Ed Greenberg may have retired from Bear Stearns (which in fact he has, after 24 years, as of December), but he has certainly not retired from the impresario business, witness the ecstatic reviews of the mini-reunion he and Sue orchestrated in Santa Fe in late April. “A great event,” raved one participant. “Skillfully created”, said another. An exercise in “precision management,” said a third. This is the stuff of Broadway marquees.
In the event, 140 or so classmates, most with wives, partners, etc. (“Reasonably behaved!” noted another reviewer), made the journey for a four-day whirlwind of lunches, dinners, art galleries, walking tours, lectures – the whole nine yards and more of total immersion in the cultural capital of the American Southwest – topped off by a grand outing at Joe and Linda Staley‘s Belden Ranch, a real – deal working cattle operation of some 13,000 acres that lies close to the old Santa Fe trail and has been in Joe’s family for generations. Joe himself was described as “looking shaped and carved out of the desert and mountains,” and eloquent to the point of poetry on the subject of the ranch and its history. He does not, it should be said, lack for modern conveniences, including an on-site dispenser of frozen margaritas, without which any serious ranch with a Yale connection is incomplete.
Credit for the success of this mini-reunion – at least double the size of any previous off-season gathering – belongs not only to the Greenbergs and Staleys but to a larger ensemble including Dayton Lummis, a resident of Santa Fe, and, from the class of ’61, David Grant Noble, who did so well as a guide and lecturer that he was suggested for honorary membership in the class.
Your correspondent, obviously, was regretfully absent, and thus grateful for the vivid reporting of Tom Maxey and John Torinus. Limited by some unseen but persuasive law to one Yale event per month (except in football season), I chose in this instance to accept a kind invitation to address the Yale Club of Sarasota, where once again Lisa and I were billeted and entertained by Dyer and Beverly Wadsworth and treated, this year, to a tour of the local waters on Miss Betty, a sleek and powerful craft skippered by Capt. Dave Schneider and his wife, also Betty, who during parts of the winter can be found on nearby Boca Grande. Among loyal classmates at the lunch were Dyer, Dave, Bill West, Dave Parkhurst, Doug Harwood, Roland Kopp, and John Titus. This is a great club with a warm and welcoming membership.
Speaking of warm and welcoming, check out out new website, another Greenberg creation, at www2.aya.yale.edu/classes/yc1959. Indeed, you may be reading these notes
online even now. The site is very attractive and, among other things, plays Yale songs, providing instant nostalgia along with current news.
Courtesy of Es Esselstyn, down from Vermont with his bride Celina, Lisa and I enjoyed a very special afternoon listening to Celina and her daughter Eliza Moore in a 90-minute recital of two dozen or so short, lively love songs in five different languages, with Mozart and Shubert well represented. Mother and daughter have performed recitals here and abroad; Celina said that this was her last, which made us doubly glad to be there. Among those who gathered in a Park Avenue apartment to hear these two spectacular sporanos were John and Edythe Holbrook, Terry and Sharon Fuller, Mike and Lili Mayor, Jim and Jill Sheffield, and David and Anne Clark, who came from New Hampshire.
Am saving all sorts of bits and pieces for the summer doldrums but, since talking about music here, it should be noted that Peter Pastreich, who retired about seven years ago after 21 years as executive director of the San Francisco Symphony, remains very active in the music world, consulting and organizing seminars in orchestra mangement here and abroad. He has also served as a mediator in several orchestra negotiations. He has been honored by the French government and received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the University of Southern Illinois.
We are sad to report that John Fay of Westport, died in Norwalk in March after a brief illness. After service in the Navy, John began a career in finance, working for Citibank and First Boston, and later ran his own financial advisory business. He was an avid scuba diver, skier, and private pilot. In 1994, he added a whole new dimension to his life. He was ordained as a deacon of the Catholic Church, assigned to the Church of the Assumption in Westport, where he preached, officiated at baptisms and weddings, and ministered to the elderly. John is survived by his wife Linda, two sons, three daughters, and 12 grandchildren.