You CAN Go Home Again!

A Report From the 50th

You can go home again!

Your scribe and nearly 400 classmates, with 300 spouses and family members, returned to Yale for a fabulous 50^th. My limited word allowance cannot do justice to the rediscoveries of old friends, and, yet again, the making of new ones. Add in nonstop intellectual stimulation, animated conversations day and night, a steady supply of libations and tasty comestibles, all topped with two servings from our gentlemen songsters, the superb 1969 Whiffenpoofs. Our heartfelt thanks to all who helped make this reunion a reality, especially the reunion co-chairs Doug Colton, J. P. Jordan, and Bill Newman.

A small sampling of the highlights of our reunion: on Thursday, a golf outing followed by the Guterbock/Baum session on the highly illuminating and thought-provoking Class Survey. Then “Milestones” with the redoubtable Tedlow and Hundt leading a review of the last 50 years. On Friday morning, your scribe chose to hear presentations by Yale’s world-renowned virologist Paul Turner, who described his research on viruses, with pictures of some of the gazillions of the bizarre little buggers. Astounding. Said scribe followed this microscopic view of our world with a presentation by Yale’s leading exoplanet hunter, with an illuminating review of the thousands of planets orbiting other stars, some of which may be in the Goldilocks zone of habitability. Gripping. Unfortunately, attending these presentations meant missing campus tours and many other equally enticing faculty sessions.

On Friday afternoon Derry Allen and Tom Emmons led a panel discussion titled “For God, for Country and for the Planet: The Big Lessons of 50 Years.” Climate change is real, and many of our classmates are working on solutions to save the planet. Yale’s Beverly Gage then offered us her perspective on the current US political situation. Classmates then gathered on the Old Campus for the Class Dinner, where it was announced that 1969 had broken the record for the largest Reunion Gift in history: over $190 million. Steve Schwarzman then explained his vision for the $150 million Schwarzman Center.

On Saturday, Yale again brought out some of its best faculty. Your scribe attended a session on AI and Big Data, and then sat with an overflow crowd in Yale Law School to listen to Akil Amar expound on the American Constitution. He held the audience spellbound with a virtuosic performance. And then he gave out hundreds of copies of his books! The only disappointment of the morning was that it was impossible to attend any of the other illuminating sessions on topics from “Words, Music and the Practice of Empathy” to “Emotional Intelligence From Theory to Practice” and more lectures, more tours…but not enough time!

Saturday afternoon featured 1969’s Classmates in Concert with Stormin’ Norman Zamcheck, John O’Leary and Rick Drost. The sixties came alive again. Right after: another chapter of Life: The Final Exam. Classmates Seiver and Wheeler kicked off an hour-long classmate-centered discussion of life, the universe, and everything, showing that we can all still learn from each other, and make the world a better place in our golden years.

Sunday morning’s Memorial Service, honoring those classmates we have lost, featured Dick Williams’ hauntingly beautiful singing of Panis Angelicus in Latin and El Molei Rachamin in Hebrew. In between, many classmates spoke movingly of friends they had lost.

And then our 50^th was over. The enchantment was broken. Alas, time to return to the “real” world.  But the echoes of the conversations, the images of the hugs, the handshakes, the smiles are all unforgettable. See you in five years, my friend.