Reunion: Saturday Dinner – Yale Class of 1969

While the early birds started the party on Thursday evening, and the delicious buffet on Friday was a great welcome for the arriving majority, the Saturday Dinner was the culinary high point of the weekend.

The crowd happily visited with old friends, made trips to the bar and restrooms as needed, and stopped on the walks to greet and catch up with even more old friends. The planning for the evening, allowing plenty of room for conversation, turned out to be prescient and wise: We were mostly there for each other.

The formal program was short and very sweet, with recognition of all the volunteers who planned and executed the program, solicited a record-breaking Class Gift and were chosen to lead the class for the next five years as Secretary (Art Segal), Treasurer (Ken Brown) and 60th Reunion Chair (Harold Mancusi-Ungaro).

Class Gift Record for a 55th Reunion: $14.4 million!

The Class Gift committee, headed by Howard Newman and Woody Collins, mobilized leaders in all twelve colleges; and classmates generously responded.

In the planning sessions, the Reunion co-chairs had heard from classmates, loud and clear, that they didn’t want a live rock ‘n roll band playing loud music and drowning out conversation. Happily, Eliot Norman volunteered to devise an appropriately scaled music component. He and some real ringers he recruited came up with some creative ideas, which added enormously to the enjoyment and happiness of everyone attending.

[ If you have any pictures of attendees milling around, send them to wayne@willisdomain.com; I’ll add them here.]

Street Pianos and a “Pop Up” Band

Eliot had heard about “street pianos” that were sometimes seen at train stations, parks, and plazas, especially in Europe. He thought that having those pianos in our tent all weekend, open for classmates to literally “play with” anytime, might be fun. Indeed it was!

People of all skill levels played, and two classmates even played an impromptu duet … or in this case, a pick-up quartet playing “Boola, Boola!”

In a post that went out in March, reunion co-chairs Derry Allen and Bill Newman asked classmates interested in participating in a music component of the evening to contact Eliot. They did, and he coordinated what became The Class of ’69 Blue Notes band, who held their world premiere at the reunion! See below.

Ukraine

Dick Williams made note that our classmate, George Chopivsky, is very concerned with the fate of Ukraine, as he has significant family and business ties there and is a leader in the Ukranian-American leadership. (See “Chopivsky gets Distinguished Service Award from U.S-Ukraine Business Council/.”) Dick read a translation of a spiritual song recently embraced by the Ukrainian people as a song of resistance to the Russian invasion, and then he sang it:

The Class of ’69 Blue Notes Band

Organized by Eliot Norman and Stage Manager Terry Benson this group had a long pedigree but a very short history – they met the day before they played the Reunion! They are (L to R) John Adams, Mat Kastner, Jay Castelli, Eliot Norman, Tom Guterbock, Jonathan (Jon) Hoffman,** Harry Wise, Dick Williams, and Terry Benson.
**Jon is dressed in white from an earlier duet with Dick Williams, singing “Besame Mucho” (see below).

Our Friday and Saturday evenings under the big tent were topped off with the accompaniment by our uniquely entertaining pop-up band and its Class-member musicians. It was all very casual and very ad lib, with solo performances interspersed with duets and larger groups. The music was what we loved to hear, played sweetly. The exceptional voices of the Yale Hospitality staff joined from time to time, bringing out the exceptional talent that is in so many of us. The music seemed effortless, and as a result, our conversations among classmates, spouses and partners simply flowed at an easy pace.

Playlist

Yale songs – https://photos.app.goo.gl/obajrA53ohzMoYhU7
Shostakovich A – https://photos.app.goo.gl/taCZPXWu9kZ2c2ck8
Shostakovich B w/video screen https://photos.app.goo.gl/AwUiPb13X2vqntZr6
Get Together – https://photos.app.goo.gl/CBJ77k4X2wMbAV877
Besame Mucho – https://photos.app.goo.gl/mCTgf9PSMR6JUS8z7
She Loves You/ Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme – https://photos.app.goo.gl/akGHHtwPejHkfpsu9
God Only Knows – https://photos.app.goo.gl/JUSqPuZMxpCh4Jh86
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? – https://photos.app.goo.gl/cGbzrmtupgJS1JGh7
Shalom/Salaam – https://photos.app.goo.gl/C1fuSAA2rzY6nKxB6