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CLASS NOTES
Henry S. Coleman
P.O. Box 1283
New Canaan, CT 06840
cct@columbia.edu
The
good news is that they are now publishing Columbia College
Today six times a year. The bad news is that your class
correspondent cannot make news out of thin air all of the time.
Even with the scandalous Howard Clifford calling in with his
fascinating news, I need help from the rest of you. Howard, by the
way, is now in High Point, Nev., where he is teaching his three
great-grandchildren blackjack in anticipation of a move to Las
Vegas.
I
did receive the following other note: "Steve Seadler urges
that everyone concerned about war/peace, arms control, NMD and
especially terrorism visit his new Web site, Terror1.com."
George W. Cooper
P.O. Box 1311
Stamford, CT 06904-1311
cct@columbia.edu
This
is the first contribution from our class to CCT's new
six-times-a-year publishing schedule and hardly reflective of the
"high level of interest among alumni" (quoting the announcement
about the extended publishing schedule). As this is written, there
is nothing to report, having received exactly that from our
classmates. In these "parlous" times of earthquakes, droughts,
fires, explosions, civil wars and other catastrophes, natural and
man-made, it seems almost pitiful to complain of utter silence.
Still, it is your class correspondent's responsibility to fill this
space with some regularity. In the circumstances, no less, and, it
seems, no more can be done than to plead for class members' news of
any sort, but preferably good, for future issues.
Theodore Melnechuk
251 Pelham Road
Amherst, MA 01002-1684
neuropoe@sbs.umass.edu
On
August 8, there came a note
From Donna Satow, which I quote:
"September 10 is your next deadline."
As I marked it with a red line,
That's too soon, I thought, to reach
Vacationers who've hit the beach,
Or taken tours to Nome or Rome;
How few I call will yet be home!
And even if I get in touch
With guys enough, there's still so much
Rewriting that I'll have to do
To make it flow along for you,
The time I have is not enough
To get and then write up good stuff.
Donna suggested I could write
A mere description of my plight
And/or express a pleading hope
That by the next time you'd send dope,
But though I've sometimes jogged your pen,
I don't like doing that again,
Believing that each notes should give
Its readers something substantive,
And in a style not just prosaic
But from time to time voltaic.
Yet even could I write with speed,
To do a piece you'd like to read
Would take more time than I had got;
I felt that I was in a spot.
Then
inspiration, as it will,
Informed me how I still might fill
This hurried column in a style
To make perusal worth your while.
Specifically, I thank my Muse
For two suggestions I could use:
She told me, "Write it up in verse,
So that it will not be too terse,
And since you have so little time,
Write it in verse that uses rhyme!"
Her
pair of helpful hints may be
A paradox to you; not me:
To aging poets, both of those
Come easier than writing prose,
For rhyme and meter less constrain
Than lubricate a poet's brain,
Which is at least an artful place
Where words are made to dance with grace,
Unless he's of that tone-deaf type
Whose sentences, of tuneless stripe,
Their unmelodic minds discharge in
Lines that lack a flush right margin,
Wrongly sure such lines must be
The proof their prose is poetry.
But verbal music is the heart
Of narrative and lyric art,
For poetry is the semantic
Branch of music, grave or antic;
As each valid poet knows,
When Poetry was raped by Prose,
She damned her rapist with a curse
And called their bastard child Free Verse.
But
I digress ... I must begin
To weave your information in.
Here goes, then, Class of '48:
Couplets to bring you up to date,
In four-beat lines like those of Swift
(So that you quickly get my drift),
Which, though they lack the charm of Spenser,
Editors (free speech!) can't censor.
Doggerel, at worst; at best,
Something to pique your interest.
I
got an e-mail from our class-
mate Durham Caldwell (Springfield, Mass.)
To let me know my mention of
The book he'd edited with love
On veterans of World War Two
Had done what plugs are meant to do—
Led Robert Silbert, valedictorian,
To order one from our historian.
In
that great city wherein we
Each earned his bachelor's degree,
The Y on 92nd Street,
Where music lovers often meet,
Hosted a night, the first of three
On aspects of jazz history,
That featured two live bands, produced
By our Dick Hyman. The first unloosed,
Through Dick's transcriptions, long-lost things
By The New Orleans Rhythm Kings,
Who had advanced young jazz a-plenty
By the time in '2-and-20
When they first recorded. Then
Dick's second band of expert men
Played jazz of more sophistication-
Jelly Roll Morton's own creation.
(That line's as syncopated as
Many a bar of Jelly Roll's jazz).
Ben Ratliff wrote The Times review
These lines have versified for you;
He gave Dick's second band high praise
For making Morton's music blaze.
Too
many phone calls come from peddlers,
Survey hacks, or other meddlers
Out to get what you might send,
But sometimes it's an old lost friend
Who finds your number out and calls,
And 50 years of silence falls.
Just such a telephonic perk
Restored my link to Lewis Kurke '49
(Who graduated from our College
Later than we did, to my knowledge).
We two were friends in those late '40s;
We would make off-campus sorties,
Once to see Monsieur Verdoux
When that old Chaplin film was new,
But further meetings were recessed
After my bride and I moved west;
Then children came, and somehow we
Lost touch for half a century.
Then Lew, a top psychiatrist,
Revived the friendship we had missed.
He lives in Phoenix, but, while east,
He called and said, "Let's have a feast!"
Agreed! Quite soon we met for dinner
(Each one balder but not thinner);
Taking turns for hours, we
Summarized 50 years in three,
Then spent another hour on
Old friends like Allen who are gone.
It's great when guys you used to know
Call from the blue and say hello!
And greater still to see again
A dear old friend who knew you when!
Do
you remember when I tried
To find Bill Vessie? Someone eyed
My plea, who lives in Kalispell,
Montana, too, and knows Bill well—
Craig S. DeYoung, who got in touch,
For which I thank him very much,
As well as for his thoughtfulness
In sending Bill's e-mail address
And other information which
I've used to make this section rich.
I e-mailed Bill, who promptly e-
Mailed back a cheerful, short c.v.
(Including his new mail address):
Six years at med school (P&S),
Five at a hospital (Roosevelt),
Then 31 years when he dwelt,
Among the Rockies that attract us
To the west, in private practice,
Till in '90 he retired.
Meanwhile Dr. Bill had sired,
With wife, Donna, children who
Have since produced grandchildren too.
While practicing as an M.D.,
Bill found the time for falconry,
As well as time to hunt, fish, ski,
And race his quarter horses; he
Even roped calves professionally.
Bill's also had his share of pain,
About which he does not complain,
Content that he has kept on being:
In '64, a fall while skiing
Made him quadriplegic, till
A year of exercise helped Bill
Recover somewhat (so says Craig,
Whose admiration isn't vague);
Then Fate gave Bill another poke:
A year ago, he had a stroke.
But though impaired, he's not a wreck;
His e-mail ended, "What the heck!"
That's all the info Bill sent back,
For with his customary lack
Of boastfulness, he just left out
Achievements other men would shout:
Craig says Bill did, in only two
Years, what most rivals never do—
By practicing with little rest,
Become one of the world's 10 best
At roping calves at rodeos,
And Calgary's was one of those.
Athletically, young Bill was great
When we were ripe to graduate.
The high jump record that he set
In '48, no jumper'd get
To break, says Craig, for 30 years!
That long did Bill transcend his peers.
Columbia, Bill's 78!
Please honor him before too late!
And classmates, here's the new address he
Sent me: "William A. Vessie,
P. 0. Box 9675";
Then, to ensure your notes arrive,
Add "Kalispell, MT"; append
His ZIP code at that same line's end:
"59904" (don't deprive
That of its "dash 2675").
P.S.: This is the only time
That I will write class notes in rhyme.
Now that the exercise is done,
I hope you've had what I had, fun;
If not, I'm at your call and beck.
To quote Bill Vessie, "What the heck!"
Joseph B. Russell
180 Cabrini Blvd., #21
New York, NY 10033
objrussell@earthlink.net
John Weaver is trying to put together an e-mail
directory for our class. Our 55th anniversary coincides with the
250th of the College. Please contact him at wudchpr@aol.com if you have an e-mail
address, as it will facilitate faster and closer communication
among us.
Mario Palmieri
33 Lakeview Avenue W.
Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567
mapal@bestweb.net
The
Core Curriculum never leaves us. Carmine Bianchi writes: "I
really appreciate my liberal arts education at Columbia. After
retiring from Thomas Jefferson Medical College in 1997, I continued
teaching a colloquium on Hippocrates, Maimonides and Albert
Schweitzer. The course is modeled on my courses with Professor
William Casey."
Howard Hanson reports that "no big deal" is occurring
with him, but he did "hike his feet off" with his 4-year-old
grandson in Colorado over the summer. (No doubt that would be a big
deal to some of us old folks.) Howard, a dedicated Midwesterner,
says that "Westward ho!" seems to be the watchword in his family as
his son and other relatives move to Colorado.
Under the heading of "It's never too late:" Ralph Italie
says that it was a "most pleasant surprise" to him and his wife,
Barbara, when their middle child, Michael (well over age 40), was
married last spring. Michael and his bride, Pamela, live in
Miami.
Milton Levine has overcome some severe medical problems
and has recovered sufficiently to resume playing tennis. Milton,
although retired from medical practice, is still teaching
residents, fellows and medical students at Long Island Jewish
Hospital.
Alex MacDonell has fully retired from the ministry. No
more "keeping a hand in" by substituting for clergy who had to be
temporarily away from their parishes, he says. Alex continues to
talk enthusiastically about the cochlear implant that his wife,
Clare, had undergone and which he reported earlier in this column.
"To any of our classmates who have nerve impairment-related hearing
problems," he says, "a cochlear implant is miraculous! Clare would
be happy to tell them about it."
Joe Mehan, an adjunct professor at SIPA for 10 years,
retired last year and has since been busy writing a critical
analysis of America's media evolution since WWII and its impact on
the global media scene. Joe was a working journalist for 20 years
and spent 12 years at the United Nations working on media
issues.
Bob Schiller and his wife, Gloria, California residents,
traveled to NYC for the wedding of Gloria's son, Howard Klar, to
Jennifer Kerstein.
Gerald Weissmann, in his fourth decade as professor at
the NYU School of Medicine, has had a literary career as well. His
seventh book of belletristic essays, The Year of the Genome,
was published this year (Times Books/Henry Holt) at the same time
that an earlier work, Darwin's Audubon, was reissued in
paperback (Perseus). Gerald's wife, Ann, has been curator of
well-received shows of fine art at the New-York Historical Society;
his daughter, Lisa, is chief of oncology at Cambridge, Mass. City
Hospital; and his son, Andrew, is chief of the criminal division in
the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District in New
York.
Sad
to report, Daniel Kocan died on September 4 in Frederick,
Md. Dan's entire career was in teaching college mathematics and he
retired in 1990 as professor at the State University of New York,
Potsdam. He is survived by his wife, Teresita, and two
daughters.
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