Nov 2003
Hello, classmates. Sorry to have been AWOL for the last issue, but I doubt anyone wanted to hear about my summer vacation, and no one else wrote. Thanks to the following, however, there is news this month.
First, this biography from Jeff Horton: “I’ve been meaning to communicate with you for a long time. I believe I sent an item to the class notes about a decade ago, so it’s time to get caught up. After graduation I spent a couple of years in Florence, Italy. When I returned to Los Angeles I spent 15 years teaching English at Crenshaw High School in south Los Angeles. During this time I became increasingly active in the teacher union and school board politics. I was elected to the Los Angeles Board of Education in 1991 and reelected in 1995. I was the first openly gay member of that board. In 1998 I was elected president of the California School Boards Association. I was defeated in my bid for a third term on the LA school board in 1999 when the mayor of Los Angeles (Riordan) and some of his rich friends decided to buy a new school board. I now work as a teacher recruiter for the school districts in Los Angeles County.
“My partner Larry and I have been together since 1983. For most of that time we have lived in a house in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles, near downtown. In 1995 we adopted a 5-year-old boy, Dante, and in 1999 we adopted a 7-year-old boy, Lorenzo. They are now 11 and 13. Both boys are African-American, as is Larry. All four of us are bracing ourselves for adolescence (theirs) and late middle age (ours). Although I waited until my 40s to do it, being a parent is the best thing I ever did. Now whatever I may lack in energy I make up for in wisdom, or so I tell myself.
“Along the way I have become a fanatic for opera and have remained a science fiction fan. I have one major remaining ambition, which is to be a writer of some kind. I think I could still squeeze that in during my last couple of decades if I get started right away. I don’t get to the east coast much but would love to take my family to see New Haven and Yale. I wonder whatever happened to John Porter? I hope you have room for most of this. Thank you for taking on this task.”
The only remaining question about Jeff, of course, is why he didn’t run for governor.
Then there was this update from Tom Walsh: “I continue to serve as senior counsel with the Memphis office of a national employment law firm, where I mostly handle federal appeals. Jean, my wife of 34 years, works for an airline now, enabling us to indulge our travel urges now and then. Our older daughter, Courtney, a Smithie and Yale Nursing grad, and her husband Peter Marsh now live in Davenport, Iowa, where as a midwife she catches little Midwesterners right and left. Thanks to them, we have our first grandchild, Molly, a brilliant and beautiful 2-year-old, with another grandchild due in March 2004. This fall our younger daughter, Meredith, also a Smith grad, completes her third and final year as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines. I have visited her there twice, sharing her grass-roof hut in the remote mountains of Luzon and working in schools with her, a type of experience I highly recommend.”
Perhaps most importantly, 35th reunion co-chairs John E. Nelson and John J. Gazzoli Jr. want to remind everyone of our five-year gathering, scheduled for late May 2004. They are planning more participation/presentation by immediate classmates rather than professors, etc. And an open bar, including Bloodies on Sunday morning. And real food and drink from the Ukraine on Saturday night — bring the Alka-Seltzer. The co-chairs welcome ideas, comments, threats, etc. Nelson’s contact phone: (703) 801-5287. Gazzoli’s contact phone: (314) 444-7737. Gazzoli requests that all complaints and gripes be directed first to Nelson.
Keep those missives coming. I can’t do it without you.