For once, hallelujah, a class notes with almost no departures to record, instead positive evidence of careers being extended and reputations burnished, well into our 80s. I have three examples.
First (no surprise here) is the remarkable librettist/composer duo of Dick Maltby and David Shire. For three days in December, at Theater 154 in Manhattan,they offered New Yorkers an expanded reprise of their new show, About Time, first unveiled to great applause at our 65th Reunion last May. Ed Greenberg, who made the trip down from Stanford, said he loved the show as much as the first one, even more so because of the enhancements; Mr. Maltby said the reception was pleasantly favorable. And they’re far from done, planning another show in two full acts at the Goodspeed Theater in East Haddam, Ct., in May, after which they hope to find a theater in New York ⃨ and, of course, the substantial sums required of anyone who aspires to Broadway. But this remarkable duo has been there before, and I would put odds on them succeeding again. Dick says that on his own he is preparing a revival of his “Ain’t Misbehavin” at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in September. He invites Chicago Yalies to get in touch with him at remaltby@gmail.com. “Show business continues to be fun,” he writes. “Who knew?”
Next comes a book whose final editing kept its author, Jack Maresca, in Europe during our reunion ⃨ “Ukraine: Putin’s War for Russia’s ‘Near Abroad.” The subtitle summarizes its central theme: “How the War over Ukraine Reflects Putin’s Broader Effort to Re-Establish Moscow’s Control over the Whole of What Was the USSR.” As a diplomat, ambassador and senior aide to two Secretary Generals of NATO, Jack has spent much of his life immersed in the long struggle for a lasting peace with Moscow. He was a key member of the American delegation at the meetings in the 1970s of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which produced the Helsinki Accords, in turn setting the stage for multilateral agreements in Paris in 1990 that, in Jack’s words, constituted the official and practical end of the Cold War. A bit later, at the behest of Secretary of State Jim Baker, Jack visited all the old (and newly freed) satellite states, including Ukraine. Now, says Jack, Vladimir Putin would upend all that. Hell-bent on reviving Russia’s territorial reach, Putin wants these countries back, in one way or another. Hence Ukraine. As I write, President-elect Trump is floating the idea of a negotiated settlement. Jack Maresca’s warning, as I understand it, is simply this: the West cannot cave in, and indeed should pursue a collective, strategic response that counters both the immediate challenges in Ukraine and also Putin’s broader ambition to take back as much as possible the full territory of the old USSR. And the U.S, he makes clear, can’t go it alone.
Third and lastly, Charley Ellis, whose book “Winning the Loser’s Game” has been a longtime favorite among investors seeking a safe, sensible and successful investment strategy, has written a new and shorter book, 100 pages or so, that builds on his own career as well as his 17-year association with the late David Swensen, the mastermind behind Yale’s robust endowment. The title is “Rethinking Investment.” It focuses on long-term investing and includes, among other pieces of wise counsel, a shout-out to index funds that, in addition to familiar virtues like low fees, “don’t fall prey to the dragons of Behavioral Economics.”
We do have one loss ⃨ Edison Dick, known as Eddie to me, who died in December at 87 in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Born to a prominent family in the Chicago area, and schooled at Deerfield, Edison was an unwaveringly upbeat person with an infectious smile. At Yale, his sister Titia introduced him to Sally, a talented Smith student. They married in 1960, and after three years at U Va ⃨ he earning a law degree, she a master’s in French ⃨ they moved to Washington, where Edison soon joined a Chicago law firm as its Washington partner. With a lifelong interest in foreign affairs, he held important positions in the United Nations Association, the Foundation for Middle East Peace and the American Bar Association’s section on international law, somehow finding the time to travel widely, ski, play tennis, root for Washington’s hockey team, and, with Sally, raise two children. All three survive him.