Mark Alan Melamed – 50th Reunion Essay

Mark Alan Melamed

223 Kane Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

MHMela@AL.com

718-875-0007

Spouse(s): Helen Bozan Melamed (1990)

Child(ren): Caroline (1992), Christopher (1995)

Education: Yale, BA 1969, NYU School of Medicine, MD 1973

Career: private practice ophthalmologist, 1978 to present; clinical asst. professor, ophthalmology, NYU Medical school, 1978 to present

Avocations: family, the arts, especially fine art and theatre, travel

College: Morse

Life has been kind to me since that hot June day in 1969 when we all gathered for the last time on the Old Campus. I have to date been spared from life’s major traumas, aside from losing my parents at ripe old ages: my kids are thriving, I am still married to my first wife (!), I am still working full time at a fulfilling profession (ophthalmology). I wish I had given more thought to getting richer, but we live a comfortable life, splitting our time between a lovely Brooklyn brownstone and a fixer­upper in Sag Harbor that will probably drain whatever money I had hoped to save for retirement.

Certainly much of what I have been able to achieve I owe to Yale, though that was not always apparent to me. I drifted through college without giving it the thought and energy I should have. However Yale did manage to shoe­horn me into medical school, where I often felt very much out of my depth but found a professional niche where I could be happy, make a contribution and, most importantly in this rapidly evolving world, be in control of my future.

The pride I felt in my Yale background came into sharper focus when my son entered Yale as a member of the class of 2017. Seeing the school anew through his eyes reawakened my appreciation for the vast advantages, intellectual, cultural, social, and professional, that Yale has to offer. I could only wish that it were possible to relive my four years at Yale with the advantage of all that I have learned since leaving.

Like me, my son had an ambivalent reaction to his four years in New Haven, but, I think, left the school with gratitude for the quality of the education he received, the wide range of people he befriended, and the tremendous future opportunities the school opened up for him.

While I am not sure I would describe my Yale years as “the best four years of my life,” they were definitely four years that set me on the path to a life that has been gratifying, for the most part very happy, and rewarding.

Along with many of the rest of you, I am increasingly aware of “time’s winged chariot drawing near,” but until it gets here, I plan to keep running ahead of it as fast as I can….