These notes are being written before, and will appear after, our sold-out mini-reunion In Santa Fe. So an account of that gathering will appear in the next issue, based on reporting by various designated correspondents. On or about that weekend I will be speaking to the Yale Club of the Suncoast, in Sarasota.
Cheever Tyler, whose life always seems to take interesting turns (lawyer, builder of local cultural institutions, New Haven Man of the Year, etc) , has written a new play, “Four Women: A Play in Four Monologues.” The play had a successful run in February at the Greenwich Street Theater in New York. Among the stars was Dan Rogers’ actress daughter, Ninon, who played a Southern belle. One reviewer described the play as “a striking piece, filled with magical realism, which explores the lives and challenges of four very different and strong female characters.”
Cheever and Dan’s classmates turned out in force, with Ben Gertz and Nick Ciriello and their wives in attendance on opening night, followed on Feb. 20 by Charles Griffith, Rick Templeton, Peter Pohly and his daughter Jessica, Paul and Marianne Kaestle, Harry and Joannah Wilmerding and Austin and Felicity Hoyt. Austin described Ninon’s performance as “absolutely smashing.”
Incidentally, I checked Ninon Rogers in the Times archives because I thought I’d seen the name, and sure enough, there she was in a 1999 Times piece about young New Yorkers trying to save money on their phone bills by comparison shopping. Nina, even then an actress and director, auditioned five companies in four months and settled on AT&T. As did I at about the same time —anything to avoid Verizon.
A note that got stuck in my files and flew out today puts Mike Grean at what is clearly the high, high end of the real estate game. Ed is the mastermind of a subdivision in Hobe Sound, Fl.. It is not your average subdivision but, rather, one that sounds more in keeping with Hobe Sound’s aristocratic past — 11 20-acre estates with equestrian trails and within carriage distance of the Atlantic. Mike attended two 50th reunions last year, including one at his high school in Rye, another at Taft chaired by Tom Goodale, and, like a lot of us, is looking forward to our 50th.
Here are some almost-retirements. Aaron Krosnick and his wife (Mary Lou Wesley, Yale School of Music, 1961) retired from Jacksonville University but were then promptly rehired as “Distinguished Performers in Residence.” He is a violinist, she a pianist. Aaron says the big event of the year remains the annual concert with his cellist brother, Joel, who has been with the Juilliard String Quartet for 32 years.
Charles Nolan retired from his post at Seattle Public health after 25 years quickly signed on to another stint of teaching at the University of Washington, He also remains a consultant on global tuverculosis control to the Centers for Disease Control and other organizations. Ed Ghent and Bruce Kover continue to teach abroad beyond what Ed calls the “expiry date, ” he in Calgary, Bruce in Rio.
Here are some real retirements: Bertrand Nadeau has retired from the Dartmouth Medical School, where he was associate professor of psychiatry, and spends half the year in West Fairlee, Vt. and half in in New Port Richey, Fl. Ted Calhoun and Karrin are now full-time in Eugene, Or., when they’re not in Kenya, Vietnam or Santa Fe. Craig Llewellyn has mostly ended his long and distinguished career in military-related medicine in the D.C. area and fetched up in Wilmington, Vt., where — much to his delight and surprise — he sits in occasionally with a local professional jazz group and finds that even after a 15-year layoff he can play baritone and alto sax “without embarrassment.” Craig has finally found the time to re-acquaint himself with his Yale roommates, sailing with Tom Chadwick in Maine and dropping in on Jan Duncan in Green Bay, Wi.
Meanwhile, Kerry Wood is enjoying retirement in Pacific Grove, Ca., and writing a memoir, for which former roommate Austin Hoyt is providing a testimonial blurb. Victor Short has retired from the Institute of Human Science in Winnetka and moved to Charlotte, NC to ne near various children and grandchildren .Dan Harris,Esq, says we can drop the “Esq.” because he fully retired in Boothbay Me. John Gardenier, retired from both the Navy and the federal civil service and enjoying life in Vienna, Va., recalls bringing his son George to our 25th reunion (when George was one ) and then again to our 45th, when George was, what, 21? And George today? Armed with a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Virginia, George is now at Yale, studying for a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry. So we didn’t scare him away after all.
All this is good news. Here is some sad news. John Dorsey Heinberg died of brain cancer at his home in McClean, Va., in January. John, an economist, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, served in the Navy, and received a master’s degree in economics from Missouri and a doctorate in public finance from Wisconsin in 1967. He developed a course in urban economics at Princeton and in 1969 joined the Urban Institute in Washington, where he held a series of important government positions in the Department of Health and Human Services, the General Accounting office and the Department of Labor. At Labor, John designed innovative and successful programs providing training, shelter and social services for the homeless.
John cared deeply about public service and that reason, among others, made a significant contribution to his country. He is survived by Beverly Susan Brockus Heinberg of McClean, and two children, Jason of Arlington, Va. and Susan Oleinik of Princeton, to whom we express our sympathies.