I hope those who can make it to the Bowl will make it to the Bowl for Harvard Nov. 19. Our weekly tailgate jumped off to a robust start in September with the usual suspects and a ringer or two on hand for two quick victories over Georgetown and Cornell: Herb Hallas with his son Edmund, Charlie and Bobbi Griffith, Rose and George Piroumoff, Ben Gertz, George Buchanan, your corresponding secretary, and Al Atherton. Al and Peggy have re-upped for another post-game party following the Harvard game at their home on the Yale campus. By the time you read this you will (I hope) have received and absorbed details from Mr. Gertz about this and other class-related happenings over the next couple of months, including our Class Council meeting in November. You already have stuff about the Boston mini-reunion — send in your cards if you have not done so — as well as Charley Hoyt’s latest appeal on behalf of the Yale Alumni Fund. We did well in 2010-2011 — 356 donors, 48.6 percent participation and $353,777 overall — but I suspect we can even better this year.
This has been a very sad time for several classmates and families of classmates. First, the Athertons, Al and Peggy, whose son Allan collapsed and died from sudden cardiac arrest on Sunday, Sept. 4, while the Athertons were on their way to a church service in Greenwich. Al told me when I saw him before the Cornell game that his son, who was 47, had suffered for nearly 30 years from a complex schizo-affective disorder but had recently found a measure of enjoyment and freedom in an assisted living enviroment that was never available to him during repeated hospitalizations. The funeral service was held five days later at Christ Church, Greenwich, and Peggy and Al — a Whiffenpoof and a member of the Alumni Chorus — were enormously touched by the outpouring of Yale voices, including Whiffs from as far back as 1949 and as recent as 1965. Their voices and the liturgy combined to make this service, in Ben Gertz’s words, “one of the most moving I have ever attended.” Among classmates on hand — some of them former Whiffs, some not, some with spouses, some not — were Doug and Sarah Banker, Ron and Clare Buck, Ed and Sue Greenberg, Larry and Roberta Krakoff, George and Jo Buchanan, Terry Fuller, Chuck Banks, Ben Zitron and George Piroumoff. Bart Millerr and Sherm Durfee came from Whiffs of 1958, Barney Stewart, Bill Weber, Bill Finn and Stew Cole from the Whiffs of 1960. Apologies to anyone I have left out, and my deepest sympathies on behalf of the class to the Athertons and their daughter Marion.
Fredreric Low (“Terry”) Chase 3rd passed away in August of pulmonary fibrosis at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Baltimore. Terry devoted his entire professional life to educating young people, — first at Lawrenceville, where he taught history and coached tennis, then at St. Paul’s, then Garrison Forest, then the Shipley School in Philadelphia, where he served as headmaster for 6 years, then in Santa Fe and finally, in the last 16 years, back in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins and the Beth Tflloh Dahan community school. Terry graduated from Hotchkiss, where by his own account he struggled with every subject except swimming, then came to Yale to swim and earn a degree in history and political science. He was a sailor, sports fan and great guy to be around. He leaves Katie his wife of 46 years, and two children, Mark and Katherine; to all our sympathies.
Finally, Charley Hoyt alerted me to a brief item in my own newspaper recording the death at home in Sonoma, CA., of Colin Smith. That’s all I know as this issue goes to press and will have more about Colin’s life and family next time. Colin was one of the most delightful figures in our class, a member of the Pundits and a joy to be aound.