribbean Coral Reefs:A Record of an Ecosystem Under Threat, was just released in April by Taylor and Francis Group, Routledge Press. [See Caribbean Coral Reef Book Published.]
Corals live!
I spent the summers of 1968 and 1969 as a field assistant to a marine biologist working in Curaçao and Columbia, learned to photograph underwater, and spent all of my vacation time for the next eight years visiting marine scientists in the Caribbean and photographing the reef’s creatures. Family and a home demanded my attention and ended that phase of my life, and except for a couple of articles with my photos published in Smithsonian magazine and a cover photo for American Scientist magazine, my reef pictures sat idle as other projects took precedence.Eventually, technology enabled me to digitize my reef pictures and write and design a book myself. That work started in earnest in 2008 and resulted in this book. The reefs of the Caribbean area have been degraded by a number of factors since I made my photographs, and the historical record they contain could not be duplicated today. Classmate Jim Porter has written the foreword to the book.
Other than that, I have two daughters, one living in England, and four grandchildren, two living in England. I retired in 2016 after 46 years as a Yale photographer, 30 of them at Peabody Museum. I live in West Haven and still do the odd job for Yale to keep busy, besides photographing wildlife and feral cats in my back yard.
Richard Seltzer writes:
Class notes are now one obit after another. Depressing. I wonder how many were in our class to begin with and how many of us are still alive. For me, this is the most productive time of my life. I went from literature and writing at Yale, to a career writing about technology and for a technology company (Digital Equipment), and now I’m back to literature and writing. With no responsibilities, I’m finally free to read and write full-time, writing what I want when I want.
Books of mine published since November 2022 —We First Met in Ithaca, or Was It Eden?,We All Are Shakespeare, Why Knot?,Echoes from the Attic, and Grandad Jokes. I’m now writing a novel tentatively entitled Through the Eyes of Trojan Women. And in the three years 2019-2022, six more of my novels were published —To Gether Tales, Shakespeare’s Twin Sister, Breeze,Nevermind, Beyond the 4th Door, and Parallel Lives.
I hope you can find other up-beat tales to add to the class notes. There must be plenty of others who are finally doing what they love and who take pride in it. I now live in Milford, CT (in a one-bedroom apartment with 4000 books).”
(Notes from your scribe: 1,050, well over 800, and no obits this time.)
An update from Robert Shlachter :
After moving in 1991 from LA to Portland, Oregon, I continued my practice as a business litigator. I am still associated with my Portland law firm, but I have transitioned to acting as an arbitrator or mediator in business disputes. I am enjoying this gig immensely: It is subject to MY schedule, not someone else’s; it keeps my mind sharp; and I enjoy resolving the disputes via either an arbitrator decision or a mediated resolution.
For over 25 years I have also run a high school mock trial program at the public high school our daughter attended. My wife Mara (not a lawyer but blessed with excellent communication and acting skills) has coached with me all these years. Two years ago, Mara took over as head coach, and I cut back my involvement by 90%.
In March 2023, our team won the State Championship. The team will be heading to Nationals in Little Rock, Arkansas in mid-May. We are blessed with two wonderful children and fabulous spouses, and our son and daughter-in-law have three children. Our son (who runs a real estate investment business with his brother-in-law and who is also an avid surfer) and his family live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our daughter (a psychologist and top-rated snowboarder) and her husband live in Truckee, California just a few miles from Lake Tahoe. Both families are easily reached from Portland. I find myself in the bucket list phase of life. Still (thankfully) healthy, I have been traveling a lot. The last big bit of traveling was for 10 weeks this past fall in Ireland, Italy, Spain and Croatia. Love it.”
“I’ve lost both my parents. I lost John, lost George, lost Linda. It’s very tough. You want them back. You want them back all the time. But I think in the end, you do what I do, what most people do: just remember the great stuff.”
