“good,” safe from foreign attack, fiscally sound and political diverse, but not as partisan as it has become. Jack Hodgson—I am not a dual citizen, and so I have visa problems for the long haul. My Russian friends want to fix me up with a Russian wife! . . . I met a Deerfield grad (Class of 1987) in Moscow. He is a VP for the Russian oil company Rosneft. I hope to see more of him in the coming year. He is a very interesting person (married to a Russian).Except for age and finances, we have a lot in common! My oldest daughter, living in Finland, is still unemployed. Translation services and teaching English are down the tubes at the moment. My youngest daughter graduated this year from Syracuse University, summa cum laude, and hopes to be accepted in a vet school for the coming year. In the meantime, she will be working as a research assistant for Bristol Meyers. My third daughter, majoring in chemical engineering at Bucknell, will graduate this spring. She has applied for a job in Italy, but who knows. Any suggestions? In my spare time (plenty of it), I have been writing and swimming. As a reaction to all the negative news about Russia, I wrote a short article about the changes that I have experienced since my first trip to the Soviet Union in 1955 (when I danced with a Komsomol girl in the Kremlin on New Year’s Eve). My message is that one shouldn’t
let the negative eliminate the positive. No journal seems interested in what I wrote. On the swimming front, I am currently (not to last, I’m sure) in the Top Ten nationally for three events. Bang French—2009 was quite an exciting year for these 75-year-old bones. On the evening of March 3, I survived a heart attack. Then in June I put a Roush turbo charger in my Mustang GT, pushing the horsepower to 445. I had been having angina for a few months prior to March 3, particularly after walking briskly for more than eight minutes; so it was no surprise to me when the angina got rather strong on the pain level at 9:30 PM. At 10 PM, pain still in the chest, I decided I had better go to the emergency room at the Monterey Community Hospital. My thought was that I had waited too long so the shortest time to get there was via my Mustang. It took only a few minutes and I only got lost once—it was raining and I had never been to this hospital. I walked in and made my announcement; so the nurse writes down my name and SS number and then shuffles me into the ER room. One of the ER docs says to me, after reading the paper, “You don’t look like you are having a heart attack with pain level eight.” I quip right back to him, “Because I have been meditating for 40 years, I can contain the pain. But it is still here in my chest.” So they give me a couple of sprays of nitroglycerin under
my tongue, and then follow with four baby aspirin. My BP was soaring into outer space, and the EKG confirmed that, indeed, I was having a plaque attack. When the nurse said they were about to give me morphine, I said I didn’t need it. But she said that it dilates the arteries, which was needed. To conclude, the cardiologist arrives and puts in three stints, after first using a balloon to squash the plaque against the artery walls. One piece of plaque had broken off, and then had gone forward and blocked the artery. I spent that night and the next, and then went home. But I had to get a friend to pick up my Mustang GT. Now I am better than ever. Every morning I do yoga and 65 deep knee bends, and at night I walk a brisk 20 minutes. The increased circulation has nearly cleared up my lumbar pain. And the echo exam showed there was no heart damage. Jim McKinney—I moved to Hamden at the end of August, 2008, and have never looked back. It was the wisest decison I think I have ever made. Have made new and very different friends. I’m editing a community newspaper and will spend all of May and half of June in Italy with my Italian lady friend, who will return with me just in time for my son’s graduation from medical school. She does not speak much English but my Italian is just fine. Jim Schoff—As for class notes for the past year we’ve moved with the seasons
deerfield.edu
class notes
a book on the growth of our family company and the development of Jupiter Island in early July after returning from a family safari to Kenya. At times I think I am close to finishing it, but begin to add and rewrite and need three weeks of uninterrupted time to finish the deed, but my calendar is too full and I may have to face the fact that the book won’t be finished until late spring. My wife, Alita, and I celebrated 44 years of marriage in January. Our three children are well, productive, and remain very close to both of us. We are very lucky to have our son, Adrian, and his wife living six miles west of the Island on a ranch. Their three sons are very close to us. The eldest, Benjamin, is a freshman at Deerfield. The younger members go to nearby schools where they are busy and give Alita the opportunity to be a soccer grandmother! My golf has suffered, as I became infected with well-known African protozoa in late June. Despite a number of efforts, the beasts still are holding out in my gut. A recent week of inspection: stem to stern proves that my body is sound, but that the beasts have doubled and redoubled in number. I am taking a maximum amount of a killer drug and hopefully ten days from now I may be clear. I worry about our country excessively but so do all members of our class who have been good citizens and expected our country to remain a dominate power for
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