This issue of YAM includes copious notes from reunion classes, many of whose reunions were delayed for two years by Covid. It is therefore requested of non-reunion notes that they be brisk, which is just as well in our case because there is not a lot to report. The Griffiths, as usual, provide news, as Bobbi and Charles pounced on Yale’s successful lacrosse season to hold one of their estimable tailgates near the Bowl in late May, when Yale ended a highly successful regular season with a thrilling last-second one-goal triumph over Harvard, sending the Elis on to the Ivy League tournament and then to the national championships, which Yale won in 2018. Yale has become a major college juggernaut in lacrosse, as it has long been in crew. On hand, some with spouses, were Bob Ittner, Ed Greenberg, Al Atherton, Hugo Krantz and Tony dePalma.
The Griffiths are planning their usual football tailgates this fall, beginning with the first home game against Howard on Oct. 1, followed by Dartmouth and Bucknell Oct 8 and 15, and Brown and Princeton Nov. 5 and 12. Check the Yale athletics website for starting times. Harvard, this year, is up there. The venue, as before, is Parking Lot F.
Howard Klebanoff, who says he always felt “uncomfortable writing about himself,” has now weighed in with a brief summary of his life and career in West Hartford, where he is a prominent attorney and where he remains very active in state, local and private efforts to improve educational opportunities for children with disabilities and their families. This sort of work, for which he has received several honors, has been central to his life. According to Who’s Who, two of Howard’s children suffered from disabilities; a third, Amy, was captain of one of the first of the Yale women’s soccer teams, graduating in 1983. Howard received his JD from the University of Connecticut, and he and his wife Sandy, a former president of the Hartford Board of Education, have been front and center of Hartford’s civic and professional scene for nearly half a century.
David Pleasure is still busy on the West Coast, researching Canavan’s disease, a rare neurological disorder, and consulting in neurology at UC Davis. He stays in touch with Dan Morgan, a retired orthopaedic surgeon who also lives in Davis. The two graduated together from Columbia Medical School in 1963.
Fredric Freund’s wife, Danielle, wrote last year (I misplaced the letter) to report that he had died in France in September. After Yale, where he majored in chemical engineering and lived in Berkeley, Fredric worked in the United States for Goodyear and Polaroid until 1969, the year he married Danielle and settled in Paris. There he remained for the rest of his life, working as a translator in the field of nuclear energy, and producing, with Danielle, three children and four grandchildren. Danielle says that Fred never wanted to write about his own life but that he always checked on classmates he remembered and that Yale meant a lot to him.
Have a great summer. Things are looking up Covid-wise as I write. Let’s hope it remains so.