Sep/Oct 2007
After steady nagging by your scribe, Nick Putnam (dr.putnam@cox.net) has spilled these beans: “Like most of us I turned 60 this year and life continues good to me and mine, although I had four stents placed in my coronary arteries last year. My older daughter, Ariane, is in Hollywood doing star-quality sketch comedy and improv, happily married, and the mother of my new grandson, Roan. My younger daughter, Carolyn, is in Tacoma finishing graduate school and will return to San Diego to practice occupational therapy next year. They are wonderful young women. My house is always full of kids and young adults, mostly from Europe, learning to surf and speak English at what they call ‘Camp Nick.’ I continue to practice and teach child psychiatry about half time and I do not think I would ever want to retire, as long as I can take of plenty of time to travel and be with Roan and the others. I still enjoy my Yale roommates, thrown together when we were freshman on the basis of geographic diversity alone, remaining together all four years, staying in fairly close touch to this day.
”My nephew and I recently enjoyed three days in Boca Grande, Florida, with Don Josephand his wife, Synthia, in the super home they built by the water. We had great fishing with Don as an expert guide. Their three kids are in their 20s and all so very accomplished (MD, PhDs, and such). I see Mac Thompson and his wife Elsie from time to time in Charlottesville, and most recently when Mac visited Los Angeles on business. Mac’s four wonderful children range in age from prep school to college (Harvard of all places!) and beyond. I haven’t heard from Jim Broach for a few years but I believe he is leading his department at Princeton, doing cutting-edge work in biochemistry. Just last month I heard from his son Matt (Yale ’05), a great young man and talented artist living in Manhattan. Daughter Sara has graduated from law school and will soon be married. Please let me know if you or yours are in San Diego and you need a guide!“
The May 6, 2007, New York Times Sunday Magazine (special New Middle Ages issue) included an article by Bruce Stutz on getting on (and off) antidepressants. Here is a quote: ”Jerrold Rosenbaum and Maurizio Favia, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, found that among people getting off antidepressants, anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent (depending on the drug) suffered what was being called antidepressant withdrawal (but which after the symposium was renamed ‘discontinuation syndrome’).“ Your scribe enjoyed and recommends the entire issue, and is, of course, proud to see classmate Jerry doing important research.
An update from Doug Colton (douglas.j.colton@usps.gov): ”Evan (son) has been seeking the meaning of life since graduating from Rice last year, but is suspending the search to take a job. Julia (daughter) is delighting in being a freshperson at Pomona College, very far from here. Roberta (w) is practicing at a mega-firm. . . . If in D.C., call or e-mail.“
More ”missing“ (55 total) classmates: Timothy L. McDaniel, Paul E. McLaughlin, EnsignDaniel Millar USN, Jesse A. Moorman III. Any information is welcome.
”Nature’s first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold. / Her early leaf’s a flower; / But only so an hour. / Then leaf subsides to leaf. / So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day. / Nothing gold can stay.”—Robert Frost.