Anne Applebaum! Guido Calabresi! Maltby and Shire! Think about that! Come next May 23-26, all of these boldfaced names will be yours, exclusively as part of a dazzling 65th Reunion program assembled by our tireless reunion chairman, Don Watson, and his seasoned helpers, past reunion bosses Randy Nye and Charles Nolan, secretary Ed Greenberg and treasurer Al Atherton. It’s quite the lineup. Anne, our excellent classmate Harvey Applebaum’s excellent daughter, has had a luminous career as a journalist and scholar. She won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2004 for her book on the Soviet gulag system; and today, given the crisis in Ukraine, Putin’s aggressive behavior and what appear to be the makings of a new cold war, her insights on Europe and Putin’s Russia are much in demand. We are lucky to have her. For his part, Guido can almost be counted as a wise old friend — Yale ’53, an instructor to some of us, first in his class at Yale Law School, Rhodes Scholar, legendary professor and dean, and judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. As for Dick Maltby and David Shire, our Broadway superstars, what more can be said? We are already in their debt for their performances at various mini-reunions and our 60th, and as of this writing they are working on yet another revue. We’ll get an intimate look at it.
Details, reservation forms, etc., etc. will in due course appear in your mailboxes, but as things stand now the festivities will begin with a welcoming dinner on Thursday, the 23rd, with Anne and Guido speaking on Friday afternoon, Maltby and Shire and supporting cast on Saturday afternoon. Mornings on Friday and Saturday have been set aside for Yale-sponsored offerings. There will be a dance Friday and music from the incomparable Alki Scopelitis at dinner Saturday. Somewhere in there you are likely to find the Whiffs, possibly a memorial service and various other bells and whistles, but you get the general idea. All this at a reasonable out-of-pocket price, given the healthy state of our class treasury. More specifics on that, too, in future mailings.
Two earlier news items slipped through your butterfingered scribe, his fielding skills diminished by age. Bart Schmitt reported earlier this year that he has formally retired after 52 years on the pediatric faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He continues to teach and coach residents and update the telephonic triage and advice protocols he created 30 years ago and are still used in more than 500 medical call centers. Bart, who sings locally and skis the mountains of Colorado, met his wife Mary on a blind date at Yale in 1957. His email, which he is happy to have known, is bartschmittmd@gmail.com.
David Patterson, a Whiff, a teacher, a historian and writer, has published an overdue and riveting study of one of the great but often overlooked dynasties of the Gilded Age, the Pinchots. The star of the clan has always been Gifford Pinchot, an architect of the early environmental movement and TR”s close pal, but his parents and siblings were influential in their own ways,as were later generations, who interacted with Roosevelts and Kennedys, The book — full title is “The Pinchots, A Family History” — is available on Amazon.
This month’s roll call includes four classmates:
Alex Boyle alerted me to the death of Jim Wade, an influential figure in Connecticut legal circles and Democratic party politics who advised several governors and who, from time to time, I would bump into in Parking Lot F at the Bowl, where he tailgated faithfully in support of Yale athletics. Jim grew up in Simsbury and spent most of his life in Connecticut, except for law school at UVa and Navy duty in San Diego. As his obit in the Hartford Courant notes, he was, simply stated, a superb trial attorney with a big personality, who loved the courtroom every bit as much as his Irish heritage and the golf course, where he also excelled, often in the company of visiting classmates like Alex and Steve Clarkson. He leaves his wife, Lainie, a daughter and a son.
Bob Pellaton advised me of the death of David Miller, in Baltimore. We have written here of Dwight, his brother and an admired Harvard administrator. David also lived an exemplary life, with a powerful environmental bent. After military service, a stint as Latin teacher at Taft and a history teacher in Arizona, he received a graduate degree from the Yale Forestry School, then transported his multiple talents, his conservation ethic (and wife Trudy) to Anne Arundel County in Maryland, where he helped persuade Maryland landowners and farmers to put hundreds of thousands of acres into conservation easements, protecting the Chesapeake Bay watershed from ruinous development. Along the way he held senior posts in various environmental organizations and land trusts. He leaves Trudy and three daughters.
Marty Rosol died in August at Waccamaw Community Hospital in Murrells Inlet, S.C. A New Englander who spent the last 16 years in retirement on the South Carolina coast, Marty prepped at Taft before coming to Yale, where he lived in Silliman and helped run the St. Thomas More Club. Marty received a DDS from Columbia University, thereafter running his own dental practice for eight years before receiving an advanced degree in orthodontics from Boston University. He practiced orthodontics for several decades while raising a family in Longmeadow, Mass. An avid fisherman, he spent many happy hours on Long Island Sound, He is survived by his wife, Jeanne, two sons and two daughters.
William Arno Werner, Jr., aka Bill, died at his home in Sausalito ,Ca. on Aug. 21, after three years of declining health. A lifetime Californian, who once said he had never been east of Reno until he was admitted to Yale, Bill grew up in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the 1940’s, the son of a man who repaired and restored cars. He reckoned that Yale took him because he fit perfectly what he described as ” the mid-50’s Ivy League Affirmative Action profile (West Coast, inner city, public high school, working class parents, decent grades, short police record).” Asked by Yale to list the characteristics he would like in a roommate, he replied, “I would like someone from a prep school, since I have never met one, a home in New York City and a dateable sister.” (It is not clear whether he got his wish.) He loved Yale, graduating with a BA and an MA from the architecture school, a wife, and no debt. As an expression of gratitude, he served on Yale-related committees in the San Francisco area for many years. He also had a successful career as an architect, first with Skidmore Owings and Merrill and later as boss of his own firm, which kept going until three years ago. He was active in Sausalito and Marin County politics and civic affairs, and is survived by his daughter, ex-wife Wendy Wilson and longtime companion Patricia Zuch.
All of the above deserve more space than I can give them. At some point fuller obits will appear on our website. Start thinking reunion.