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CLASS NOTES
Stanley H. Gotliffe Ah, the power of the media. In response to my “please write,” I received some mail! Doug Gruber writes from Sun City Center, Fla., that he is making a slow but steady recovery from shingles, which he came down with early in December 2001. He concurs with a friend who informed him that “Getting old is not for sissies.” Doug also reports the death of Quentin T. Brown in Sterling, Va., which occurred late in 2001. Quent had sustained a stroke earlier in the year. Surviving are his wife, Louise, a son, a daughter and three grandchildren. George R. Schmidt, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska, was a mining engineer who worked for the Bureau of Land Management and retired in 1985. He says he now gets “paid to stay out of the office.” His wife, Lucy, died in 1967 but he has three children — identical twin sons, both engineers, who live in Alaska, and a daughter who lives in England. George has six grandchildren. In June 2000, he learned that he has chronic myelogenous leukemia. We all certainly wish him the best. N.T. Wang’s written an autobiography, My Nine Lives, published by Writers Club Press and recently released. He presented excerpts from the book on April 22 at SIPA. Cynthia and Arthur Friedman were among the attendees. Joe Coffee now is a Manhattanite, having sold his home in
New Jersey. This places him closer to some of his family and to
Columbia.
Herbert Mark The deadline for these notes came and passed during preparations
for our 60th reunion. Notes in the next issue of CCT will
tell that story. Meanwhile, we are still absorbing the news of the
loss of our class president. Vic Zaro was the original loyal
Columbian, a friend to all of us and the glue that held our class
together. We were planning the reunion together. Carrying on was
not easy because it involved breaking the news of Vic’s death
to so many old friends. Our thoughts are with Vic’s family.
[Editor’s note: Please see obituary in this
issue.]
Dr. Donald Henne McLean
Walter Wager Gordon Cotler: Latest in his well-received series of short stories about a New York City detective is “Farber Loses a Dependent,” which lit up the June issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Mort Lindsey: Gifted composer-conductor-music director continues to decline suggestions that he pen a memoir. He worked with legends including Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Merv Griffin. He graces a TV talk fest now and then, most recently Larry King Live, and celebrates sage, energetic and vocally-talented spouse, plus heirs and assigns. Leonard Koppett: Master sports scribe of Baseball Hall of Fame repute continues his artful crafting of an intriguing new book to be titled The Rise and Fall of the Press Box. This young gent’s a recognized historian, too, with a treasure trove of lore, anecdotes and past participles. William E. Drenner: A ’44 Phi Beta Kappa and retired banker who was as tough as he was intelligent succumbed to Parkinson’s on April 15 in Fort Worth. While this column doesn’t usually report such, his family’s suggestion that friends may celebrate this multi-talented Southern gentleman with contributions to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, 710 W. 168th St., Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032-9982 merits consideration. Dr. Robert Fishman: Superbly savvy in physician stuff as professor of neurology at Medical School of University of California in free-spirited San Francisco, he rejects the standard definition of emeritus to come in several days a week to advance medical knowledge. His neurology textbook is in its second printing. Walter Wager: Suggests that fast-talking ’44 lads
who phone with news leave their names or at least an alias. He used
his real byline in a May article on BookExpo America for the Denver
Post.
Clarence W. Sickles With regret, I report that the only correspondence I have received is from Don M. Mankiewicz ’42, who questioned the reported number of spectators at the 1934 New Year’s Day football game in Pasadena, Calif., when Columbia upset favored Stanford 7–0. The number listed in the previous issue of Columbia College Today was incorrectly stated at 3,500 when it should have been 35,000, according to the Home News (New Brunswick, N.J.) article of January 2, 1934. Don thought the attendance was about 75,000, which he recalls from memory as one who saw the game with his father, Herman ’17, who, as a Columbian with great faith in his college team, made a huge bet on the Lions despite the odds favoring Stanford. I am sending the newspaper article to Don with thanks for his input. Nice to think of such an important Columbia football victory before a crowd of any number. I regret to say that, as is true with all the Ivy League teams, the attendance at Columbia football games these days might not be double the 3,500 mentioned in the previous issue. Anyone have a brilliant idea in regard to increasing the attendance at the games? As you might know, your class correspondent is a certified graphologist who studied the subject at Felician College in Lodi, N.J., for three years. I constantly am amazed how often the theory is substantiated in actuality. Look at the 1898 note written by Mark Twain on page 24 of the Spring 2002 issue of Columbia for just two interesting traits of graphology. Notice the d’s in the words “obliged” and “sending” in the second line and “hard” in the fifth line. They are not natural d’s as taught in school but are referred to as “delta d’s” in graphology terms. Also, notice the g’s in “obliged” in the second line and “Spring” in the ninth line. They resemble the number “8.” These graphic expressions indicate culture, a creative mind, literary talent and one who has a “way with words.” Fit Mark Twain? I notice on page 43 of the same magazine the article “How the Gesture Summons the Word.” Robert Kraus, a social psychologist and director of the Human Communication Laboratory at Columbia, writes: “We make movements with our hands to help us think.” Would this statement have relevance for graphology? I should like to confer with Kraus and other members of the psychology department at Columbia about the significance of graphology and would be interested to hear their comments about the meaning of the traits in Mark Twain’s writing. Hope someone brings the comments to their attention. By the way, Kraus and some classmates might be interested in the definition of handwriting as given by an eminent graphologist. “Handwriting is the permanently visible record of graphic communication and behavior produced by dynamic impulses from the brain and expressed by the mind through time and space in unique neuromuscular and psychological patterns according to the personality of the writer.” How does this definition fit in with your writing? Classmates, this is the only kind of thing I can do with this column if you don’t send news. I would rather be writing about the interesting things you are doing in your lives. Please let me hear from you. Our honorees this time are Herbert M. Margoshes of Marblehead, Mass.; Dr. John C. Nelson of NYC; Dr. John S. Peck Jr. of Malibu, Calif. and Lester H. Rosenthal of Merrick, N.Y. May we hear from or about these honorees?
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