Class Notes – May/Jun 2020

Ted Van Dyke remembers John Nelson:

John Eric Nelson died of colorectal cancer on February 5, 2020.  He fought it bravely, tenaciously and optimistically.  When I last saw him on January 24, we parted with a long-held fist bump and his saying, “It’s not looking good, but I’m not giving up.”

John was an excellent athlete, winning the class of 1969 intramural athlete of the year award and leading the JE Spiders football teams to multiple championships.  John even teased Calvin Hill that he had been the best athlete in the class.  Not just an athlete, John was always proud that his father had seen written on his admissions folder, “Football not necessary.”  Handsome, too, he was very popular with my wife’s Vassar friends, among many others.

He was not always happy at Yale and freshman and sophomore year we discussed transferring endlessly—he to Stanford.  Yet, he became devoted to Yale and served for many years as a stalwart on the reunion committees.

John had a gift for friendship.  He was an integral part of a group of close JE classmates.  A sub-set, John, Steve Haworth, Eric Lenck and myself took close to 10 golf vacations over the past 20 some years, including one to the Azores last September.  There, undaunted by his cancer, he and I defeated Eric and Steve to take the self-styled “JE Open.”

The center of a very loving family, starting with his wife Kim, his children Bergen and Eric, three grandchildren, Harper, Sawyer and Miles, his sister Kathy and her family, it extended even to the parents of his children’s spouses.

Professionally, John marched to a different drummer, to the point of spending two years at the Zen Monastery at Tassajara, Ca.  He used his outgoing and self-confident personality to develop a career as a consultant, helping disadvantaged neighborhoods obtain expert financial advice to further their development projects.  For many years there was a cartoon on his refrigerator with four bees— the queen bee, the warrior bee, the worker bee, and the consultant bee.

I was especially fortunate to have had a relationship with John that goes back unbroken for 63 years to our bonding as the second baseman and shortstop on a Northern Virginia Little League team.  Many others were also lucky to get to know him, and all who did will always remember his larger than life personality with affection.

From David Joseph:

I am sad hearing of the passing of John Nelson. I knew John during our time in JE.  He was our quarterback on the intermural football team and I was the right tackle protecting his blind side.  He was a natural leader with his charisma and his caring.  A few years ago John, Ted Van Dyke, Steve Haworth, Nathan (Buddy) Gans, Wayne Willis, Eric Lenk, and myself got together in Half Moon Bay, CA after the passing of Randy Straff to celebrate his life. We shared a lot of stories and personal experiences about Randy and about our time at Yale and after. Everyone at the memorial service at our 50th reunion got an inkling of John’s sense of humor and honesty when he commented on his relationship with Randy. We all miss John but carry with us the warm feelings and love that he had for all he touched in his life.

From Wayne Willis:

I met John in the first week in Bingham.  He was impossibly handsome, an all-star caliber athlete, valedictorian and president of his senior class.  Learning that, I fully expected to see the conceited posture that accompanies such a profile.  But never has such a gifted man been so sweet, so empathetic, so humble and yet so crazily talented.  Everyone loved John.  And it wasn’t hard to see why.  I loved him.  And I miss him.

His life since 1969 has been one big blur of big-hearted service.  He taught “disadvantaged” kids for a year and invited many of us classmates to visit and share our stories.  He and wife Kim lived a monastic life for several years at Tassajara and later joined the “real world,” in Marin, and later in NoVA, doing consulting for land banks, community development funds and other NGOs.  See him in video in his last role, “Wall Street Without Walls.”

John was wise, he chose Kim, a wonderful woman he dated at Yale.  His two kids are well-balanced and successful, in all senses of that word.  All three were by his side as he took his final breath.

In social science terms, John was a “connector” … not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of those he connected.  A Giver, not a Taker.

You saw this as he ran two reunions for us and in an amazingly brave act, led the Memorial Service at the Reunion, striking the bell when Doug Ousley read the names of those who recently died.  I say “brave” because John knew that his Stage IV cancer was inoperable and the sand in his hourglass was getting very low.

In sum, John lived fully, projecting love and compassion and happiness and fun and full-throated, non-indulgent celebrations of life for friends, family, classmates, clients and the broader world.

Your scribe has just learned of the death of another classmate, Terry C. Miller, on February 22, 2020. Terry did not write an essay for the 50^th, but a few details of his life appear in his Classbook entry. Classmates can visit our website, yale1969.org, to find out more, or to submit remembrances and memorials.

Sadly, the March of Time is taking its toll, and the drumbeat is quickening.