Yale Class of 1969 – Page 8 – Class of 1969

Books | Works
Eugene Linden Wins Prestigious Book Award
ByAdmin February 21, 2024March 12, 2024
The Council of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) has voted to award Eugene Linden The Louis J. Battan Author’s Award for his 11th book, Fire and Flood: A People’s History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present. A previous work on climate change, Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civllizations, won the Grantham Prize’s Award of Special Merit.
A former senior writer for TIME Magazine, where he wrote about nature, science, and …
Read More Eugene Linden Wins Prestigious Book Award
Around The Web
Report: Yale’s Ties to Slavery
ByWayne Willis February 19, 2024February 19, 2024
Since October 2020, the Yale and Slavery Research Project has conducted intensive research to provide a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of the university’s past involvement with slavery.
In a major announcement on Feb. 16, Yale announced the publication of results in a book, a free pdf and an incredible interactive website that I strongly recommend you visit. Unlike Georgetown and Brown, Yale didn’t own slaves directly, but many of its early leaders and benefactors did.
Last, the university issued a Statement acknowledging some of its institutional failings re: slavery and announcing some constructive programs, especially for New Haven.
Read More Report: Yale’s Ties to Slavery
Survey
It’s survey time again!
ByMike Baum and Tom Guterbock February 15, 2024February 16, 2024
One of the many interesting things about our 50th Reunion was the Class Survey. The response (both statistical and emotional) was so strong that we’re doing it again! The same team that created the 50th survey is about to launch a shorter but just as incisive questionnaire focused on what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what’s new, as we totter into the second half of our 70s.
Look for the email with the survey, coming soon.
Read More It’s survey time again!
Announcements
Update on the 55th Reunion
ByDerry Allen and Bill Newman January 22, 2024February 16, 2024
Editor’s Note: This is a comprehensive summary of what’s coming for our reunion. Everyone should read it and nail down his plans to attend. For those staying in hotels, see the links and other information to help you BOOK NOW when the “reunion rates” go live next Wednesday, Jan. 31.
Read More Update on the 55th Reunion
Potpourri
Is Anyone Else Raising His Grandchildren?
ByWayne Willis January 21, 2024February 16, 2024
Jeff Horton is dealing with a twist of fate in his life and wants to hear from other classmates who are raising their grandchildren. He writes: “After my 33 year old son died in 2022, his two children came to live with me in Palmdale CA, north of Los Angeles. As you all can imagine, it is exhausting, but it is also invigorating.
I’d love to hear from any other grandparents acting as parents from our class at [email and phone in the full story].
Read More Is Anyone Else Raising His Grandchildren?
Announcements
Calling Classmate Musicians: Reunion Ideas
ByDerry Allen and Bill Newman January 21, 2024February 16, 2024
We are working on two ideas to add a little music to our reunion. Eliot Norman suggests:
1. Putting “Street” Pianos at the two ends of the tent in the courtyard at TD. Folks can just play a bit as they feel like it, while walking by, whether to entertain friends, jam or just communicate their thoughts.
2. Organizing a “pop-up” band and sing-along participation fun event after dinner on Saturday.
For further information, read more or contact Eliot (email).
Read More Calling Classmate Musicians: Reunion Ideas
Books
Hoop and Tree Explained
ByWayne Willis January 6, 2024February 16, 2024
As we have profiled before, Chris Hoffman has published four books of poetry and a bedrock book called The Hoop and the Tree, which went through a second edition with some revised and updated materials in 2021. He explained the image and the metaphors of hoop and tree in an article published recently on the Climate Psychology Alliance website. For you audiophiles, Chris also explained the model in a Zoom at Noon presentation hosted on YouTube.
Read More Hoop and Tree Explained
Class Notes
Class Notes, Jan-Feb 2024
ByDaniel Seiver January 1, 2024February 6, 2024
Dick Williams sends this news about Mark Klugheit which he gleaned from the Yale Law Report: “Mark Klugheit continues his second (third?) career as director for Next Stage Theatre Southwest in Tucson, AZ, with very successful 2022 productions of David Ives’s Venus in Fur and Halley Feiffer’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City.
Read More Class Notes, Jan-Feb 2024
Music | Works
Re-releasing your music using new digital editing tools
ByAdmin December 27, 2023February 15, 2024
Michael Folz and wife Maureen have been working and re-working some of their songs using some of the newer recording and engineering technology. And it’s mind-blowing … well, more ear-blowing. Compare, for example “Right Through My Heart” from 2015 vs. the revision of the same song they created a couple months ago, The 2015 version was the original recording. No overdubs, etc. Maureen’s voice, totally plain. Their friend Sam, a recording engineer and songwriter in an…
Read More Re-releasing your music using new digital editing tools
Books | Works
Matt Flynn’s new book – about a judge on the Court of Appeals
ByWayne Willis December 26, 2023February 16, 2024
Matt Flynn’s newest book differs from his series on Bernie Weber, math genius. His new thriller is set closer to home, namely, Matt’s experience as a court clerk on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. He hastens to add that the scenes in the book about cheating with an attractive Asian co-clerk are pure fiction. 😉
Plot Summary: In The Court of Last Resort, Federal Judge Adam Willow, a former Marine commando, demands perfect justice. Some defendants …
Read More Matt Flynn’s new book – about a judge on the Court of Appeals
In Memoriam
Donald Ferguson, December 13, 1968; Updated
ByAdmin December 13, 2023April 26, 2024
UPDATED comments, posted 4/8/24 Remembering Donald P. Ferguson, ’69 Mark Alden Branch’s “Old Yale” article, “The Stories Behind the Names,”, in Yale Alumni Magazine, November/December, 2023, focuses on five of the 35 Yale alumni killed in the Vietnam War. One of them, Donald Ferguson, ’69, is also part of another group of five men killed in that war, memorialized by a plaque, at the base of a flagpole flying the American flag, placed in 2018…
Read More Donald Ferguson, December 13, 1968; Updated
Books
This Forgotten American Orwell Had a Lot to Tell Us
ByJim Sleeper December 12, 2023January 28, 2024
Note: In this essay, Jim Sleeper reports on Death of a Yale Man, a memoir from Malcolm Ross, Yale 1919. Ross, a son of an “old stock,” prosperous family, who graduated Yale in 1919, sold bonds briefly and then turned to years of body-wracking labor alongside miners and oil drillers and became a New Deal official with the National Labor Relations Board.
Read More This Forgotten American Orwell Had a Lot to Tell Us
Announcements
’69 Turns 55: Looking Forward With Wisdom
ByDerry Allen and Bill Newman December 10, 2023February 10, 2024
Editor’s Note: Reunion co-chairs update us with announcements re: which college will be our reunion HQ; previews of likely presentation topics; timing of the memorial service and Class Dinner; and other updates.
Read More ’69 Turns 55: Looking Forward With Wisdom
In Memoriam
Richard Lavington Farren, December 3, 2023
ByAdmin December 3, 2023April 26, 2024
Ken Brown, who roomed with Richard Sophomore and Junior years offered the following for the class notes.

Richard L. Farren of New York City, age 76, died suddenly at his home on December 3, 2023. Richard was a practicing attorney at the time of his death. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1965. He matriculated with the Yale Class of 1969 but graduated in three years …
Read More Richard Lavington Farren, December 3, 2023
Announcements
Hotel Hacks (and Parking Ideas) For Reunion
ByWayne Willis December 3, 2023February 10, 2024
Yes, it’s quaint, and a bit nostalgic, to sleep in our old rooms … on those “Yale single” bedframes that squeak when you sit on them. But many spouses or partners are not so, um, adventurous, nor brave enough to deal with shared bathrooms, third-floor walk-ups and the other limitations of dorm living. They (or we!) want a regular hotel room, thank you very much.
Read More Hotel Hacks (and Parking Ideas) For Reunion
News
November at Yale: YAA, football, and feting two ’69ers
ByArthur Segal December 3, 2023February 6, 2024
Every member of the Yale community knows that November in New Haven is filled with compelling and colorful events. Whether Princeton or Harvard is the opponent, the campus is energized by championship football, the YAA Assembly, the Yale Medal Dinner, and the Blue Leadership Ball, all concentrated into a single long weekend. This year Harvard was the opponent and The Game attracted over 51,000 to the Yale Bowl, a robust crowd that excitedly saw the…
Read More November at Yale: YAA, football, and feting two ’69ers