Sep/Oct 2010
For those who intend to watch this year’s Game in Cambridge, Lang and Kathy Wheeler (langandkathy@comcast.net) will again be generously hosting the 1969 pre-game brunch at their house. Start time is 9:30. I have attended Lang’s brunches, and I can say with assurance that this is a wonderful chance to see classmates, hear great Yale a cappella music, and fire down some tasty comestibles. Hope to see you there. Lang and Kathy Wheeler’s address: 48 Lakeview Avenue, Cambridge, an easy walk from Harvard Square. (Note: more up-to-date information on this and other events may appear on the class listserv.) There will be a football game after the brunch, and in the event of a Yale victory, your scribe will provide an eyewitness report.
News from dues: “Tom Guterbock (tomg@virginia.edu) is still doing survey research at the University of Virginia, where we’ve started adding cell phones to our telephone samples to improve their representativeness. Tom is now teaching in both the Department of Public Health Sciences and in sociology. He is currently serving as president of the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations. In his leisure time he is singing barbershop and trying to learn elementary ice dancing.”
Claes Nilsson (nilssonclaes@yahoo.com) e-writes: “My son Carl has just been appointed the head of the Obama Campaign organization in Massachusetts. Given the recent events in the state, this is particularly important. I am working as a hospitalist after 30 years as a hematologist and oncologist. I am also working part-time in an inpatient hospice, a place where we will all have an opportunity to visit some day for our family and for ourselves.”
From Sam Weisman (samweisman@gmail.com): “Despite the fact that I fled Los Angeles with my family 13 years ago for Boston, I still am involved in the entertainment field. Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training utilizes me for professional development work with their MFA acting students. This fall I will be starting to teach acting classes in New York at my own studio (any late-life career changers welcome). I’m currently involved as an executive producer of the NBC Television/Sony Television show, The Sing Off. It’s an a cappella singing group competition that has been well received. Our first series of shows aired in December, and we are preparing our second season, which will air in November and December. All of the time I spent lifting cups with the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus at Mory’s has finally yielded tangible results. I urge everyone to tune in, as there may be a rooting interest for Yale alumni in our second season.”
From David Joseph (pshrink@hotmail.com): “My wife, Lynn, and I moved from Seattle to North Carolina in 2006 … in a feigned attempt to retire, only to find myself working about 50 hours a week. I’ve been a psychiatrist for 34 years and have never seen so much drug and alcohol abuse as I have in rural North Carolina, halfway between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I decided to do something about it and now spend half of my time working as a medical director at Coastal Horizons Center in Wilmington. I run a Methadone program and a Suboxone program for opiate abusers. The second half I spend as medical director of Coastal Southeastern United Care, running a program for a psychiatric population with smaller amounts of drug and alcohol abuse. I also have a small private practice.
“I am living about 400 yards from the Atlantic Ocean on a barrier island and wake up each morning looking out at the water. It is a calming contrast to the rest of the day and a nice way to unwind from a lot of the pressures. I have maintained my sanity by not taking up golf. I have seen that game break down the strongest of men/women. However, I am surrounded by two dozen golf courses and growing. I promise that when I finally do retire, I will take up the game.”
Yale has notified your scribe that the first Class of 1969 Scholar, Melissa Johnson ’12, will be supported with almost $6,000 in earnings from our class fund of about $100,000. Melissa is the first from her family to attend college, and will major in psychology. She sings soprano in the gospel choir, is a member of Yale Model UN, and plays intramural polo and ice hockey.
Ain’t too proud to beg: the mailbag is empty!
“You can’t turn back the clock. But you can rewind it.”—Art Linkletter (1912–2010)