A bountiful and thankful mob on hand for Bobbi and Charles Bradley Griffith’s pre-Harvard game breakfast/tailgate,which began when the gates opened at 10 a.m. The four-plus hours (kickoff was not until 2:30, owing to an NBC broadcast) passed amazingly quickly in the convivial company of the usual stalwarts and wives (Gertz, Griffith, Semple, Hallas, Greenberg) with the addition this time of Sandy Wiener and Sarah, east from Ann Arbor, Jack Gorby and wife Gloria, down from Stonington, Bob Ittner and Eleanor and a couple of their pals, my brother Lloyd (’61) his wife Goody, Tom Haines (I think), a couple of Texans( our class secretary, Joe Staley, flying solo, and the long-lost George and Rose Piroumoff, once regulars at these gatherings when they lived in Hartford but now transplanted to Texas to be near their grandchildren. Also, Kirby Westheimer, who has been through the fires of hell medically down in Princeton but emerged alert and debonair (with cane ) in Parking Lot B. I’m sure I’m missing some, but not Al and Peggy Atherton, who once again graciously hosted a post-game party at their lovely house in downtown New Haven adjacent to the Yale campus. A movable feast for the ages.
There was a was a Class Council meeting to begin the day, which I missed, and will report on next time. And Sandy asked me to remind everyone to avail themselves of the new class website, Yale1959.or. It is apparently the envy of many other classes.
Not a big haul from the mailbag, but here it is. Jim Hinkle reports that he and his partner of 50 years (Roy Hammer, ’62) found themselves at the Bamboo Flute, a Chinese restaurant in London, seated near a Chinese couple. Jim asked them whether the “Y” pin in Roy’s pale had any meaning, and to his delight they asked.”could it be Yale?” Turns out their elementary and secondary schools had been run by Yale in China and at even at that young age they called themselves “Yalies.” So, Mr. Hinkle replied, do we.
Though the Piroumofffs are no longer In Hartford, Alex Gaudio and Howard Klebanoff are. Howard, who with his wife Sandy, contributes mightily to civic matters in Hartford and West Hartford, introduced Alex to his wife of 52 years, Christine. Alex continues his medical career as a leading retina specialist (he ‘s treated several classmates), while Christine continues as a marriage/family therapist.
After dividing his time for 25 years betrween law offices in Moscow and DC, Jonathan Russin has sold the Russian half tof Russin and Vecchi to Russian partner.This relieves him of a lot of managerial chores and a good deal of travel, though he remains “of counsel.” Bill Lee is now in his 35th year as a United States District Dsitrict Judge for the Northern District of Indiana. Stephen Brown has retired from his law practice and moved with his wife, Nancy, to Winchester, Va.
James Jackson passed away at home in Oklahoma City in August, eight hours short of his 78th birthday. Jim graduated from Yale with a degree in American history and went to work for Mobil Oil in Texas.He had a great sense of humor, loved all things about trains and the civil war and leaves a companion, Rosemary, a son and a daughter.
The Whiffenpoofs have lost another — Marc Cunningham, who died of cancer on Sept. 30. . Al Atherton and Randy Ney, fellow Whiffs, attended the funeral, and Al says he was struck by the turnout of what appeared to be half the city of Greenville, in tribute to Marc and his wife Chris. From Rob Buck’s email: “His voice was a smooth as they come and as time passed i realized that a good part of the blended quaility of our ensemble was from Marc.”
Marc grew up in Michigan, graduatin from Cranbrook before arriving in New Haven, received an MBA from Columbia and then began a career in industrial manufacturing and construction that eventually took him from Michigan, where he ran a company, founded by his father, to Greenville, where he became CEO of another company. He was a huge sports fan (the Wolverines especially), a devoted Yale man, a devout member of his Episcopal parish, the husband Chris and the father of Marcus III, Robert, Sarah, Elizabeth, Mary Ellen and Susan. This from Al Atherton: “A mellow voice and a mellow man.”