Class of 1965 September-October 2013

Class of 1965 September-October 2013

As I was about to wrap up, I got two emails that cast a long shadow on an otherwise upbeat set of notes. The first was from Ben Moroze (Y’91), son of our classmate Brian Moroze, who wrote: “I wanted to pass along that my father, Brian Moroze (MC ’65), passed away July 14, 2013, in Exeter, NH.  Brian is survived by his wife Carol, sons Ben and Adam, daughter Marcy, and seven grandchildren. He went on from Yale to the University of Virginia School of Law, and had a long career in law firms, government agencies, and corporations, retiring after 21 years as a Deputy General Counsel with Tyco International in 2007.”  The second email was from Bob Leich, passing on the very sad and stunning news that Herb Allison died of an apparent heart attack on July 14, a week before he was to celebrate his 70th birthday. Herb is survived by his wife Simin and sons John and Andrew, who plan to hold a memorial service for Herb in Manhattan this September. My posting the news on the list serve prompted a flood of comments and remembrances too long to recount here. Herb was greatly admired for his integrity and humility as well as his many accomplishments in business and government. We clearly need a place to express ourselves about lost classmates and the class website will hopefully serve that purpose. Under John Schenck’s leadership, the revamped class website architecture has been completed, with a section for remembrances, and we are now working on graphic redesign to give it a fresh look. Launch should be in early fall. On a happier note, my roommates (original and honorary) held a 70th Birthday Big Chill weekend June 13-16 in South Carolina. Chip and Mandy Reames graciously organized and hosted Donna and me, Steve and Bettylee Payne, Hilly and Sallie Hillenmeyer, Perrin and Peggy Quarles, Jim and Susan Acquistapace, Steve Rockmore, David and Linda Schaff, Bob Rounsavall, Harry and Jan Pillsbury, and Josh Jensen. Missing were Freedley Hunsicker and Marshall Bell who had conflicts but checked in by phone to make sure we were behaving. There were no serious injuries or arrests. As with all such gatherings, we toasted Tom Walden, whom we lost many years ago. A number of this same crew will descend on Berkeley CA in August for the wedding of Jim and Susan’s daughter Anna. The number of published authors in our class continues to grow. In response to an earlier note from Jim Marshall about publication of his book on the civil rights movement in the summer of 1964, Joel Katz reached out to Jim for advice and copied me: “I read with great interest in class notes about your forthcoming book. I was a Scholar of the House my senior year; my project was a book of writing and photographs on Mississippi during the summer of 1964. Anyone in Pierson College may remember my midnight emergence from the darkroom in the basement. As luck would have it, that book, And I Said No Lord, is, after a mere 49 years, being published in February 2014 by the University of Alabama Press, with surprising little editing required–photographs or text–after all that time. A few of the images can be seen at: http://www.joelkatzphotography.com/Mississippi64.html.  And Doug McPheters has penned a “financial and legal thriller, Goshawk, available at bookstores and on-line, in paper under ISBN 9781475981155 and in electronic form under ISBN 9781475981162”.  Doug says updated details are available at: http://holotouch.com/holotouch-the-thriller and he’d be delighted to autograph paper copies. David Roscoe reported that he, Mike Hanson, Fred Kneip and Heaton Robertson “celebrated two days of golf at the Annual US Seniors tournament just completed at Apawamis/Round Hill.  We had a ball. We played together as a foursome in a national 2-day tournament for old guys (55 and over) held in Rye and Greenwich, and decided to spice things up by wearing Yale Hockey Champ t-shirts. The good news is we had lots of laughs, hit the occasional good shot, and while the hardware eluded us, at least nobody got hurt!” No mention of the order of finish. Joel Papernik forwarded an article from the Houston Chronicle about Dick Stasney, detailing Dick’s extraordinary work in helping opera singers and others with voice problems: “Decades after failing a prep school audition ended C .Richard Stasney’s dream of singing in a glee club , the physician has given voice to countless opera singers .Stasney, described as the otolaryngologist to the stars of the opera world, in 1992 founded the Texas Voice Center at The Methodist Hospital to diagnose, treat and prevent vocal disorders. Every year, the center treats more than 1,000 people. Stasney’s patients have included the super star Luciano Pavarotti, the late Italian tenor, and ordinary people with disorders that have prevented them from finding their true voices. The doctor does take piano lessons and is learning to play bagpipes, but does not sing.” Maybe we can ask Dick to serenade us with bagpipes at the 50th. 50th Reunion updates: We continue to try to get email addresses for as many classmates as possible and have listed those for whom we still have no address on the letter announcing the upcoming Class Dinner (October 25 in New York – Class council Meeting at 5PM). Please check to see if your name is on the list and get your address to us. Work has also begun on the Class Book, with the expectation that we will use the website as the channel for your submissions. As noted in an earlier column, please feel free to contact me or the Reunion Co-Chairs: Carl Farrington (charleslafayettefarrington@gmail.com ), Bob Leich (rmlpulse@gmail.com) and David Roscoe (david.roscoe3@gmail.com) with comments and suggestions for the Reunion.