stay connected... had poor seasons of late, I now have a new reason to follow the NHL. Pam Eaton reports that she is still working for School Year Abroad. The office recently moved from Lawrence to North Andover, so the commute is longer but surroundings are very nice. She notes that everyone in her family is healthy and productive, so she is feeling pretty lucky. She keeps up with local classmates; she saw Dan Malis, Michael Krumpe, and Naomi Rush Olson at a party at Dan’s this summer and also had lunch with Wendy Cleary in Maine recently. At the time of her missive, she was off to the Addison for the fall opening, one of the benefits of living so close to PA. Jason Fish is not certain he has ever contributed a blurb for the class notes. After 37 years, he writes that the youngest of his three red-headed children is finishing high school in San Francisco. Jason has lived in the Bay Area for the past 28 years, married almost all of those years to his wonderful red-headed wife, Courtney Benoist. The company he cofounded 13 years ago, CapitalSource, is in the process of being sold to a bank, having been public for 10 years. Jason continues to dabble as a financial services entrepreneur and investor and spends lots of time and energy focused on educational excellence and equity, but he is hoping to move in the direction of less desk work in anticipation of a pending empty nest next fall. He suspects that his next posting will be of more unusual tales, but to date it has been a wonderfully enjoyable life. I ran into Tanya Luhrmann at my daughter Erika’s Stanford graduation in June. Erika was an anthropology concentrator, the same department in which Tanya is a distinguished professor. Tanya and I were able to catch up for a few minutes, but unfortunately we had other graduation events, and too soon it was time to move on to the next obligation. Tanya continues to receive deserved recognition for her recent excellent book, When God Talks Back, on evangelical religion in America. Those who go to our class Facebook page will also benefit from her frequent insights there. That’s all the news for now. Hope to see you all very soon. —Ruben
1977 Buck Burnaman 222 Nod Hill Road Wilton CT 06897 203-834-9776 bburnaman@msn.com
Many classmates, including myself, have this past fall sent our precious progeny off for the first time to the hallowed halls of higher learning, PA included. Certainly they did not depart without some anxiety, a sleepless night or two, and perhaps some investigation of the latest “tiger parenting,” “momlogic,” or “Zen parenting” theory. To paraphrase the English poet John Wilmot: Before fatherhood, I had four theories about raising children; now, I have four
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children and no theories. The practicality of this I can attest to from personal experience. One theory is to stay with what you know works well. The truth of this is evidenced by a photograph of our classmates who reconnected in Head of School John Palfrey’s garden (Phelps House) while dropping off their children at Andover in September. And so, at 226 years and counting, Phillips Academy hums along matriculating children of our classmates, including Rob Canning (son Krish ’16), Bryan Durrett (daughter Olivia ’17), Jorge Virgili (daughter Adriana ’15), Virginia Chapman Belser (son Noah ’16), Noel Schwerin (son Asa ’17), and Bill Yun (daughter Susan ’17). Bill reported to me that he had also run into former lacrosse teammates Lee Apgar ’78 and Tad Flynn ’79, who were also dropping off their sons. Lundy Bancroft wrote to me with apologies for “waiting 36 years to send an update.… I’ve been a little behind. I just spent the weekend rock climbing in New Hampshire with my two children, who are 20 and 16—they started climbing when they were 6 and 2, respectively. I am a writer currently finishing my fifth book, thanks to Bill Cohan, who was quoted in the alumni notes about 15 years ago inviting classmates to send manuscripts to his wife. I barely knew Bill when I was a student at PA, but my pride did not stop me from leaping to accept his assistance. My books have all been about domestic violence so far, but I’m hoping to soon break out in brave new directions, such as prevention of violence by lions and tigers, who have been proven to show no guilt. I’ve been divorced for several years and am currently single—this is regrettable, but nobody seems to be doing anything about it. My activist tendencies remain, drawing me now into radical environmentalism. I’ll try to remember to warn all my old friends who now work in banking before we blockade your particular place of business. I just visited Scott Tice ’76 out in Wisconsin when I was on a work trip. I’m not sure how many people will remember him, though, because he got in an impressive amount of trouble in a short time and so was not with us at PA for very long. He is still a great guy, and he fed me venison that he had hunted himself. He’s the first Andover person I’ve seen in quite a few years.” Buoyed by getting so much information from Lundy, I turned my (often stone-cold unsuccessful) hand to seeking more news from our class and managed to hear from Joe Zeoli, who is looking good and living and teaching in Connecticut, not far from me. I will buy you a beer, Joe, commiserate again about your broken leg in the fall of ’76, and get your life update of 36 years in person, please. Arthur Housianitis is in Greece working for Raytheon, and I desperately want to go visit him, with or without an invitation. Perhaps I will surprise Jorge in Madrid and collect him on my way to a Grecian isle. I am sure my neighbor Rab Ker is not in Greece, but he admitted on Facebook that he may be using Grecian formula; Rab and Bill Yun somehow manage to avoid even a hint of gray. Gerry Harrington, too. As to islanders,
I heard that Jackie Bracy and Ellen Jewett got together on Martha’s Vineyard this summer for lobsters, but that is only hearsay. I know that Bruce MacWilliams recently directed and shot spots titled “Punk Rock Pizza” and “Roller Girls,” and I am deeply saddened that I did not get a casting call for the latter. Chris Randolph also declined to cast me in the theatrical production he is directing in NYC. Perhaps by not telling me about it, he was hoping I would not show up for the open casting call. If I could find an agent who would agree to represent me, I would audition. Who needs talent? Finally, in the always-looking-for-news category, I understand that Tom Rothschild is not running for president in 2016. Nor will he be trying out for the wide-open Yankees bullpen (hat tip to Peter Collery). And he won’t be one of the first half-dozen people to plunk down $1.5 million to become a “space tourist.” I know this because Tom sent me an e-mail allowing that he had nothing to report. Keep them coming, classmates, and I will do my best to keep you entertained. Only four years to our 40th Reunion, and I am confident Merry Reymond will attend because I will offer to personally escort her! Please be well and write.
1978 Jeff Strong jstrongnyc@gmail.com
Hoping to deliver news more frequently and consistently, I have volunteered to take over class secretary duties for ’78. Space is limited this edition, so quick news follows. Please send me updates—or else I’ll be forced to troll Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and local police blotters for the latest on your (and your kids’) lives. Pretty good turnout for reunion last June (50 folks, based on drink ticket sales); in case you missed it, highlights included two of our über athletes being inducted into the Andover Athletics Hall of Honor: Lee Apgar (10 varsity letters in four years) and Judy Morton Bramhall (11 varsity letters—sorry, Lee). The Hall of Honor does not require PED testing, but you know they both would have passed with flying colors. Perhaps in tribute to Lee and Judy, the class dinner was held in jockish Lower Right, which many ’78ers visited for the first time that night. (A few months after reunion, Lee dropped off his son, Alex ’17, for preseason soccer camp—though not sure if his varsity letters will match Lee’s total.) Besides Apgar and Morton, reunion attendees were a motley crew: Shelly Guyer, Mike Cannell (writing and fighting Asphalt Green garbage transfer station on the Upper East Side), Bill Vandeventer (still architecting in Seattle and living on a houseboat), Peter Tobeason, Mary Buttrick Burnham (also architecting in NYC—don’t ask for a bid, she’s too busy), Caroline Sheahan (from the wilds of Wyoming), Sasha Chermayeff