Mar/Apr 2006

Three rather long letters this time, so I’ll dispense with any preliminaries. Eric Muirhead (muirrindu@sbcglobal.net) published his first book, Cab Tales, an episodic novel in 15 stories that tells the experiences of a young college grad driving the night shift for Houston’s Yellow Cab back in the early 1970s. Published by Panther Creek Press (www.panthercreekpress.com), the book is available over amazon.com or by order from independent bookstores. “I’ve been at the writing business a while. After Yale I began writing poetry when a graduate student here at Rice, following an earlier time when I drove for Yellow Cab here (giving me the material for Cab Tales) and worked in construction for a Houston contractor. After Rice (MA ’75) I found work with B&R (now KBR), first running their company school for the children of overseas personnel stationed in Labuan, and then as quality control supervisor in B&R’s Labuan fab yard, where we built offshore drilling and production platforms for Royal Dutch Shell’s many fields in the South China Sea. I continued writing poetry, and publishing a few of them, but on returning to this country with the collapse in the market that occurred in the ’80s (we were all laid off), and getting a teaching position in L.A., I found myself writing fiction. There were just too many stories in my head. Cab Tales is my first book, but I have published these stories individually since 1992 in various magazines, journals, and anthologies, and am now at work on a third novel (second is yet unpublished, set in the work life I knew overseas).”

Steve Bemis offers the following: “Since moving from Chicago to rural Ann Arbor 26 years ago I’ve worked as a corporate lawyer (pension/environmental/general corporate practice) for Masco Corporation. Judy continues to work part-time as a social worker in private practice. Under our local church’s auspices, she is embarking on her fourth trip to Ghana (I went once), where we assist refugees in a UN camp with microeconomic projects and scholarships. One of our sons is a mason specializing in rebuilding/repointing stone foundations and the other is an OTR owner-operator. We have five grandchildren. Besides work and spoiling grandchildren, my interests include choral singing, chairing Yale’s Ann Arbor-Detroit Alumni Schools Committee, local politics for farmland preservation, industrialized food production, and related nutritional issues, and making hay while the sun shines. The latter involves fixing and driving various old and new tractors and associated haying equipment. How many classmates play with tractors? If anyone gets near Ann Arbor, the welcome mat is out (stbemis@charter.net).”

William Caltrider wrote a tribute to our late classmate Dwight Dodge. “It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that our classmate and friend Dwight Dodge died on January 19. The day before, he suffered a massive aneurysm near the brain stem that left him without brain function. Dwight was not only a classmate but also my lifelong best friend, dating from September 9, 1955, when we sat next to each other on the first day of third grade. In pseudo-adult fashion, we decided we would make independent decisions with no mutual consultation and being sensible young men, we both came to Yale, also deciding not to room together in order to broaden our horizons. Dwight was an honors graduate of Parkville High School in Baltimore, winning multiple letters in soccer and tennis, and achieving state and national recognition for his work in student government. While at Yale, he majored in philosophy was a proud member of the company of scholars at Morse College, rooming with Joel Peterson. He started his career in banking, but spent most of his working life in the retail oil business, retiring in 2002. He and his wife Sharon moved to western Maryland in 2004 to enjoy a calmer life and indulge his passions for nature photography and fishing. Dwight savored the mountains, as he was brought closer to his father’s rural West Virginia roots, and he began compiling a family genealogy. He leaves his widow Sharon, son Trevor, and grandson TJ, whom he had closely mentored as this fine young man grew in both years and stature. I know Sharon would treasure any letters and reminiscences you might send.” Mrs. Sharon Dodge, 606 Harvey Winters Drive, Oakland, MD 21550.

Finally, Dan Seiver will be assisting me with class notes, so feel free to contact him as well: seiverda@muohio.edu.