Feb 1995

Apologies for missing the last couple of issues. I have been traveling hard (as opposed to hardly traveling) to unspeakable destinations, and have arrived home to find lots of bills and missed deadlines.

Many of you have written in, and are probably annoyed at not having your prose in print. Tough. Waiting patiently builds character. I’ll try to dribble out some of the news, with the usual admonition that it would be awfully nice to hear from classmates other than the regulars, and would be especially nice to hear about your innermost thoughts rather than your latest professional triumphs (on the assumption that there is, perhaps, more quality — if not frequency — to the former than the latter).

Let’s start with that perennial favorite, Art Siegel, our own Gynecologist to the Stars. He writes, as always, from San Luis Obispo (Spanish, as you may, for “Saint Louie the Bishop”). He notes that he’s seen Jeff Wheelwright, whose new book on the Exxon Valdez cleanup, Degrees of Disaster, has been well received. A note on Art’s handwriting: I first thought he referred to a new “bork on the saxon vac dog catnip,” but professional counseling pulled us, and our class notes, through. It is, however, clear, that Art didn’t manage a “high pass” in the penmanship course required for graduation.

George Strong writes in from the same general area (to an easterner), where he is a managing partner for Price Waterhouse in its “litigation consulting unit.” He ran intoAlec Tan a couple of years ago in the “AYSO soccer fields of the Rose Bowl of Pasadena,” and recently engaged him as the architect to “restore an 80-year-old castle in the hills above and west of Pasadena.” Now this is interesting: cloistered folks like me naturally associate castles with Crusaders, and, as much as I try to imagine that religious war might be beneficial to southern California, I still have trouble picturing a castle brooding above the beach. I do assume that George shooed the Crusaders out before he began his restoration.

Hangover from our 25th: George O’Leary (Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts) writes that “being able to get my band, The Morning, back together (after a 20-year break) was certainly the highlight of the year for me.” He says that he feels more connected to the Class of ’69 than he did 25 years ago, and notes parenthetically that “during reunion I was concerned about premature memory loss because I couldn’t remember where the old classrooms were located — until it occurred to me that 25 years ago I couldn’t remember where they were located either.” He specifically thanks Ken Devoe andBarney Brawer for getting the band to play, and hopes the band will get back on its feet for a while with gigs in Connecticut and NYC.

Quick bites from the midlife of the mid-class: Geoffrey Walker (Houston) says that after graduating he was immediately drafted. Twenty-five years later, his son was dispatched to Paris on a Fulbright. The conclusion: “in a properly defined social grouping, progress can occur.” (One adds, tentatively, that a different conclusion could be drawn.) David Peach (Anchorage, Alaska) pours oil on the fire by writing that his daughter Dolly has enrolled at Princeton this fall, and, worse, loves it. He, himself, has joined three gastroenterologists and relocated his practice three flights up from his location of 16 years. He asks: “midlife crisis for a stable guy?” Well, I’m kind of worried about the gastroenterologists — are they joined at the hip? If so, there may be room for a surgeon in the practice.

We’ll admit one, but only one, pure professional notice here: Skip Hobbs writes that he is serving as the secretary of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. This datum is notable only because Skip works out of New Canaan, not notably a hotbed of the awl business, so it is testimony to his tenacity that he has been accorded this honor. I, as a sometime oil man, can attest to Skip’s decidedly un-oily demeanor, and New Canaan is, after all, a long, long way from the Permian Basin.

Rick Senechal (Las Vegas, Nevada) writes: “Our daughter Ann entered [Yale this fall]. Somehow, the distance between the Class of ’69 and the Class of ’98 doesn’t seem like 29 years. [It sure does to me — wjb.] During the chaos of moving Ann into Chafee, I ran into my roommate, Frank Sherer, whose son . . . is also Berkeley ’98. It was a wonderful, if all too brief, reunion. . . . I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed being a Yale freshman. My daughter is reminding me regularly of the joy and wonder of that experience.” Other ’98s include Liz, daughter of James Averill.

All this talk of kids entering college does not stop the march of fecundity in the class.Phillip von Turk announces the birth in June of his second child, Christopher. And, in a rare cameo appearance in my own column, I am constrained to notice the birth of my third child and first daughter, Sophia Elizabeth, in September, with a further musing that, having last had children some two decades ago, I find the childbirth and “parenting” among the few areas of human endeavor in which technology has changed almost not at all. Any comments from all those doctors out there (leaving aside the joined gastroenterologists)?

On a (roughly) allied topic, in October I had the pleasure of watching Doug Ousleyperform at his usual place of work, the Church of the Incarnation in New York City, in connection with the “nuptial celebration and blessing” of John Townsend ’68, and his now-wife, Frances. Doug (and, for that matter, John and Frances) did perform the ceremony — which might have been written by Dryden — with aplomb, and in fact all was splendid. I did, however, harbor a secret yen for five or six Hell’s Angels to motor up the aisle, if only to witness what happens when the Book of Common Prayer meets with road. Having said that, the combination of guests was appealing — sort of like a mixer in our day.

“Effective in June — right after that terrific 25th reunion,” writes Michael Baum, now of Madison, Wisconsin, “I started a new career in educational consulting with the Institute for Academic Excellence,” which he calls a near-startup operation of which he is president. He offers hospitality for visitors who can figure out where Madison is: “Wiscon sin is near Chicago; just go to O’Hare and turn right.” Who can argue with academic excellence? Or, for that matter, excellence?

A plea to the class: we need a secretary. I am happy to continue as correspondent for these pages (I promise to do better with my travel schedule.), but our class needs someone to focus our class activities and get some action going. Applications would be gratefully accepted. Apply here.

In the meantime, see you ’round the Quad.