1966 Margaret Bullitt-Jonas 83 Bancrof t Road Northampton, MA 01060
margaretbj @ aol.com
As usual, I marvel at the wide range of interests in our class—artistic, educational, religious, political, and just about everything else you can think of. Our 50th reunion is this spring, and I hope that many of us will gather at SHS in June. I miss our friends, Judy Selverstone and Tim Harkness, who have already passed on. Kathy Agoos headed from Australia to the US to enjoy “our first white Christmas in 8 years. Things in our family are not much different since last year: one more grandchild, courtesy of Michael’s older daughter Bibi (and a bit more babysitting) and job changes for some kids and spouses. I continue to enjoy travels and volunteering (Melbourne Visitor Centre and live radio broadcasting for Vision Australia Radio), plus tennis and a crazy dog. I’m so sorry that the reunion is not in early August, when we’ll be briefly in the US prior to an all-Agoos sibling week on a canal boat in Wales. If anyone would like to have another catch-up in Cambridge/Boston, we will be there the second week of August! Lark Batteau returned from Paris and now lives in an old farmhouse four blocks from downtown Santa Barbara: With my Paris cabaret troupe, Bohemian Dreams, I have had a great time performing all around Santa Barbara for both public and private events. I write the script, direct and promote. As Zizou, I play the guitar and sing, while Gregore (Gregory Beeman) plays the accordion and JeanPaul (Riccardo Morrison) riles up the audience. Members of my ‘dynamic gypsy troupe’ sweep you away to another time and place. If only for one night, disappear into the dim and decadent world of post World War II Paris. With French songs, English poetical translations and intrigue, our sexy little cabaret will entertain and distract you down in their dilapidated dream café called Pigalle Brutal. Who knew I’d be wearing sexy corsets in public at 65? I have always been a late bloomer. People often say that we seem like real Bohemians. They have no idea. Gregory, Riccardo and I used to live together in
Lark Batteau ’66, in her role as the Children’s Festival Director of Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Festival, wears the outfit of “Goddess with a Thousand Eyes,” shown here with her goddaughter Taran and baby Bodhi, who is chewing on one of the Third Eyes.
a warehouse, where there was no real kitchen, no hot water or shower, and I had to climb a 12-foot ladder to get to the loft sleeping area, with pee bucket, cup of water and my iPhone for music balanced on one arm. Some of the most creative days of my life! There’s something to be said for a lack of creature comforts. Letty Belin reports from DC: My kids, Miles and Miranda, and daughterin-law, Rachael, are looking forward to a post-Christmas week in snowy Santa Fe, which we have missed in recent years as we have found ourselves on the east coast. I hope to recharge my batteries for the last 12 months of work in the Obama Administration. One of the joys of being in DC these past 7 years working on environment, water and climate change issues has been overlapping passions and work with Margaret (Peggy) Bullitt. Of course Margaret is following the high spiritual path while I am mired in the political and legal trenches, but it is wonderful to share our journeys once again, 50 years after leaving SHS. Kitty (Waring) Block writes: This is a momentous year—husband Frank is set to retire. It’s been in the process for a year. (When you run an adoption agency, you don’t just give your two weeks notice.) I’m definitely looking forward to spending more time with my best buddy! We’ve got some trips planned including one riding halfway across Missouri on the Katy trail, Missouri’s longest rails-to-trails trail. Might need a bit of training for that! Our future is somewhat up for grabs. We know the Lord has something for us to do
in our ‘latter years’; we’re just not yet sure what. In the meantime, we look forward to spending more time with our kids and 21 grandkids. As a career homemaker, my life is still full and happy. Besides time with family, I’m active at our church, developing my skills as a watercolorist, teaching a Bible study, and learning how to reupholster furniture. There’s always one more project than I have time for. Any SHS alums passing through the St. Louis area, send an email (Kwblock@ gmail.com). We live one hour south of the city in a beautiful rural area and we have space. Kitty reports that her brother, Christopher Waring, ’68, is alive and well in northern Vermont, where he’s taught high school science for many years. Now the department head, he is two years away from retirement. He and his wife, Marie, have two charming grandchildren. Kitty Brazelton sent an ecstatic email: I have just come off a weekend of first rehearsals for the 2015–16 revision of my opera ‘The Art of Memory.’ My grant from Opera America covers only the initial stages of development, so we have a long way to go, but right now I think we can fly. My grant proposal was to bring in musicians early rather than late, as is traditional in opera. So I had an ensemble of 5 singers and 8 instrumentalists, including violin, cello, electric guitar, double bass, alto sax, keyboard live-processed through delay controlled by Max/ MSP and percussion—udu, pandeiro, cajon and modified kit. I’m in heaven with the after-ring in my mind. The opera is set in 4th-century early Christian Milan as the Roman Empire is falling. It’s an opera about addiction, and recovery from addiction, through the lens of Augustine’s Confessions. But Augustine is played by a woman, and I play his baptizer, Ambrose. The Nicene Christian viewpoints expressed by Augustine that I’ve translated directly from Latin (thanks Kitty (Waring) Block ’66
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