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CLASS NOTES
Henry S. Coleman
It was a very small turnout for our 55th. Six classmates showed up: Bernie Sunshine, Carlo Cella, August Sapega, Chuck Fabso, Aihud Pevsner and your scribe, Harry Coleman. We had lunch in Lerner Hall with the Classes of 1931 and 1936. The evening found us in Low Library as guests of the Class of 1976 which was celebrating its 25th. We had the privilege of hearing from President George Rupp on that occasion. Aihud Pevsner has just retired as professor of physics at Johns Hopkins. He was in town to help his wife celebrate her 50th reunion at Barnard. Margaret and Gus Sapega were heading for a trip from Berlin to Brussels. Carlo Cella boasted about his first great-grandchild. (Are there any other classmates who can report on great-grandchildren?) Bernie Sunshine looked a bit relieved at having finally completed his stint as president of the Alumni Federation. He was very excited about several programs he instituted to bring alumni closer to the students and the community. Charles Kiscaddon regretted he could not attend reunion, but he and his wife were headed for Perrysburg, Ohio, for his granddaughter's graduation from high school. Gene Rogers was glad to hear reports about John McConnell in this column, since he had good memories of seeing him when he was living on Long Island. Gene writes, "He is a charming guy and has apparently been very successful. My recollection is that John fathered a large number of children." John McConnell, who is becoming one of my favorite correspondents, wrote me a bit about the history of North Idaho. He indicated that due to errors on the part of the original surveyors of the territory, the people of North Idaho have always felt cheated that Montana got more land than they were entitled to. Now if we only had a classmate in Montana to respond. Steve Seadler's Ending the Bronze Age, a 77-page Mideast-focused digest of his revolutionary Principia Ideologica: A Treatise on Combatting Human Malignance, has just been published and already acquired by the Libraries of Columbia, Harvard, Oxford and Princeton Universities and the United Nations, among others. It is being considered at the highest levels in Israel. Steve is available at ses146@columbia.edu. Howard Clifford called from Low Point, Colorado where he has started a therapy program for couch potatoes. He is persuading everyone to take the TV sets outside and watch the programs from camping stools. His only clients thus far have been a few Indians from the local reservation. They can't wait to tie into Howard's new dish. Howard missed the reunion because he was out fund-raising for his program and forgot the date. Howard says he has three great-grandchildren so the race is on. Let's hear from the rest of you.
George W. Cooper The magic carpet of modern technology is not without its moth holes. Ed Gold sent a report on his current activities but it never reached your correspondent. He followed up with another e-mail which was received, and concluded his efforts with a letter duly delivered by the good ol' postal service. The contents of the first message remain a state secret, but his second communication advised that he still resides in Greenwich Village and contributes articles to the local paper, The Villager. When he reads this item, let us hope that Ed supplies the missing details in time for the next issue of CCT, by mail, by phone, or if persistence wins out, once more by e-mail. Bob Lovett reports that the Confederacy tried but failed to keep a new recruit. Bob and his wife, Phyllis, lifetime residents of Queens, N.Y., moved to coastal South Carolina awhile ago following their retirement from teaching careers. A comfortable home, pleasant weather and nearby beaches failed to overcome the loss of easy access to Broadway (and off-Broadway) theaters, ballet, concerts, and, not to be overlooked, the varied wares of New York delicatessens. To make a long story short, they are back in Queens, enjoying all of its advantages. That's two items for this issue's column, a 200 percent increase. Contributions furthering this gain will be appreciated. Meanwhile, we conclude with this note from the Office of Alumni Affairs and Development: Reunion weekend for '2 and '7 classes (ours included, natch) is scheduled for May 30 to June 2, 2002. "The weekend will include Broadway shows followed by cocktails, museum tours, class dinner, panels and the Starlight Reception." Surely, the cocktails should follow the tours to maintain sobriety while enjoying great art, but regardless, it sounds like it will be quite a bash. Anyone interested in helping plan the weekend activities is asked to contact this correspondent or, if preferred, Chris Long of the Alumni Affairs Office (cl884@columbia.edu).
Theodore Melnechuk Not long ago, Dr. Arthur E. Bradley kindly sent me drafts of two of the crossword puzzles he contrives for Joslin's Jazz Journal. I was able to solve almost all of the clues without recourse to the accompanying answers, which he'd folded up and marked "no peeking!" For several years, Arthur's draft puzzles have been edited and revised by classmate Jean Turgeon of Montreal, who finds errors and points out clues that are too obscure, which Arthur then changes. Another friend of his was the late David Stefanye, who died last fall. Arthur was best man at David's wedding in 1956 and misses his long-time friend. Arthur lives at 146 Beech St., Floral Park, NY 11001. Cardiologist George Dermksian, M.D., treated patients for four decades, and for many of those years he was listed in Castle Connolly's How to Find the Best Doctors in New York and in the Center for the Study of Services' Guide to Top Doctors. Now George is retired from cardiology, but he continues to teach house staff members and cardiology fellows at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York. George lives at 1115 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10128-0100. As an undergraduate, James J. Griffith M.D. was a pre-med overwhelmed by taking 20 points per semester, with many time-consuming labs in physics, chemistry and zoology, while he was a "dayhop" commuting from Mt. Vernon, N.Y. For these reasons, he was unable to form many friendships at Columbia, which he regrets. However, he did become a fan of classmate Dick Hyman after hearing Dick "grace the keyboards" in Earl Hall. Nowadays, in retirement not far from where Dick lives at 613 Menendez St., Venice, FL 34285-2119, Jim attends gatherings of the local Columbia Club and Ivy League Club. He lives at Apt. 416, 998 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota, FL 34236. Speaking of Dick Hyman, that pianist, organist, arranger, conductor and composer packed a century of jazz piano into a single night on March 24 at the Tisch Center for the Arts/92nd St. Y in Manhattan. He recreated the styles of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Art Tatum, Cecil Taylor and Bill Evans. Dick was joined by guitarist Vincent Bell, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Dennis Mackrell in a recital and lecture enhanced by projections. (Talk about a weak form of name destiny: ideally Bell would play the chimes and Reid a clarinet.) Johnson (Jack) Levering, who was pleased by my review of his book, Into the Wind, in the previous edition of these notes, has copies of the 1947 and 1948 Columbia College yearbooks, and wonders if they would be useful to anyone. You can write Jack at Apt. 1203, Holley Court Terrace, 1111 Ontario St., Oak Park, IL 60302-1985. Ever since retired professor of English Louis T. Milic fulfilled my request to be sent some reprints of his studies in stylistics a year ago, I have been meaning to write him about them. I still intend to, but recently relieved some of my tardy-correspondent's guilt by sending him, I hope for his amusement, what strikes me as a funny account of the inhibiting effect on a novelist of a stylistics study of his novels. The account is in David Lodge's novel Small World: An Academic Romance, first published in 1984 and reprinted in 1995 in a Penguin Books paperback edition, wherein the passage in question is on pages 182-185. Happy autumn!
Joseph B. Russell Victor Gualano, whose name has not heretofore appeared in this space (to the best of my recollection, which declines arithmetically with time), reports that after 38 years of public school teaching he retired in 1995 with the fixed conviction that there is no greater threat to America and to the future of democracy than the repression of free speech in our public schools. He adds that repression of free press and speech is but one side of a coin whose reverse side is violence in our schools. Among our members are many former schoolteachers — do any of you want to comment further on this challenging statement? Talk to me! Just as I readied this text for submission I learned from friend Ted Melnechuk (my '48 counterpart above) the sad news of the death on June 24 of Kenneth Holden. Ted knew him in high school at Brooklyn Tech, where they served on the committee that founded its still-published literary magazine, Horizons, and after many years of non-contact resumed correspondence with him five or six years ago. Ken had been one of the unfortunate CCNY faculty members who lost their tenured positions in its 1976 retrenchment; he was a dedicated and talented member of its English faculty. I met him for the first time at a faculty party of some sort in the early '70s and we became friends who spoke and wrote to one another at fairly frequent intervals, but lost touch after he left the city a few years after his job loss. He had for the last several years, one learns now, been seriously ill with esophageal cancer. With Ted, I mourn his passing. His light shone brightly while he was among us. On a more cheery note, our very own reunion luncheon speaker may yet again address us, but the next time we hear from Charlie Peters he will speak as a member of the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Magazine Editors, to which lofty post he was elevated on May 2 for lifetime achievement. That honor came one day after he retired from his longtime post as editor-in-chief of The Washington Monthly. He is the first Hall of Fame member to be selected from a political magazine. Charlie has for the past 33 years nurtured his small but unusually influential political magazine, one that changed policy debate in Washington and has spawned a generation of talented journalists, many of whom now occupy top posts at The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic and Newsweek. Despite his retirement, he will continue writing his lively "Tilting at Windmills" column for the old magazine. Congratulations to him, and this subscriber looks forward to the continuing column — which he has always enjoyed reading — in future issues. Among the luminaries receiving the Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology at a Gracie Mansion reception in March, we are pleased and proud to have found Dominick Purpura, a neuroscientist and dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in a group that also included three Columbia faculty members. A personal sidelight — my wife was a member of the initial Mayor's Committee appointed by Ed Koch for the purpose of designating awardees and it was a fascinating responsibility for her while it lasted. Globetrotting golfer Gene Straube and his wife, Marie, recently returned from a one month trip through South America, visiting Lima, Cuzco, Macchu Picchu, Bariloche in the Andes, Buenos Aires, Iguassu Falls and Rio de Janeiro, plus four days each in the Galapagos and Easter Island, all for the first time, during which they also managed to get in six rounds of golf with rented clubs. The trip, via PrivatJet 737, is highly recommended by Gene to any classmate who has yet to visit South America. That's all for now. Remember to write or e-mail either to me or to CCT with your news — you can be sure that someone among our classmates will welcome what you have to report.
Mario Palmieri Norman Dorsen was one of five distinguished U.S. citizens to be honored last year with the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights. President Clinton presented the award to Norman at a White House ceremony in December. The citation stated, in part: "For half a century... Norman Dorsen has been a tenacious and outspoken defender of human rights, using the power of law to uphold civil rights at home and human dignity around the world." Norman served for many years as president of the American Civil Liberties Union and as chairman of the board of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. Additional honors in 2000 included recognition by the Society of American Law Teachers as its founding president, and to celebrate Norman's 40 years of "inspirational teaching and progressive leadership," the editors of the Annual Survey of American Law dedicated this year's volume 58 to Norman. He continues as Stokes Professor at NYU School of Law, chair of the Global Law School Program and co-director of the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program. Glenn Lubash must have really loved our 50-year reunion. He says he is looking forward to the reunion in 2005! He also says that he is enjoying life in Corpus Christi and is just taking it easy. Paul McCoy, in Clearwater, Fla., has never lost his affinity for chemistry. He started a small business, Chemmart Associates, 31 years ago and it is still operating. Paul's career has been in agribusiness and he developed carboxylates of micronutrients for commercial crops and turf, for which he was awarded a patent. Although claiming to have no news of himself, Dan O'Keefe does report that his son, Laurence, is winning awards and spectacular reviews for his creation, Bat Boy: The Musical. Laurence's music and lyrics won him the Jonathan Larson Award and the show was voted "Best Off-Broadway Musical" by three critics' groups and was granted two Richard Rodgers Development Awards. Ari Roussos and his wife, Mary, have welcomed their ninth grandchild. (A record? See below.) Ari reports also that in his extended family (son, nephews, grandsons) there are seven with the middle name of "Aristotle." A well-deserved honor, Ari! The power of the press: Bob Schiller received some nice responses to his request, in a prior Class Notes column, for contacts from people who were associated with WKCR or the Players. Bob has a new e-mail address: bob.gloria@home.com (note the dot between the names). Spain is a long way to go for a graduation, but Arthur Trezise and his wife, Lucia, traveled to Barcelona for son Patrick's graduation (MBA) from IESE (University of Navarra). Arthur Westing has a new e-mail address: westing@sover.net. Now that you've read about Ari's nine grandchildren, can anyone top that number? It might be fun to find out. For a fair comparison, though, we should count only those from one marriage. Combined families from multiple marriages could be a separate category if you're of a mind to do so. Let me know! In a prior issue I asked to hear from those who have celebrated their golden wedding anniversaries. Not a large number so far, but hey, we've been out of school only 51 years, so I'm certain that the number will increase. To date we have three: Marie and Ray Annino, Lois and Dudley Rochester and Jan and George Rogers. On a somber note, there are two obituaries to report: Eugene Ahrens died in April. Gene operated his own photography business and was a specialist in scenic photography. His work was featured in newspapers, magazines, books, calendars, greeting cards and jigsaw puzzles. He is survived by his wife, Astrid. Paul Burrell died in January. Paul had retired as associate professor of Romance language at the University of Cincinnati. He and his wife, Rachel, founded Fernside: A Center for Grieving Children after their oldest son died in an accident, and Paul devoted his time to that endeavor after his retirement. Paul is survived by his wife, three children and four grandchildren.
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