www.andover.edu/intouch “Coincidentally, my sister married Thruse Hammer ’42, who played varsity baseball at Andover and was a teammate of George Bush ’42. After PA, Thrus served in the Navy aboard LSTs during the Okinawa invasion and other battles in the Pacific. He later went to Yale. At age 91, he still works at Sturbridge Village. “Incidentally, my oldest son, Tim Hudner, attended Andover, graduating in 1977. He was president of West Quad and captain of the swim team. A few days after graduation he went to Marine boot camp at Parris Island. He graduated from there in time to enter Dartmouth, where for four years he was in the active reserves, attending weekend training each month and two weeks each year. “That’s about it. Seems like I’m bragging, but you asked, and if I refused, it might appear I had something to hide when, in reality, my brothers were my role models.” But, of course, Phil was president of our class. Ken MacWilliams, our tireless editor/publisher of the class VCR, writes of a recent appointment he has received: “A month ago I accepted an invitation to join the international board of the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES). The global mission of ACRES is to develop high and consistent worldwide quality and safety standards and operating systems for all medical devices and drug research throughout the world that involves human subjects. The senior leadership of ACRES is the same that led the United States government when it developed the gold standards for clinical trials that now exist in the United States and that serve as an example worldwide.” George Shapiro, wife Ray Ann, and Jon Foote recently met up and had a nice two-hour (no martinis) lunch together at the Sport Bar & Grill in Livingston, Mont., reminiscing about many things. George sent a picture, but it was taken with a camera phone and is not reproducible for this magazine. I had an opportunity to visit with Carol and Dick Carlson, Jan and Roger Whitcomb, Ellen and Dick Starratt, Sid Unobskey, Tim Hogen, and other Andover classmates at the Yale 55th reunion in June, and all agreed that they would come to the Andover 60th. Kent McKamy, David Mackenzie, and I recently had a nice lunch in Fairfield, Conn., and they have offered to help in the organizing effort for the 60th. Dave has won election to the Fairfield, Conn., representative town meeting (the local legislative body) and is a welcome voice seeking to reign in local spending, thus slowing the expanding budget and rising real estate taxes in his hometown of Fairfield. No moss growing there! [Editor’s note: Artist Frank Stella received the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction on Nov. 1, 2013. The award recognizes alumni who have served with distinction in their fields of endeavor. See story, page 42.]
1955 ABBOT
Nancy Eastham Iacobucci 17 Wilgar Road Etobicoke ON M8X 1J3 Canada 416-231-1670 n.iacobucci@bluelink.andover.edu
It’s September, and the column for the winter issue of the magazine is due in two days. My plea to the silent majority to become noisy has done no good, alas, but I thank two of the loyal few for their e-mails. In June, Kathy Lloyd sent a great catch-up on her life. When she wrote, she was visiting Sue Appleton Jowett in her “little paradise on the sea [in Maine], watching the tide come and go,” while they also watched the French Open tennis tournament. She reported that Sue is walking an hour a day—a good model for all of us! Kathy and Sue had met Ann Cleveland Lange and Eleanor Easton Flaxen for lunch in Portsmouth, N.H., and then had visited the Strawbery Banke Museum, which Kathy described as a “Williamsburg-style group of houses saved for restoration” during a period of urban renewal in the 1960s. Kathy also reported that she had undergone another operation on her hand in hopes of improving “many activities of daily living, which are unspeakably awkward with 1.5 hands.” She is playing bridge again, walks a couple of times a week with a friend, and enjoys her new condo, with its lovely view of the Charles River. Her choir performed Brahms’s Requiem in May and were on a summer break when she wrote. She added that Eleanor’s chorus (in London) was planning to go to Berlin for a week in the fall to perform Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. That must have been a super experience, and I look forward to hearing about it (Eleanor, take note!). Dee Fleming King sent a fascinating report on her April visit to Cuba. Space limitations prevent my including the whole thing, but I’ll try to do it justice in a summary. She went legally, since she was with a foundation on a people-to-people visit. There were 12 in her group, plus two guides (one a young female Cuban history major), and they concentrated on Havana and the Viñales Valley (the north and northwest coasts). Dee commented that it would take many more visits to see the whole country, since it is much larger than she had imagined. She had a “charming and lovely visit from every angle, and found that Cuba is not unlike the rest of the world: the rich (government), middle class like our guide, and the underprivileged.” She said she was “welcomed with open arms” everywhere and “had lunch with the elderly, played schoolyard games with the local children, went to classes where four languages are taught, toured art galleries, played guitar with one of the pleasant local musicians who are on every corner, and generally found an uplifting sense of coping.” Unemployment is not
tolerated, and many people work more than one job. Although capitalism is not embraced, people welcome the chance to buy and sell property and to start their own small businesses. Travel outside the city is often by handmade horse-drawn cart, but in the city most people walk or ride bicycles. The few proud owners of cars (’50s vintage) keep them running by creating any missing parts; the cars are brightly painted and have “unusual” upholstery. The attitude toward the Russians is somewhat ambivalent, especially since, when they pulled out of the country, they left unattractive cement buildings and “overpasses that went nowhere.” Dee commented that the people “mostly disassociate themselves from Communism while claiming Socialism, the difference between the two being an AK-57.” She said her trip left her with much to think about, and she ended with this: “I was touched beyond words when an elderly gentleman at lunch put his hand on my arm and sang to me ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in English. [The visit] was one of the greatest things I have ever done.” Dee also had another wonderful experience at home. Her son Brad has always been interested in Operation Finally Home, which raises money to provide services to injured veterans. He decided to build and donate a house for one of these men and his family. This was done and everything was furnished, with help from Dee, right down to new toothbrushes. Brad, Dee, and everyone else involved thought they would simply hand over the keys to the organization and maybe meet the new homeowners one day. Instead, she reports, “it turned out to be a big event with people from all over the country, veterans of all kinds, and streets lined with flags. It brought tears to all to see the respect of the general public when the parade passed; cars pulled off the road and saluted.” Not surprisingly, Dee found it a very moving experience. Finally, I end with my usual plea: Please send me your news for our next column. Thanks!
PHILLIPS Tom Lawrence 1039 1/2 Sweetzer West Hollywood CA 90069 323-654-0286 323-804-4394 (cell) yogi@earthlink.net
Bob Bushnell passed away April 28, 2012, at his home in Dorset, Vt. His senior entry in the Pot Pourri did not presage his long banking career in New York but gave all the necessary clues to what made him happiest: singing and sailing. At Andover, the choir, glee club, and 8 ’n 1 all benefited from his vocal contributions, and he was vice president of the sailing club as a senior. At Princeton, where he majored in economics, Bob sang with the Tigertones and the Boomerangs and was a mainstay of the Princeton yacht club. He began his banking career at Chemical Bank after a short stint as a Coast Guard officer. After Andover | Winter 2014
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