Spring 1999 Taft Bulletin by Taft School

BU L L E T I N SPRING•1999 Volume 69

Number 3

SPOTLIGHT Once More to the Beach ............................................. 4 Jol and Susan Everett retire after 30 years at Taft

By Willy MacMullen ’78 Breathing in the Bronx .............................................. 10 Paul Ehrlich ’62 Helps to Create an Asthma Clinic in Hunts Point

By Julie Reiff View from the Third Floor ........................................ 14 Reminiscences by a Headmaster’s Daughter

By Janet Cruikshank McCawley

DEPARTMENTS Letters ......................................................................... 2 Alumni in the News .................................................. 19 Around the Pond ...................................................... 22 Sport ......................................................................... 28 Winter Wrap Up by Steve Palmer Endnote .................................................................... 33 By Joe Cunningham, Reprinted from the Summer 1976 Bulletin. On the Cover Front: Captain Nick Kyme ’99 smashes a forehand in the finals of the N.E. Interscholastic Championships, against Bikram Uberoi of St. George’s School. Nick lost 3-2, but every other Taft player won his flight, and the team took home the trophy for the third year in a row, along with the Brandes Award for an undefeated season (see page 28). Photo by Vaughn Winchell, Insight Studios. Back: The Girls of Taft’s Collegium Musicum at Carnegie Hall (see page 22). Photo by Zach Heineman ’99 The Taft Bulletin is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by The Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 and is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of the school.

Dancing the night away on alumni weekend in the 1960s. Photo from the Leslie Manning Archives. For information on the photos from the winter issue, see page 32.

E-Mail Us! Now you can send your latest news, address change, birth announcement, or letter to the editor to us via e-mail. Our address is TaftRhino@Taft.pvt.k12.ct.us. Of course we’ll continue to accept your communiqués by such “low tech” methods as the fax machine (860-945-7756), telephone (860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail (110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100). So let’s hear from you! Visit Taft on the Web to find the latest news, sports schedules, or to locate a classmate’s e-mail address. www.Taft.pvt.k12.ct.us or www.Taftsports.com. The password to access alumni or faculty e-mail addresses—or to add your own—is dutton.

Letters to the Editor More on the 75th I have read with interest the fall issue of the Bulletin and the extensive review of the 75 years of its publication. As one of its former editors, I can appreciate the complexities and challenges involved in such an undertaking. You have done an admirable job in capturing both the evolving publication and the changing character of the Taft community and its activities, priorities, and propensities. I must take exception, however, to your description of my 1963 article, “Courage for the Pedestrian,” which, you state, “warns Taft boys of the dangers of sports cars.” This sounds quaint—if not comical—in 1999! But even a cursory reading of the article beyond the first paragraph would suggest that this was neither the intent not the burden of the piece (which, in fact, had been a Vespers talk in the days when every faculty member was required to make several of these a year). Though the article certainly seems dated after 35 years, with its reference to Stirling Moss and the “Berlin crisis” and “better red than dead,” it did attempt to deal with an issue of ongoing importance: the need for courage to address— not life and death, crisis situations—but the so-called “pedestrian” concerns of everyday life: “What is needed is the courage to live from day to day, to cope with the routine and not be overcome by it, to rise above the inevitable complexities and frustrations of life today, to wrestle with doubt and confusion rather than succumb to them. “The vast majority of men (and women) never enter a (sports car) race or climb a mountain. Instead, they must face a life which presents most of its challenges in very humble garb—in bills and sickness and routine forms of work and aggravating community prob-

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lems and the difficulties involved in raising children.... If you are developing a capacity to persist in the face of the humdrum...you may not win races, but you will not lose life.” I’m not sure I was moved to say these things because of the accelerating confusions of the ’60s. But even today, I think I would subscribe to this point of view. —John R. Bergen Eureka, California

We are concerned that the Bulletin included a personal note from the class secretaries of the Class of ’94 in its fall issue. They were distressed by the appearance in previous issues of pictures of three recent alumni who have gone on to distinguish themselves at the university level. They end by saying that they hope that future such pictures “be banished from ever appearing in our sacred alumni chronicle again.” As parents of Taft graduates, we are proud of how the school prepared our sons for university, both academically and athletically. Without the faculty, coaches, staff, and fellow students, the three graduates referred to in the 1994 notes would never have accomplished what they have at the Division I level. In return for those contributions, The Taft School has received plenty of free positive publicity on national television, in national press, and in NCAA circles. Perhaps Mssrs. Hertzmark and Hedges could round up printable pictures of their classmates instead of being worried about other classes. In the meantime, as the alumni they cited (and others from the Class of 1995) reach even greater heights in the coming months, they can expect to see additional photographs that will enhance the image

of The Taft School as the finest institution for secondary education in the country. —John E. Kerney, Jr. P ’95 Newtown, PA

Just to help correct an error that has endured since the publication of the 1948 yearbook, the fellow kneeling on the left in the photograph of the 1948 cheerleaders on page 34 of the fall 1998 Taft Bulletin is Craig Bristol. He is not mentioned at all. Missing from the picture are Raynor and Kenily. —Brad Lewis ’48 Basking Ridge, NJ

Your recent edition of the Taft Bulletin contains a photo of my Uncle Spencer Gross ’24. We had no idea that he was a founder of the Bulletin. Moreover, we have no pictures of him as a young man, only a few as a child, and then much later. Even though Spencer passed away over a decade ago, we still remember him fondly. My sister would be thrilled if I could come up with a copy of that picture showing Spencer and fellow student John Goss. (My son Jack tells me that he did not actually attempt his ballistics experiment [fall notes, page 43] pertaining to the height that a lacrosse ball will bounce. I think that he merely commented that, seeing the architecture of the stairwell, one could imagine how high a ball would bounce, if one were to drop a ball, which, of course, one would not do.) —Tom Gross ’69 via e-mail

Your fall Bulletin is a great success and a new look at the history of our old school. I particularly enjoyed “The Dream of a Greater Taft.” We need to keep in mind that some dreams are realized, and some are not. My sons go to middle school and upper school here in Baltimore at St. Paul’s where they have been able to build a beautiful chapel and a performing arts center, but do not have the library, science center, and athletic facilities that Taft has. Your 1976 entry caught my eye, Joe Cunningham’s “Why Change?” [see page 68] Mr. Cunningham was the sole reason that I came to Taft. I have always admired him greatly. Finally, I was tickled that you included my linoleum cut that illustrated “The Skater of Ghost Lake.” There were many superior artists in the Class of 1970. Barnaby Conrad comes to mind immediately. By coincidence, my parents were cleaning out their basement. Having read this recent Taft Bulletin, my mother immediately recognized the dusty piece of linoleum that she had exhumed from the darkest recesses. She presented the block to me for my recent birthday. I wonder if I can make a T-shirt from it? Again, thanks for all the work involved in putting together such an unusual look at Taft. —Carlton C. Sexton ’70 Towson, Maryland

Corrections: The “Generation after Generation” item in the fall issue, which reprinted the list of legacy students from 1968, omitted the name of Tim Devens ’71, not pictured, and his father Henry Devens ’35. Our apologies.

Taft Alumni Weekend May 20-23, 1999 Thursday, May 20

Saturday, May 22

6:30

7:00-8:00 School Breakfast 7:30-12:00 Registration, Main Circle 7:50-11:45 Classes Meet: The following classes and others will be open to alumni: 7:50-8:35 Honors Chemistry, David Hostage, Rm. Wu316 Senior Calculus, Gerry DePolo, Rm. Wu116 9:45-10:55 Geography, Fran Bisselle, Rm. C118 Accel. Intermediate Spanish, Maria Jose Panadero, Rm. C022 11:00-11:45 Mid English Honors, Mike Townsend, Rm. A103 Acting, Rick Doyle, The Black Box 9:30 The 50th Reunion Class hosts Taft Today and Tomorrow with Headmaster Lance R. Odden in the Choral Room 10:30 Short Tours of The Lady Ivy Kwok Wu Science and Mathematics Center 10:45 The 25th Reunion Class hosts Science at Taft: progressive approaches to teaching science as presented by the Science Department, The Lady Ivy Kwok Wu Science and Mathematics Center 9:00-11:30 Student-Guided Campus Tours 11:45 Parade Assembly and Parade, Main Circle 12:30 Alumni Luncheon • Announcement of new Alumni Trustee • Presentation of the Citation of Merit • Remarks by Headmaster Lance R. Odden 2:30 Home Athletic Games • Alumni vs. Boys’ Varsity Lacrosse (2:30) • Boys’ Varsity and JV Tennis vs. Kent (2:00) • Varsity Softball vs. Hotchkiss (2:30) • Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse vs. Hotchkiss (2:30) • JV Baseball vs. Choate (2:30) • Girls’ JV Lacrosse vs. Hotchkiss (4:00) 5:00 Headmaster’s Barbecue Headmaster’s Home, 176 Guernseytown Road

Cocktails and Dinner Classes of ’44 and ’49

Friday, May 21 7:50-2:00 8:00-3:00 11:00-1:00 12:00 3:30 3:30

3:15-5:00 5:00 6:00 6:30

Classes Meet • Alumni Welcome Taft Golf Tournament, Watertown Golf Club School Lunch Luncheons Classes of ’29, ’33, ’34, and ’39 Home Athletic Game: Boys’ Varsity & JV Lacrosse vs. Kingswood-Oxford The “Old Guard” classes host Students’ View of the Taft Experience: academics, athletics, and school life as presented by Taft students in the Choral Room Early Registration, Main Circle Memorial Service, Christ Church on-the-Green Old Guard Dinner Headmaster’s Home, 176 Guernseytown Road Individual Reunion Class Dinners

Sunday, May 23 10:00-12:00 School Brunch 10:30 20th Annual Fun Run: 4-mile run, Rockefeller Track and Field For information, please call 1-800-959-TAFT Taft Bulletin

Once More to the Beach By Willy MacMullen ’78

or scores of Tafties, there is a think of the many years Jol and Sue bursting scrapbook of images of were Taft parents, watching Andrew ’88 Jol and Sue Everett: him coaching and Christy ’90 from the sidelines. lacrosse, or teaching American history Still more will think of Jol in his faded in those sunny Lincoln Lobby class- corduroy coat, the one he wore for rooms, or tangling in the corners during decades, or his rink hat, frayed at the Tuesday night Senile brim. And Susan, winkSix hockey, or explaining and smiling in the ing to a new opposing Main Hall, convincing coach, “No, it’s not John, a student to do an adit’s Jol.” And Susan runmissions tour. They are ning Congdon House, about as ubiquitous a reporting on the Annual couple as ever has been Fund, or shepherding at Taft, the very soul of Taft Today parents, or the place as faculty and finding a tour guide for parents. You would have a visiting student in to look very hard to find front of the Harley Roba crevice of life here unThey love each other, of course, as couples do, erts Room. Others may but they are in love as few couples are. touched by an Everett. Taft Bulletin

The Cape is salt in their blood, and Jol and Sue admit that they are eager to retire there.

But I see something different, a picture blurred of present and future: Jol and Sue, in August, on the spit of Nauset Beach. They have a house in Eastham, and every summer they drive up and spend the months playing: reading (no TV in the house), socializing, and beaching. Play follows them. On most days Jol and Sue pile into “The Tinman,” their old fourteen-foot Starcraft skiff, piled high with beach chairs, coolers, the bocci ball set, lacrosse sticks, umbrellas, rods, and a wind surfer, and they putt-putt to the beach. Jol starts the 20 h.p. Evinrude, winds through the marshes of Nauset Harbor, around that tricky corner where the water surges deep and green near the bank, and lands on the inside of “The Spit,” a curling elbow of sand behind a shoulder of surf where they begin to unload. Generally they trudge to the “Outside,” arms filled with beach stuff, and plop down, looking out on the Atlantic surf and the offshore lobster buoys. They read, walk, and play. Susan passes sandwiches; Jol runs to the surf with his rod when he sees fish breaking. They have never lost their sense of fun. On the beach 6

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looking for treasures or arguing over the bocci ball game, they are as silly and enthralled as children. They have the comfortable silences of a couple married nearly forty years and the giddiness of two sophomores on a first date. So this is what they will retire to, and this is what I see when I am in my boat offshore, scanning the beach for them with my binoculars: a huge red striped umbrella jammed into the sand and under it, in the oblong shadow, Jol, red haired and white skinned, a long-sleeved shirt, sunblock in one hand and a hardcover book in the other; and nearby, Susan, reclining and resplendently tanned, bikinied, mahoganied, and glorious in the burning sun. That is how I will always remember them: together, in the sun. So to talk about Jol and Sue is to talk about a couple that has thrived at Taft and provided for many, especially the younger of us, the model of a marriage done right, and a couple unwaveringly loyal to the school. Their years here make it impossible to think of them apart. They decided together that the time to retire

was now, and there was no question this was a shared decision. The Cape is salt in their blood, and Jol and Sue admit that they are eager to retire there. “We have been going there since 1975,” Jol says, “and we had our health. We have great neighbors and Tafties out there. So we decided, why not now? We can read the books we never had time for, spend time together, travel in ways we have not been able to. It just seemed like the right time. I have a dream of trailering a small boat up and down the coast, camping and beaching with Susan. Exploring with her.” And they will have their house, and summers Andrew and Christy visiting, to go clamming, for walks on the beach, for the regular games of “Fictionary.” “It was earlier than we anticipated,” says Jol, “but we were ready.” Susan’s successful fight through cancer—where they “brushed up against something that serious”—made them realize how precious the time was. It was the right time, and they had the right place. But it is clear that this decision is tough on them. Jol won’t say as much, but Susan does. “Don’t get me talking too much,” says Sue over lunch, “or I’ll start crying.” No wonder. They came here in 1968, raised their children in the dorm and school housing and then watched them go through their marvelous careers at Taft, coached perhaps a thousand games, and organized some ten thousand admissions tours. With the exception of a sabbatical year to Ireland in 1978, they have been here for the past thirty years. And they have been deeply involved in all the things that make for the beating heart of a boarding school. Consider Jol for a moment: he coached j.v. and varsity hockey and varsity lacrosse; he taught four sections of history a year; he currently chairs the department; he lived in the dormitory; he served on innumerable committees, in particular the Athletic Committee; and so on. And Susan: she ran the switchboard; she worked as a librarian; she headed Congdon House; she

ran the Annual Fund for five years; she oversees the Taft Today program; she organizes the 1,300 admissions tours every year. And on and on. In our history as a school, few couples have done as much and this well for so long. So long.

their success, not on him. He teaches a respect for the game, the game played well. And I have learned more from him about grace under competition than I have from any coach I have known. And he rarely takes credit—in fact, he is always reminding us that it is Rick Lansdale and the thirds, or Andy Bisselle with the Jol is a really fine teacher, the consumj.v., or me as an assistant who make the mate historian. Of course, as with anyone program great. He has no ego. Nothing good at a job, success begins in interest threatens him.” John Wynne, who and passion. Jol thinks history every day: coached the defense—the “long stickhe reads the paper with an eye for the ers”—said that “Jol was not an intense history that is being written, and when game-day coach, not a screamer, but the you drop by the house on the Cape, he is kids knew he wanted them to succeed reading history—last summer it was a for them. He never coached for himself.” work on Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” He is as competitive as any person I And that curiosity is unquenchable and know: play against him in hockey or obvious in class. Deanees and advisees I bocci, and you will see. But he wants to have known have always raved win because to do so is to reabout him. Taylor Moore, a spect the game and to allow post-graduate this year, says, athletes joy. He has never, ever “He is so knowledgeable. And coached a game for himself. he really gets kids involved in Perhaps it is Jol’s lack discussions—he is awesome in of ego that finally makes him that way. I think it’s his passpecial. It is too easy for teachsion for history. In my old ers and coaches to think they school I had constant lectures are important: we teach and multiple choice tests that classes, give advice, deliver pep could be easily corrected with talks. We are on stage and the the Scantron. But he wants audience is captive. The teachyou really involved: he wants ing profession, then, is filled to read a five-page essay. And with big egos, men and me, I am generally quiet in women who forget that kids class. But he doesn’t allow that. are generally made of resilient He asks me questions, and and growing stuff, that unatnext thing I know I am intended they still can flourish. volved. He drew me out.” Jol is utterly without ego. His John Wynne, a colleague for lack of vanity is the stuff of Jol’s entire tenure and a past jokes: he has worn the same department head, adds, “He frayed jacket for years, and creates a relaxed atmosphere Susan has cut his hair for the in the classroom combined past three decades. He has with professional expertise never coached a game for his and a demanding set of expecown statistics or taught a class tations. What makes him Jol is utterly without ego. His lack of vanity is the stuff of jokes: he to show what he knows. He is unique, I think as a historian, has worn the same frayed jacket for years, and Susan has cut his so secure in his beliefs, so sure is his interest in rooting out hair for the past three decades. He has never coached a game for of his strengths, so humble his own statistics or taught a class to show what he knows. He is so intolerance, in civil rights in secure in his beliefs, so sure of his strengths, so humble about his about his virtues, that you America, in Germany in virtues, that you hardly notice the commitment that marks his days. hardly notice the commit-

• • •

1935. That’s a good thing in a historian.” And Jol has been an extraordinary coach, though he would never admit it, a rock of consistency in the league. He has won lots of games—in the past fifteen years he has had only three losing seasons and he has won over 150 games in his tenure—but no one who has coached with him or played for him would focus on the victories. A long time ago Jol stopped caring about his record: he does not need any stroking or accolades. He coaches for the players, and he believes deeply what all coaches say and not enough really believe: that the game is for the kids. Steve McKibben, his longtime assistant: “Jol’s approach to coaching is often given lip service but rarely followed. The emphasis is on the players,

Taft Bulletin

They came here in 1968, raised their children in the dorm and school housing and then watched them go through their marvelous careers at Taft, coached perhaps a thousand games, and organized some ten thousand admissions tours. With the exception of a sabbatical year to Ireland in 1978, they have been here for the past thirty years. And they have been deeply involved in all the things which make for the beating heart of a boarding school.

ment that marks his days. He wanted to teach and coach, and he never had the desire to become a titled administrator: “I didn’t like the tradeoffs, what I would lose. I always wanted to be with kids, in the classroom and on the field.”

• • • There is very little Susan has not done at Taft, and she has done every task with singular grace, charm, and efficiency. Currently she runs the admissions tours, and it is a job that chewed up and spat out a handful of teachers in the years before she took over. It is grueling, lonely, stressful work. It is universal sentiment that Susan is a marvel. Watch her near the Harley Roberts Room, on a busy admissions day, a conductor of some institutional orchestra, the host at some vast social function. There may be fourteen tours to arrange today—she will organize 1,300 just this year—and two students have canceled at the last minute: test to study for, or “I forgot it’s my lunch 8

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period.” Unfazed and smiling, Susan grabs a boy walking by and asks if he could give a tour. He declines—“Work to do, Mrs. E!”—but she persists, winking, smiling, flattering, until somehow he not only agrees but also feels honored. She introduces him to the visiting family. Peggy Byrnes, the receptionist, informs her that another tour guide is missing, and can she find him? Susan rushes off, and you see her talking to a mid girl, there is a head shaking, then nodding, and now both are laughing, and here they come. Joanna Wandelt and Eileen Blais, the assistants in the Admissions Office, are simple and lavish in their praise of her work running the tour guides. They chime in together: “She is amazing. Unbelievable. Nothing frazzles her, and we never worry about a thing.... She is so efficient. You can throw anything at her, and she gets it done.... And the kids respect and like her so much. They just won’t turn her down. I don’t know how anyone can replace her.”

Ferdie Wandelt says it concisely: “You don’t replace her. That would be impossible. That position evolved under her: she does over a thousand tours a year, she sets up off-campus interviews, she organizes admissions travel. You name it. And what distinguishes her is the unwavering respect from students and colleagues. Unwavering.” When I asked Jol what made Susan so effective in her work, he said, “She has the ability to tell kids to do something in a way kids feel respected. It’s a friendly request, but it’s one they feel they have to meet.” And yet with Susan, her impact is hardly limited by her admissions work. Some Tafties will recall that she was the voice of the switchboard in years past. She also ran the Annual Fund from 1985 to 1990, leaving it because she “wanted more contact with kids.” Clearly Jerry Romano will miss her: “She did an exemplary job of guiding the Annual Fund to a new record each year. Class agents had great respect for her genuine loyalty to Taft and the school’s mission and saw her as someone whose loyalty was rooted in her knowledge of the school, the students and faculty, and the unique character of Taft.” And for many years, she was a dorm head. For many alumni, Susan will be remembered as, Lance Odden observes, “the very soul of Congdon House. When it was all boys, they would almost line up to come and visit. They were all in love with her.” For many others, in particular lacrosse and hockey players, they will remember a feeling that somehow Susan was as much a part of the season as her husband the coach. She always has watched the games religiously, known the kids well, and been liberal and unhesitating in her opinions on how the team played. Many a kid has been greeted by Susan in the hall on a Thursday with a “Great game, Colin” or, not uncommonly, “Matt, what were you thinking when you got that penalty!?” Lance says, “She was part of the package when you played for Jol, part of your ex-

perience as an athlete.” So if you are at the Everett house on Alumni Weekend, it will be filled with friends of Andrew’s and Christy’s, and players from as far back as 1970. They come back to see the coach and his wife.

student twenty years ago, I recall how he was the heart throb for the girls (we were all jealous), she the laughing and motherly beauty for the dormitory boys. You wanted to be around them. Their house has always been crowded. John and Gail Wynne, who arrived three years before the Everetts and who raised their They met in 1963, chaperoning a dance family one house away, said, “If you at the yacht club in Darien, and they were knew what it was that made them so married three years later. In 1968 Jol aphappy, you would bottle it.” But he plied to Taft after two years at The Webb adds, knowingly, “I guess it’s fun to hang School in California. Almost their entire out with your best friend.” adult lives have been at Taft. “We had to Leaving will be harder than anyone come east,” Sue says, “not thinking we can imagine. Susan says, “I will miss the would be at Taft forever. It’s just that there kids the most. The people. And what will was no lacrosse or hockey at Webb.” I do on Wednesday and Saturday afterLance recalls meeting them on their noons? I don’t mean just my kids; I mean visit—he was the history chair—and he all of them become ingrained in you. The immediately could tell that Jol hardest thing was calling Anwas destined to be one of drew and Christy and telling those rare school men, a triple them we were moving. This threat, a teacher, coach, and is where we raised them. It is role model in the dorm. “And their home, and it was a great now I look back and link him place to raise a family. You with a dying breed,” Lance know, they were surrounded says, “of old New Englanders with Taft kids, boys and girls, who delight in the simple esblack and white, day and sence of work and live boarding. It will be really comfortably frugal lives, with tough to leave.” So there will no interest in titles and be one very, very tough day for money.” And what of Susan them, and Susan especially. does he recall? Lance says, Here is the day: They will “She was gorgeous, and so wake on the Cape on Septemspirited, so full of vitality, so ber 1st, and instinctively, as outgoing. He has always been animals move with some more reserved, she more bubdeep inner awareness of the bly. They have such a perfect seasons, know that the sumfit. As a couple, then, you had mer is over and it is time to in them something really spego back to Watertown for the cial.” Ferdie Wandelt adds, opening faculty meetings, as “They are the epitome of the they have for so many years. great school couple.” Then they will realize that Finally, though, you rethey don’t need to return. alize that we do not lose Jol That it’s over, and the future and Sue so much as a presence has begun. A sad day, but they that is the sum of their parts. can launch “The Tinman,” You cannot separate them, He is as competitive as any person I know: play against him in and head to the beach, with hockey or bocci, and you will see. But he wants to win because to literally or figuratively. They do so is to respect the game and to allow athletes joy. He has their books and sunblock and love each other, of course, as never, ever coached a game for himself. toys. Tough day.

• • •

couples do, but they are in love as few couples are. Watch Susan give Jol orders on the beach or tease him about his leaking boat; watch Jol roll his eyes and groan. Watch them hold hands on the walk home, up Walnut Hill against a winter wind. They are the faces of a spinning coin, he the private, laconic, craggily handsome New Englander, Robert Redford gone Irish; she the effusive, bubbly, raven-haired extrovert with a dazzling smile. They have an almost palpable connection. Lance Odden remarks, “Just look at them walk together on their way down from their house. They have some deep connection you can’t help but feel.” So students have always been drawn to them: they seem to be forever laughing or smiling. As a

Taft Bulletin

BREATHING in the

Bronx By Julie Reiff Photography by Peter Finger

r. Paul Ehrlich ’62 loves New York City as no one I have ever met. An allergist and pediatrician, he is helping set up an asthma center in Hunts Point, an impoverished area in the South Bronx with the highest rate of asthma in the nation, especially among children. A new medical building is opening up at 151st and Concord, near the Hunts Point Multi Service Center, founded thirty years ago by Ramon Velez. Because asthma is ten times more common here than anywhere else in the country, they wanted to add an asthma center as well. Paul began consulting for the project last year and, as soon as the center opens this spring, will spend about a quarter of his work week there. When Paul suggested a trip to the clinic site, images of boarded-up crack houses and gunfire in the street came to mind. He, however, describes a community very different from the one many of us have seen pictured in the media. b Paul Ehrlich ’62 visits the construction site of a new medical center and asthma clinic in the Bronx. “Yankee Stadium is within half a mile —that gives you an idea that the Bronx is important to the city.” Taft Bulletin

That image is changing, says Paul. The tone in the Bronx is hopeful, and the media is catching on to the new vision of the northernmost borough of the city. Crime is down, real estate is up, and the outsider’s fear Tom Wolfe captured so well, in Bonfire of the Vanities a decade

Web Resources: Allergy and Asthma Network/ Mothers of Asthmatics www.aanma.org Ask the Asthma Doc www.thriveonline.com/health/ asthma/ask/asthmadoc.archive.html Adult and Pediatric Asthma www.sinuses.com

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ago, is fading. “This is a working class neighborhood,” says Paul. “People here, slowly but surely, are upwardly mobile.” It’s an unusual move for one of the city’s “best doctors” (as selected by New York magazine in 1998) with a busy practice in midtown Manhattan who has done little community work since his clinic rounds early in his career, but the story behind his renewed commitment and enthusiasm is even more surprising. Two years ago Paul wound up on the operating table for what several of the best minds in the field thought was a malignant brain tumor. It wasn’t, but the stroke that befell him during the biopsy forced him to take a five-month leave. Although the physical effects of the stroke are gone, he says, when he returned to work, “I knew then I wanted to do something different, something else.”

“So I went up to the South Bronx. I’m learning Spanish, the whole business. I started to put together the asthma program. They are very well funded, by the state, by the city, by the federal government, and by what we call guilt money, which is from these people who have waste management companies, who may not be helping the air quality around there very much.” His optimism and enthusiasm for the project is incredible, and I wonder that he isn’t discouraged or jaded, nearly a year into the project with months of delays and plenty of bureaucracy. “First of all, the nice thing about being in medicine is that, even with managed care and all the other stuff going on, it’s wonderful to do something and have people thank you and to make a difference in their lives. It’s very rewarding.”

He tells me about an incredibly grateful mother who brought in her daughter for the first time that morning. The girl had been on inhaled steroids unnecessarily at four years old. “It makes your day when you help someone, particularly a parent, and they walk away and you feel better about it. You can do the same thing, but ten times over up in the Bronx because they have nothing.” “Hunts Point is a very, very poor area,” says Paul, fertile for asthma and underserved by physicians. “There’s not enough education of health care workers or parents. We could save through prevention roughly 90 percent of all money spent on treatment.” Education of patients and their parents has been a hallmark of Paul’s approach to treating asthma. He has worked closely with a group called Mothers of Asthmat-

ics out of Washington, DC, and he runs his own monthly support group for parents. With the right information, parents can prevent severe attacks and trips to the emergency room. Asthma, then, is a disease that is controlled rather than cured, and reliable information is the greatest tool asthmatics have. His approach in Hunts Point will be much the same. “We’re putting together parent support groups, then we have people who will go into their homes because that’s how you get on top of the patient. And the feedback, I hope, will make a big difference.” In fact the response is already overwhelmingly positive. Last year, the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, Inc., to show their appreciation, gave Paul their highest honor, the Dr. José Celso Barbosa Award for Health. He was hon-

ored at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence, and rode in the Puerto Rican Day Parade last June, one of the biggest festivals in the Latino community and, as Seinfeld fans know, a major New York happening. For the people of Hunts Point, Paul is already making a difference. “There’s nothing like reaching out to others to make the blues go away,” he said. “New York is great that way. There is so much you can do here for other people.” Paul Ehrlich ’62 is associate chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at New York’s Beth Israel Medical Center and associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the New York University School of Medicine. He is also medical editor of the MA Report, the newsletter for the Allergy and Asthma Network.

Humor Can Be the Best Medicine Dr. Paul Ehrlich always has an amusing story ready. From the waiting room I watch as he greets his patients with a ready smile and a handshake as he ushers them into his office. Perhaps it’s his diverse background as the son of a physician, a stint in the Navy, the father of four, a private practitioner for over twenty years, and a consultant for a soap opera that has given him the uncanny ability to put most of his patients at ease. One woman, however, was far from amused when one day Paul, behind schedule, broke a doctor’s cardinal rule and took a phone call in an exam room with a patient waiting. The patient on the phone, a writer for a television soap opera, assured Paul she’d be brief, and only wanted a few lines of medical dialogue for her next episode. This was something Paul did three or four times a year for her, so he thought nothing unusual about the request. When she described the scene Paul asked, “Do you want him to die right away? Because,” he explained, “I could make him hang on for a few days.” With that, the patient in the exam room got dressed and started to leave. When he tried to explain, she replied, “Well, it may seem like a soap opera to you!”

Taft Bulletin

View from the Third Floor By Janet Cruikshank McCawley

The Cruikshank family at Romford School in 1936, just prior to coming to Taft.

1937 Our Garden at the Taft School “Watch out!” I shrieked as the knotted rope of bed sheets started to rip. Thirteen-year-old Mike had accepted our dare and was shimmying down from his room on the junior corridor at Taft School to play with my sister and me and our puppy. But his escape rig had a flaw! Now he was lying in the garden at our feet,

dazed and embarrassed. Imagine our surprise and chagrin when he could not climb back up. We all started to giggle. How was he to return to his room without being caught by a master? Whispering and laughing, we sneaked him through our house (a wing of the school), up a back stairway and through a small connecting door that led into the

empty school dining hall. From there he could creep up a service stair near the main kitchen back to his corridor. This seems a tame adventure by today’s standards, but we feared our father’s wrath should he ever find out. For he was the headmaster of the school and a very stern disciplinarian. All three of us were very nervous, but having fun.

b Janet’s window in what was once the headmaster’s wing (now a dorm for lower middle girls) is marked by the arrow. Taft Bulletin

Taft was a typical New England boys’ boarding school with about 350 students then—a wonderful playground! Its 200acre campus included a pond, golf course, tennis courts, and athletic fields, as well as a heating plant and infirmary. The main building of red brick and stone was like a turreted castle with jutting wings and square towers. In the echoing tiled corridors, arched doorways stretched down the halls past the gym, the offices, and the common rooms to the auditorium. It was a long walk from our front hall to attend evening chapel service there with our mother. Recollections of childhood years are often fleeting glimpses of familiar scenarios. Who doesn’t remember playing house in a tree, kick-the-can, baseball in a mosquito dusk, swimming at the lake? A child who grew up in a rural New England village in the 1930s would! The additional circumstance for my two sisters, brother, and me was growing up with a strict father—headmaster in a private boarding school.

Flashback 1929 Gunnery School. Washington, CT Although I was actually born in a New York City hospital—the first of four children—I was whisked back to a small yellow faculty house on The Gunnery campus in Washington, Connecticut, where my father, Paul Cruikshank,

taught French and Latin; he also coached hockey, football, and baseball. Here, on the tennis court, he had met young Edith Fitch, soon to be his wife. Her father Ezra Fitch, founder of Abercrombie and Fitch, owned a “Gentleman’s” farm in nearby Romford Valley.

Flashback 1933 Romford School. Romford, CT After my grandfather died in 1929, my parents started a small boys’ school on the Romford Valley farm. But that year was 1930—an inauspicious time! Can you imagine the strain of starting such an adventure during the Depression? The barn was converted: the horse stalls to bedrooms, the hayloft to a gym. The trunk house became a classroom while the dog kennel (my grandparents had raised Airedales) was my father’s office. A cow pasture changed into a playing field, and my bedroom doubled as an infirmary. From nine boys the first year, the enrollment grew to twenty-seven by 1933. Our mother was father’s partner in this challenging venture. As my father wrote. “Life was truly rather rugged for us, emotionally and physically. Each day through snow, mud, and rain, Mrs. Cruikshank drove four perilous miles to town on dirt roads to secure the mail and the school’s provisions. In addition, she was functioning as head nurse and dietitian while she was bringing up our four

children.” She was, indeed, a caring, courageous woman. And very busy! By then my brother Peter was three, and we had a young Swedish girl as nurse/helper. Luckily for me my grandmother lived in a small farmhouse a mile away across the river. I would trudge over to visit, pushing my doll carriage up the hill. The cool lawns stretched toward the green-painted barn and silo where she had her artist’s studio. Sometimes she would let me create an oil painting and make a batch of fudge. Then we’d play double Canasta. Perhaps she’d give me a glass of ginger ale and grape juice as a treat before bed. We three little red-jacketed girls would be dropped off by the school bus near the Bantam River and walk the last half mile to the main house. Crossing the bridge, we’d play “Pooh Sticks” or trot home, holding two long-stick “shafts” for the Horse and Driver game. Often we would stop off at a neighbor’s for cookies and milk. More likely, I would head to the blue and white tiled kitchen, somnolent in the afternoon with the banked wood stove, and make myself a snack of cinnamon toast. Six years later this idyllic rural life was over when the large, well-established Taft School in a neighboring town invited my father to serve as headmaster. It was a wonderful early childhood; we were lucky to have that valley and that great extended family. I wonder how it all would have been had I lived there another nine years... finished in my growing.

Commentary I’ve just read your delightful article and want you to know that I admired, enjoyed, and learned from every paragraph. Needless to say it evoked memories of my own childhood in the Principal’s House at Exeter. Anyway, congratulations! I didn’t realize that your father was quite as much of a disciplinarian as you 16

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say. He was always especially friendly to me at West Chop and was, I have reason to believe, a factor in my being asked to head Fountain Valley School. His most unforgettable words to me, incidentally, were delivered on the first tee at Mink Meadows once when I

somehow hit the longest drive of my career—ever. “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed?” was his bright and instant quote. —Lewis Perry, Jr.

1936

I was twelve years old when we moved to Taft. While our parents were busy running the school and often traveling on extensive alumni fund-raising trips, we had an exciting secret life. Our favorite vacation game was playing hide and seek in the vast labyrinth of the underground basement corridors. We discovered the heating room with its furnace, piping in steam from a nearby power plant. There was a small hidden room with a vented air shaft! Useful in strategic getaways was the three-floor elevator. Laddered lofts loomed above the cavernous stage, and a scary tunnel from the back pond waterfall ran under a playing field to the stream lower down. In the old gym we climbed the bars and played endless games of basket shoot. At 14, I fell in love—of course! At night, by standing in the bath tub of our third floor wing, I could peer down at an angle into the brightly lit study hall where the boys were working. I began to wear lipstick (which my father did not like) and to watch the boys trudging beneath my window toward the infirmary after late study hall. I listened to Big Band music and attended many football or baseball games and practices. What a trial that boy-crazy teen must have been for the headmaster!

Luckily, though, we all learned the skills of many sports, especially ice hockey and tennis. Years later, as a teacher, I coached touch football to some fifth grade girls, thinking they would understand this male passion better if they learned the rudiments. Sometimes we children would find a visiting guest speaker, a minister, some alumni, or prospective parents in the living room when we came home from school or skating. We learned early the social “How-de-do’s,” and—as we grew—became interested in staying to listen and learn. I particularly remember Lowell Thomas, who became a family friend. No Taft boy will ever forget my mother’s formal teas in that paneled, book-lined room. In jackets and ties, they arrived upon written invitation to perch cups precariously on knees and make each other cinnamon toast in an old drop-side toaster as mother presided over the silver teapot. The Van Riper ship models on the fireplace mantle and recent athletic events kept conversation lively as mother knitted and one of her dogs snoozed at her feet. Much of the time our living room was in use: visiting parents, guest speakers, girls for a dance, team cocoa, or faculty after-dinner coffee. We would then retreat to the upstairs den or our third-floor rooms, to do our homework. But usually, the living room was ours on Sunday afternoons. When no one was

looking we would turn cartwheels on the soft Oriental carpets in the stately room. On many winter Sundays, mother would sit on the couch in front of the fire, doing the crossword puzzle while listening to the New York Philharmonic. Ever since then, listening to symphony music has been a rewarding part of my life. Sometimes mother would take us hiking up to the top of Black Rock State Park, a rocky pinnacle with a view. In the fall, we hunted orange bittersweet branches to fill the copper bowls in our living room and front halls. Often we had Sunday dinner at the headmaster’s table in the huge school dining hall. Mother would plant a small hemlock mossy pot on each of the thirty dining tables. Sprinkled with salt and pepper by mischievous boys, they thrived on the diet. We usually ate our suppers alone in our wing. A school maid would bring the meal in metal steam containers from the main kitchen and serve us in our formal dining room. Though the food was always adequate and good, it was seldom exciting or actually delicious. Since my mother never had really cooked, I learned early that if I wanted anything special I had better cook it myself. By the time I was 13, I’d bring supper trays to my parents’ den during vacation breaks. During the summer, too, I played in the kitchen and always loved it, eventually catering and writing cookbooks. A response to food in a boarding school!

I’ve just finished “View from the Third Floor” at one gulp, and I am flooded with my own memories of Taft. Once again I can see Mr. Cruikshank in Vespers and hear him intoning, “I wish to comment— negatively—on the behavior of certain seniors...” and the dread we felt in our guts. I got along quite well with him— considering the times I had to be disciplined. I remember so vividly his swiveling around in his chair and asking

earnestly, “Conrad, are you crazy?” After I graduated, he wrote me warm letters. Incidentally, I simply could not get geometry—in spite of Eddie Douglas’ genius—and your father created a special credited art course for me—so I am the only person ever to have graduated from Taft without having taken or passed geometry. I haven’t missed it! Your mother was always warm and compassionate—one of the loveliest

women I’ve ever known. I have never regretted going to Taft, though it was far from home and dreary at times. Bill Sullivan was a great influence on me (and on my son). My daughter, Kendall, graduated from Taft 15 years ago, is having her first child. Maybe he too will go there. My grandfather roomed with Mr. Taft at Yale!

Taft School. Watertown, Connecticut

—Barnaby Conrad ’40 Taft Bulletin

The author and her husband, Edmund, at their home on Martha’s Vineyard.

Heads of schools were small gods, responsible for raising money, operating buildings and campus, hiring faculty, and dealing with boards, alumni, and curriculum as well as students. Not your every day dad, pal, and friend! Our father was the headmaster, in charge of preparing hundreds and over the years thousands of boys to go on to college and to life, well equipped in academic fields, well coordinated on the playing fields, and full to the brim with fine character, ready to become successful men. Nicknamed St. Paul or Tall Paul, he was tall with an athlete’s build and very handsome. I can see him now in his three-piece suit and his black shoes. No khakis or loafers allowed! He never went barefoot or put his feet up on the railing. He was known for patrolling midnight corridors, for picking up campus debris, and for filling the holes dug by my mother’s various dogs. He loved black bean soup and Boston cream pie, but then, of course, he was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts. These items were part of his history. Given his Scotch-Presbyterian background with its strict codes and its judgmental tendencies, I now realize why his affection was a grudging tough love. A true Puritan, his life was shaped by strict ethical rules. Once, years later, as I walked with him to the Sunday Taft service at the 18

Spring 1999

local Episcopal church, I asked why we all had to go to church. His reply was quite clear. “Because it’s good for you.” His often acerbic tongue could deeply hurt. One graduate recalls: “I still quake inwardly at the recollection of his peering down at me with that look of definite reproof.” He expected a great deal from his faculty, from his boys, and from us, his children. We all wanted to live up to his expectations, to achieve for him, to please him, to make him proud of us. We all yearned for his praise. It was hard if one giggled in the corridor, got a D in French, chewed gum, or used improper language. I remember being fined a nickel for saying boyfriend! Indeed, it was difficult for us at home if we disappointed or failed. Perhaps he took it personally as a blemish on his own escutcheon. Once in a great while he would relax and play with us. He made up stories about an imaginary family, the Wiggamuffins. He might take us skating on the school rink during Christmas vacation or into the big gymnasium to play basketball. The best fun was playing THE game (a special form of charades). He loved acting out the slogans and quotations. Then, he was, for a brief time, our wonderful father; we

loved him, and we shone with joy and excitement. But the next day the austere headmaster would reappear, and we would scuttle back to our careful selves. A grateful graduate, in looking back, praises my father’s “demands for decency and responsibility, perseverance, dedication, and self discipline”—quite a list if one survives! Well, we have all survived. Wisely, our parents eventually sent us to other boarding schools where we could grow on our own. But the pungent aroma of freshmown grass never fails to summon the view from my third-floor bedroom window in the headmaster’s wing at Taft. Perched in my aerie, I’m alone. It’s early June, and Taft groundsmen are cutting the lawns below. The odor permeates the room; the buzzing of the machines fades and grows as the mowers cut back and forth. Although I returned often throughout the years of school and college, my world was no longer just the cloistered halls of a boarding school campus. I would eventually step forward to marriage, children, and a teaching career of my own, forever shaped by growing up as a headmaster’s daughter. This article first appeared in the Social Register Observer as “School Days.”

S LU A P MON I TI N L T H I EGN EHW T S

Alumni IN PRINT

A Man of Many, Many Words Harlow Unger ’49 has published a new book, Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot. This, according to publisher John Wiley and Sons, is the first full biography on Webster in 60 years. Known chiefly as the original standard bearer of American English, Noah Webster was a true renaissance man who was also influential as a legislator, social reformer, and lawyer. Drawing on com-

plete access to Webster’s papers, letters, essays, and diaries, Unger provides fascinating coverage of Webster’s roles as a close ally of George Washington, John Adams, and John Jay, and as a key player in the heated battle to ratify the Constitution. The only biography of Webster currently in print, this book also renders an engaging portrait of the United States as an energetic and troubled young country. Harlow Unger, who lives in New York, was a foreign news editor at The New York Herald Tribune and correspondent for The Times of London. A former professor of English and journalism, he is the author of six books on education.

Additions to the Alumni Authors Collection The works of the four writers in this issue are only the most recent to cross the editor’s desk. At last count, over 150 authors, editors, illustrators, and musicians were represented in the Alumni Authors Collection, housed in the Hulbert Taft, Jr., Library. Below are works added to the collection since the list was last published in the Bulletin. If you have published works you would like added to the collection, please contact the library. [Dates in brackets refer to Bulletin reviews.] Trey Anastasio ’83 A Live One, Phish, sound recording Elektra Entertainment, 1996 Brooks Barnett ’67 Washboard Slim and the Blue Lights, sound recording Jugabilly Records 1996 Laurence Bergreen ’68 Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life Broadway Books 1997 and Capone: The Man and the Era Simon & Schuster 1994 David Burke ’54 Mediterranean France Insider’s Guide [Spring 1998] Hunter Publications, Inc., 1998

Taft Bulletin

ALUMNI IN THE NEWS

Robert Capa ’35 Robert Capa: photographs Alfred A. Knopf 1985 Mary-Chapin Carpenter ’76 “My Vote, My Self ” in A Voice of Our Own: Leading American Women Celebrate the Right to Vote. Edited by Nancy Neuman Jossey-Bass Publishers 1996 Harry Combs ’31 Brules, Delacorte Press 1994 How Strong is the Wind, video recording Barr Films 1987 Kill Devil Hill: Discovering the Secret of the Wright Brothers Houghton Mifflin 1979 The Legend of the Painted Horse Delacorte Press 1996 The Scout, Delacorte Press 1995 Barnaby Conrad III ’70 Ghost Hunting in Montana: A Search for Roots in the Old West, HarperCollins 1994 Barnaby Conrad ’40 Name Dropping HarperCollins West 1994 William N. Dember ’46 Viewing Psychology as a Whole: The Integrative Science of William N. Dember. Edited by Robert R. Hoffman, Michael F. Sherrick, and Joel S. Warm. American Psychological Association 1998 Tom Dunlop ’79, editor Vineyard Gazette Reader: An Anthology of the Best of the Island Newspaper, 1970-1995 Also edited by Richard Reston. Vineyard Gazette 1996 Alder Ellis, Jr. ’32 A Later Vintage: A book of poems Katonah Publishing Philip K. Howard ’66 The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America [Summer 1995] Random House 1994 Peter Mantius ’68 The Shell Game: A True Story of Banking, Spies, Lies, Politics—and the Arming of Saddam Hussein St. Martin’s Press 1995 20

Spring 1999

Photo by Marnie Boren

George Camp ’56 Resolution of Prison Riots: Strategies and Policies Also by Bert Useem and Camille Graham Camp Oxford University Press 1996 and The Corrections Yearbook Criminal Justice Institute 1981-present

Unequaled Ecuador Ecuador, writes Julian Smith ’90 in the Ecuador Handbook, “wraps up South America’s big three attractions—Andes, Amazon, and beaches— along with one attraction no other South American country has—the Galápagos Islands.” His guide, published by Moon Travel Handbooks, covers all four areas in entertaining detail. Moon Travel bills its series as “the guidebooks of choice for adventurous travelers.” Indeed, the beautifully rugged nature of the country and its affordability make Ecuador a perfect choice for younger travelers, and each chapter is loaded with outdoor adventure options, language schools, and exhaustive information on natural as well as cultural and historic attractions. A pre-college summer in Brazil sparked Julian’s love affair with Latin America, which was later fueled by a stint studying the cloud forests of Costa Rica. Within days of receiving a B.A. in biology from the University of Virginia, he began a self-publishing venture that re-

sulted nine months later in On Your Own in El Salvador, the first in-depth guide to the country.

Julian lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a perfect base for hiking, mountain biking, camping, snowboarding, and rock climbing. On off days you’ll find him reading voraciously, baking bread, or playing funk guitar.

Erlanger Overseas Some alums are in the news; others, such as New York Times Bureau Chief Steven Erlanger ’70, write it. Steve is back in the hot seat and frequently on the front page, reporting on the conflict in Kosovo from the Times’ bureau for Central Europe and the

Balkans, based in Prague, Czech Republic. He had been covering the Serb/ Albanian conflict, among others, from the Foreign Desk in Washington, DC, where he was chief diplomatic correspondent for three years. When Barclay Johnson ’53 interviewed Steve for the Bulletin four years ago, he was bureau chief in Moscow, covering Russia and the civil war in

ALUMNI IN THE NEWS

Quittner Time The name of Joshua Quittner ’75 is found more often in his byline than on book jackets, but this computer columnist for Time magazine has found time to write several books with his wife, Michelle Slatalla. In their most recent work, Speeding the Net: The Inside Story of Netscape and How It Challenged Microsoft, “they deftly demystify both the technology and the forces—legal, economic, and personal—that drive the software business,” wrote The New York Times. “The book is... likely to be popular at the Justice Department,” according to the The Boston Globe, because it “features some of those notorious Microsoft internal documents that frankly discuss using the linkage between operating system and browser as a way to destroy Netscape’s core business.” Although, Speeding the Net has not met with the same acclaim as the couple’s 1995 bestseller, Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace, it is a lucid, readable overview of the

Chechnya. In his career, Steve has stood among Israeli tankers in Lebanon, among Kurdish guerrillas in Iran, and among both Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. He also went to London to open The Boston Globe’s first foreign office. At twenty-five, Steve was sent to cover the Iran Revolution for The Globe—the biggest story in the world at the time. The story he’s fondest of is a Week in Review essay “asking whether the U.S.

computer industry’s fiercest competitive rivalry. In addition to Joshua and Michelle’s nonfiction collaboration is their recent novel, Flame War, which Booklist called “a rollicking jaunt through the world of computers and cryptography.” If you’ve been meaning to learn more about computers and the Internet, check out Joshua’s column at TimeDigital.com.

James Morrison ’43 The Stuff Americans Are Made Of: The Seven Cultural Forces that Define Americans—A new framework for quality, productivity, and profitability Also by Joshua Hammond MacMillan USA 1996 Ildikó Noémi Nagy ’93, translator Hungarian Art: A Brief History Corvina 1998 and A Pictorial History of Hungarian Art Corvina 1998 Joshua Quittner ’75 Speeding the Net: The Inside Story of Netscape and How It Challenged Microsoft [left] Also by Michelle Slatalla Atlantic Monthly Press 1998 Henry Reiff ’71 Exceeding Expectations: Successful Adults with Learning Disabilities [Summer 1998] PRO-ED, Inc., 1997 Ken Rush ’67 What About Emma? Orchard Books 1996 Julian Smith ’90 Ecuador Handbook: Including the Galápagos Islands [left] Moon Publications 1998 Bridget Starr Taylor ’77, illustrator Gargoyles’ Christmas by Louisa Campbell Gibbs Smith 1994 Harlow Giles Unger ’49 Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot [page 19] John Wiley & Sons 1998

had received any ‘moral dividend’ from the end of the Cold War, like the fabled peace dividend, or whether we were still backing odious people all around the world because it seemed to suit our interests, which were as much about imperialism as they were about human rights and democracy.” Steve enjoys being in the hot seat again as he puts the conflict in Kosovo in perspective for much of the Western world.

Charles Van Over ’56 The Best Bread Ever: Great Homemade Bread Using Your Food Processor [Winter 1996] Broadway Books 1997 A complete list of works in the collection has appeared in the bulletin in five parts— “Part I: 1906-1927,” February 1988; “Part II: 1928-1940,” Summer 1988; “Part III: 1941-1981,” Fall 1988; “Part IV: Recent Acquisitions,” Spring 1991; “Part V: Recent Acquisitions,” Summer 1993. A list of alumni whose works are part of the collection was included in the Winter 1995 issue. For more information about the collection, contact the Hulbert Taft, Jr., Library. Taft Bulletin

AROUND THE POND

pond Collegium Girls at Carnegie Hall The girls of Collegium performed at Carnegie Hall on February 12. This was a very exciting opportunity for them, as they were the only choir performing in

the final movement of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, a piece written specifically for young female voices. The concert also featured guest artist Carole Sloane, as well

Collegium girls welcome New York Pops founder and conductor Skitch Henderson, center, to Taft. Front from left, Ginger Stevens, Karen Kwok, Yumi Aikawa, Kristine Marigomen, Winnie So, Emily Lord, Michelle Holmes, Emily Garvan, and KP Parkin. Standing, Lindsay Dell, Mythri Jegathesan, Joyce Kwok, Irina Magidina, Julie Marmolejos, Sara Lin, Julie Pailey, Kelly Ohman, Nicole Robertson, Emily Piacenza, Nicole Dessibourg, Danielle Perrin, Justine Landegger, and Sarah Mehta. 22

Spring 1999

as The New York Pops Orchestra. Skitch Henderson, the founder and conductor of The New York Pops, came to Taft earlier to hear the girls rehearse, and was impressed enough with what he heard to invite them to sing an encore to the program. The girls spent most of that day in New York in order to rehearse with the orchestra for the sold out concert. “I was very proud of them,” said Arts Department Head and Collegium Director Bruce Fifer. “It was a major challenge—to go from singing in our smaller spaces to the grandeur and scale of Carnegie Hall. They certainly rose to the occasion and sang their hearts out. They surpassed all my expectations. It was a great experience for all of them.” The full Collegium Musicum traveled to San Francisco for five days over March vacation to give a series of concerts there, including a performance at Grace Cathedral. On Sunday, April 18, Collegium planned to entertain alumni, parents, and many others at a performance at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

AROUND THE POND

Nagy’s Hungarian Premiere By Stephen A. Levy He was inspired by a 13th century poem, the oldest surviving text in the Hungarian language. He dedicated the composition to a 13-year-old girl, the charming daughter of a friend. He could not have imagined in 1982, when he originally composed the piece, that the girl would grow up to be a nationally renowned singer and that one day, nearly 17 years later, she would sing the words of the poem, backed by a 60-person choir and a nine-member orchestra, from the stage of Pesti Vigadó, one of Budapest’s two most prestigious classical music venues. That is exactly what happened, though. On December 9, Andrea Melath, now 30, was the alto soloist at the Hungarian premiere of Alex Nagy’s “Ómagyar Mária Siralom.” “I am very happy that this turned out this way. For years I have been struggling to have my compositions performed. I always believed they were very good, but they needed to be heard,” said Nagy, an ethnic Hungarian born in Romania who has been the instrumental music director at Taft for eleven years. The December performance may have been the Hungarian premiere of “Ómagyar,” but it was not the first time this piece was heard. In 1990, Nagy shared the composition with Chris Shepard, former director of the Taft Collegium Musicum. Shepard immediately recognized its beauty. Together, Shepard and Nagy translated the Hungarian choral text into English, which the Collegium performed the following year at Yale University. Nagy jokes that this composition “has helped several people get their degrees.” It was Shepard’s 20th Century Master’s graduation piece and Nagy’s final PhD composition. Nagy, who conducts Taft’s orchestra

and jazz band and teaches AP music theory, electronic music, and rock and roll history, was granted a sabbatical leave in 1996 to devote himself fully to musical composition. With his wife, Susan, he returned to Budapest, where his daughter Ildikó ’93 resides. The December concert was sponsored by Delta Concert music agency, Hungarian Radio and Television, the Hungarian National Academy of Sciences, and The Taft School. The performance was also recorded and broadcast several days later on radio. Nagy was congratulated by the director of the Hun- Alex Nagy in Budapest last summer, before the premier of his composition. The parliament buildings are in the background. garian Federation of Composers, an elite group of artists in a country with an extraordinary classical music heritage. The composer was impressed by the piece’s English teacher Sara Beasley and thefresh sound and by Nagy’s “new approach ater teacher Helena Fifer directed a [that is] much needed in Hungary.” winter production of Ionesco’s Bald Two new pieces have been commisSoprano in the Woodward Black Box sioned by a second music agency, and on Theater on Mothers’ Weekend. Kate May 2 another of Nagy’s compositions Bienen ’99, Alex DiCicco ’01, Grawill be premiered at the Vigadó. ham Steele ’00, Michelle Holmes ’00, Emily Kaplan ’00, and Jake Stephen Levy is a former Taft English McKenna ’00 formed the cast. teacher now living in Hungary, where he is

In Brief

a reporter for the Budapest Sun and a feature writer for Budapest Style, a monthly English-language magazine.

Taft Bulletin

AROUND THE POND

Nicole Robertson Brings Bone Marrow Drive to Taft In her unrelenting quest to aid those in need of the costly bone marrow transplant and concurrently educate the public of the entire bone marrow process and its advantages, Taft School senior Nicole Robertson, of Waterbury, has set out to accomplish a very difficult and time-consuming goal. What began as an ordinary feeling of sympathy toward the millions of civilians suffering from terminal illnesses and in dire need of bone marrow transplants has developed into a focused strategy of determination and hope to aid the sick. Concerned by the general lack of education about bone marrow transplants and their increasing demand among the population to help save lives, Nicole researched this topic for the new Senior Seminar [winter issue, page 12], and from this research came her determination and will to help and educate. As part of the seminar, students are then required to do related field work in the second semester.

Nicole’s field work consists of three stages. The first is to educate as many people as possible, visiting schools and churches to inform people of donor possibilities and of their importance. The second is to aid people with terminal illnesses in the form of a Blood and Bone Marrow Drive, which was held at Taft on April 19, in which the public was encouraged to participate. Lastly, Nicole has begun a fund to aid those in need with some of the expenses of receiving a bone marrow transplant. With the average cost of receiving a transplant averaging $300,000, Nicole is realistic about difficulty of this goal, yet she remains optimistic and true to her cause. “A bone marrow transplant is a very costly and difficult procedure,” says Nicole, “yet its rewards are incomparable, for it has the potential to save the lives of so many people.” Nicole adds that, “Most people don’t know that the percentage of the African American population who find a donor is significantly lower than that of any other racial group in the United States.” And this, she says, is a “scary but true statistic that needs to be changed.”

Alumni v. Varsity Ice Hockey Game Nine alums returned to Mays Rink for the annual hockey game in January. When the alumni were on the ice, they only gave up one goal. Unfortunately, they needed bench support from the varsity and lost the contest.

Below: The “Alumni” squad, front from left: Taylor Leahy ’01, Jamie Better ’79, Fred Erdman ’71, Peter Maro ’83, Jeff Potter ’80, and Sean Cronin ’01; standing, Mark Traina (varsity asst. coach), Chad Bessette ’74, Todd Mills ’90, Steve Potter ’73, Mike Powers ’69, Garry Rogers ’83, Jared Beach ’01, Ramsey Brame ’00, and Bailey Stark ’02.

—By Adriana Blakaj ’00, Taft Press Club

Poet Tony Abbott Professor Tony Abbott of the English Department at Davidson College and an award-wining teacher and poet read some of his published poems, as well as some of his newest poems, to upper-mid English students and interested others on February 26.

Princeton Singing Group The co-ed Princeton a cappella singing group, Shere Khan, of which faculty member Molly Williams was recently a member, sang in Lincoln Lobby on Friday February 26. Taft’s newest a cappella group, the Eighth Notes, introduced the concert, and Ms. Williams joined them for a song or two.

Spring 1999

AROUND THE POND

Young Alums Help the Fund For ten days in January, an enthusiastic group of recent graduates joined the Alumni Office to help further the Annual Fund cause. Working morning, afternoon, and evening shifts, they called alumni/ae who had not participated in the Annual Fund for over five years. Though frustrated at times with the abundance of answering machines they reached, these college students enjoyed talking to the many men

and women they did contact. In addition to their success in raising money for the Annual Fund, the recent grads enjoyed talking with fellow alums from different generations. As Ben Pastor ’97 said after a 20-minute conversation with an alumnus from the Class of 1939, “He was really interesting to talk to because he told me what Taft was like when he was here. It sure has changed!”

Winter Formal Taft’s traditional winter formal had a new venue this winter, thanks to the orchestrations of Associate Dean of Students Bob Campbell ’76 and the school monitors. The entire event was moved from campus to the Southbury Hilton, where students enjoyed a four-course meal, followed by live Calypso music and dancing. Magicians, a caricaturist, a karaoke DJ, and a few pool tables provided alternate entertainment for those with tired feet. “Having it at the Hilton was amazing,” one student told The Taft Papyrus. “Go school mons!”

Swingin’ at the Ritz During the first weekend in March, acting and video teacher Rick Doyle and company brought an evening of song and dance to Taft in the third annual “Ritz” production. The show has gained a following after its huge success last year and tickets sold out in one night. Seated from left, Eileen Fenn ’98, Rachana Katkar ’98, Ben Pastor ’97. Standing, Ann Grasing ’97, Courtney Cappa ’97, and David Soderberg ’97.

Seated from left, Mike Osiecki ’96, Cristin George ’96, Spencer Tuttle ’98. Standing, Dan Trombly ’97 and Chris Snow ’97.

National Engineering Design Challenge Taft students took second place at the annual NEDC competition at the Univ. of New Haven on February 3. Taft had two teams entered in the regional competition. This year’s project was to design and build a device to assist an elderly person from a sitting position to a standing position. The upper-school team placed second with the “AirLift” device. Congratulations to captain Adam Aronson ’99 and presenters Husain Chhatriwala ’00, David Hotchkiss ’00, Kat Liu ’00, and Kristine Marigomen ’99.

Taft Bulletin

ALUMNI IN THE NEWS

A San Francisco Treat Because San Francisco is the home to more alumni/ae than any other city, excluding New York, it was time to bring Taft to the City by the Bay! On Monday, February 22, twelve loyal class agents spent two hours at Lehman Brothers calling classmates for the Annual Fund (thanks to Grant Porter ’69 for making it possible). The following evening more than 65 alumni/ae from the Classes of 1948 to 1995 met at Splendido for a festive cocktail reception, the first of what will hopefully become an annual event.

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Sara Sutton ’9 2, Margaret Fitzgerald ’93, Amanda Watson ’93, Sa ra Vintiadis ’9 3

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euser ’78, Merrill Weyerha elly ra W Pat Welly, Sier

Sarah DePolo ’94, Tom g ’94 Jackson ’94, Kate Genun

Dave Penning ’49, Joyce Destefanis, Dav e Fenton ’48, Jackie Fenton

Braden Cleveland ’92, Erika Hellstrom ’92, Kelley Fo rd ’92

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ALUMNI IN THE NEWS

“Mr. Taft Goes to Washington” The Metropolitan Club was the site for a gala dinner held in Washington, DC, on February 11. Chaired by George Boggs ’65, P’02, Wesley Williams ’59, and Charlie Yonkers ’58, P’88, P’89, the dinner gathered 170 alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends to hear Headmaster Lance Odden report on the state of the school. He also presented a slide show that included plans for three new capital projects now on the drawing board, a new dormitory, an ice hockey rink, and a new dining room and student center. A 60-year span of alumni was represented by Lou Frank, Class of 1938 and Courtney Camp, Kat Penberthy, Joe Toce, Chad Valerio, and Anna Wilkens, all from the Class of 1998.

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Cary Black, Susan Syming ton, and Ray DuBois ’66

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son ’43, Maya Tudor ’94, Ted Ma Genevieve Mason

Bill Camp P ’98, Courtn ey Camp ’98, K at Penberth y ’98, Christy Cam p P’98

ton Syming McKim , is son o k B ic u Helen D y Kempton D is ’66, Da n Symington sa u S , 6 P’6

Hank Torbert ’90, Dr. Bathrus Williams P’5 9, Ramsey Cashen ’89

Taft Bulletin

sport Winter Wrap-up ‘99 Boys’ Squash The Taft Boys’ Squash team continued to rewrite the record books this year, extending their amazing three-year undefeated run. Once again, the Taft boys played at another level in terms of the prep school squash ranks, posting a 19-0 dual meet record and running away with the New England tournament for the third year in a row. As New England champions for four of the last five years, Peter Frew’s teams have built a legacy of winning that may not be duplicated again. And perhaps more importantly, the Taft players have always been held in the highest esteem for their sportsmanship and fair play; their conduct on the court, no matter how heated the match, has always been as impressive as their record. Leading the way in both categories for the past four years has been senior captain Nick Kyme. He leaves behind a career of accomplishments that is staggering, including one individual NE title, three team titles, a four-year undefeated dual meet record against NE prep schools, and a 2nd place finish at this year’s NE tournament. He has played at the top of Taft’s ladder for four years, yet it has not been easy for Nick to hold onto the number one spot with teammates

Spring 1999

Ryan Byrnes, Max Montgelas, and Aftab Mathur knocking on the door. Fellow seniors Montgelas and Mathur have never lost a match in their careers at Taft, and both have won back-to-back individual NE titles. Next year’s captain, Ryan Byrnes, playing in the number two spot this year, has won an individual NE title for the past three years and lost fewer points than any player in NE this year. With captain-elect Brynes, undefeated upper middler Ross Koller, and undefeated, New England champion Eric Wadhwa, Taft should again compete for the top spot in NE.

Boys’ Basketball Measured by wins and losses, it wasn’t a very good year for Coach John Piacenza, captain Marc Greggs and the rest of the varsity basketball team (1-18). However, a lot of good things happened during the season. The team got better as the season progressed, they never gave up, and they played some of their best basketball during the last three weeks of the campaign. They finally won their seventeenth game—a hard fought battle versus Kent. Many of the underclassmen saw significant playing time, and there are some

bright stars in the future. Eric Rhynhart, a sophomore, led the team in scoring and rebounding. Juniors Michael Baudinet and Thomas Smythe proved that they could shoot from the outside as well as anyone in the league; Baudinet even finished third in the league in three-point shot percentage (38 percent). Also, junior Marc Greggs, second on the team in points and rebounds, showed that he could lead the team through the toughest of times.

Girls’ Basketball With only one senior and a relatively young squad, this year’s girls’ basketball team could not expect to reach the heights of the past few years. However, with the one senior Emily Townsend, described by Coach Dick Cobb as “the best athlete to play basketball at Taft in the past 25 years,” and solid underclassmen, the team was frustrated with a 1-6 beginning. Several of these close opening losses, to top New England teams, proved to be the stepping stone to an impressive finish to the season. Led by captain Townsend and Adriana Blakaj in scoring, Taft went on to win 7 of their final 12 games, posting an 8-11 record and earning a share of the Western New England League Title with Kent. Perhaps their best overall game

of the season came at the very beginning, an eight point loss to eventual undefeated New England champion Suffield. For the second year in a row, Emily Townsend was selected as one of the leading Western New England All-Stars, and Adriana Blakaj was named to the “B” team. With the solid nucleus of upper middlers, next year’s squad should be a well-balanced one.

Wrestling This was a young but talented wrestling squad with an outstanding leader in the only senior on the team, Will Rakestraw. The strength of the team, which was spread throughout the weight classes, proved to be enough to post an 11-5 overall record, though the youthfulness and inexperience also made for a couple of close losses that could have gone the other way. The highlights of the season included difficult wins over the always-strong T-P team, 42-37, and over rival Hotchkiss, 34-32. At the Western New England Championship, Taft put up a solid team effort to finish 6th out of 20 teams. At that meet, John McCardell won at 152 lbs. and Will Rakestraw finished 3rd in the 130 lbs. class. At the All New England Championships, tri-captain elect Venroy July engineered a great win over his rival from Hotchkiss, the defending champion in the 189 lbs. class, to finish second overall. Led by tri-captains July, Shawn McCormack—who also finished 5th at the big New Englands—and John McCardell, Taft should prove to be a formidable force on the mats in the Founders’ League next winter.

Boys’ Ice Hockey The fact that the boys’ varsity hockey team ended up with a 15-8 record but still felt disappointed says a lot about their level of talent and determination. They began the year with a 6-1 start, inspirational wins over perennial powers Avon Old Farms and Belmont Hill, and some pretty high expectations. With real speed throughout the forwards and strong senior leadership, the

Taft skaters had a good deal of confidence heading into the middle of the season. However, following a few close, frustrating losses in games where the Big Red literally dominated, the entire season took on a different tone. Fighting and scrapping for every goal—and the goals did not come easily—Taft just couldn’t come up with those one or two crucial victories to propel them to the post-season. What proved to be Taft’s distinguishing strength this season also became its Achilles’ heel—their ability to overpower teams offensively without scoring. In the end, Coach Maher’s squad skated toe-to-toe with the best teams in New England and had good reason to come away with a real sense of pride. Highlights of the season included an impressive victory over rival Hotchkiss and a fine Lawrenceville Tournament, where they made the championship game for the second straight year. In addition, Taft posted the second lowest goals-against average in the Founders’ League, and seniors Evan Nielsen, Brad D’Arco, Denis Nam, and Trevor Beaney were selected to the NEHPSA All Star team, while John Longo and Jed Richard were named Founders’ League All Stars. The team will sorely miss

the range of talent and dedication from these individuals and all the departing seniors, but a number of very skilled underclassmen should help form a very strong team again next year.

Girls’ Ice Hockey It may have been surprising to other schools to see Taft in the semifinals of the New England tournament this year, but given the team spirit and solid senior leadership of this squad, neither the players nor Coach Patsy Odden was very surprised to be battling eventual champion Choate in the semifinal game. This was a team that made up for a lack of depth with some gritty, come-from-behind efforts and surprising offensive spurts. Anchored by senior cocaptains Molly Barefoot and Jill Giardina, Taft possessed a fairly even balance between their offensive and defensive play. However, they were prone to inconsistent moments, at both ends of the ice, and senior goalie Chanda Gunn ended up making the difference in many close games. The highlights of the season came against a very talented Hotchkiss team, with Taft posting a hardfought one goal victory to take the Taft

Taft Bulletin

Christmas Tournament title in their most balanced game of the season. Then, in the first round of the New England tournament, with Gunn piling up over forty saves, Taft won an incredibly exciting battle, again 2-1. Senior Paula Dady scored the game winner, perhaps the most spectacular goal of the entire season. Losing five senior starters in Barefoot, Giardina, Chrissy Fuld, Dady, and Gunn will mean some major changes in next year’s line-up. However, with New England All-Star team members Nicole Uliaz and Kelly Sheridan as co-captains—and the leading scorers from this season—Taft should once again find themselves in the top of the prep school ranks.

Girls’ Squash This was a well-balanced team with some real competitive closeness from their number one player straight through the ladder to the number seven player. Their 8-5 overall record was the product of a sound, all-around team effort, as was their impressive 5th place finish at the New England

championships. If they lost a match or two near the top, this team would come through with key victories further down the ladder. New upper middler Kristin Wadhwa took over the top spot early in the season and went on to reach the consolation finals in the number one draw of the New England tournament. Seniors Winnie So, Sonia Cheng, Falguni Mehta, Lauren Chu, and Alix Connors all improved and played solid, consistent squash in the 2 through 7 spots for the team. Their best matches of the season included two impressive 5-2 victories over league rival Choate. In the end, this was a solid squash team that dominated most teams in New England but just couldn’t match up against the top few. Their surprising but well-deserved 5th place finish at New Englands was a true team effort, with 3 to 5 points from every individual, and an unexpected quarterfinal victory by Pranisa Kovithvathanaphong, the only player in the entire tournament to defeat a seeded player. Coach Susan McCabe’s squad will have to look for rising young talent to fill the positions left by the six seniors in the top seven spots this year.

Boys’ and Girls’ Skiing Both teams were plagued by some poor weather and inconsistent performances, yet when they put it all together, the Taft ski teams were better than their overall record. The girls finished 5th out of the nine teams in the Mount Institute Race Series and were led all winter by captain Lindsay Tarasuk. In the end, she finished 13th overall out of 65 skiers at the endof-season championships, though the team had a tough day all around. The boys were far more inconsistent during the season, but in the end they came through with impressive team finishes in the giant slalom events. At the New England championships, Christof Pfeiffer finished 11th out of 65 total racers, keeping Taft ahead of all their league foes including Berkshire. Also, the Taft boys finished 2nd out of eight teams in the giant slalom at the Berkshire League Championship, again led by Pfeiffer—the GS champ— with Nick Ryan in 4th place and captain Jack Downey in 9th. Throughout the winter, captains Downey and Tarasuk were impressive leaders and role models for both teams, and their ski boots will be filled by captains-elect Pfeiffer and Ryan for the boys and Laura Behrendt and Kelly Ohman for the girls. —Steve Palmer

Girls’ Varsity Hockey wins the Christmas Tournament. 30

Spring 1999

Big Red Scoreboard Boys’ Basketball

Boys’ Ski Racing

Head Coach: .................................................. John Piacenza Captain: ..................................................... Marc Greggs ’00 Record: ......................................................................... 1-18 Logan Award: ................................................... Marc Greggs Captains-Elect: ............... Marc Greggs, Thomas Smythe ’00

Coach: ............................................................ Matt Blanton Captain: ..................................................... Jack Downey ’99 Record: .................................... 2nd in Berkshire League GS Ski Racing Award: ............................................ Jack Downey Captains-Elect: ............. Christof Pfeiffer ’00, Nick Ryan ’00

Girls’ Basketball

Girls’ Ski Racing

Western New England Co-Champions Head Coach: ....................................................... Dick Cobb Captain: ............................................... Emily Townsend ’99 Record: ......................................................................... 8-11 Basketball Award: ....................................... Emily Townsend Captains-Elect: Adriana Blakaj ’00, Kathleen Fenn ’00, Sarah Payne ’00

Coach: ........................................................... Rebecca Loud Captains: .................. Jane Conolly ’99, Lindsay Tarasuk ’99 Record: .................................. 3rd in Mt. Inst. Racing Series Ski Racing Award: ....................................... Lindsay Tarasuk Captains-Elect: ......... Laura Behrendt ’00, Kelly Ohman ’00

Boys’ Ice Hockey Head Coach: ..................................................... Mike Maher Captains: ....................... Brad D’Arco ’99, Dennis Nam ’99 Record: ......................................................................... 15-8 Angier Hockey Award: ............... Brad D’Arco, Dennis Nam Coaches Hockey Award: ............................ Evan Nielsen ’99 Captains-Elect: .................... Eric Dalton ’00, Tim Pettit ’00

Girls’ Ice Hockey Head Coach: .................................................... Patsy Odden Captains: ..................... Molly Barefoot ’99, Jill Giardina ’99 Record: ..................................................................... 15-4-3 Patsy Odden Hockey Award: ..... Molly Barefoot, Jill Giardina Captains-Elect: ......... Kelly Sheridan ’00*, Nicole Uliasz ’00 *Kelly Sheridan set a new single-season record with 33 assists.

Boys’ Squash Founders’ League and New England Champions Coach: ................................................................. Peter Frew Captain: ....................................................... Nick Kyme ’99 Record: ......................................................................... 19-0 Squash Award: ................................................... Nick Kyme Captain-Elect: ............................................. Ryan Byrnes ’00

Girls’ Squash Head Coach: ................................................. Susan McCabe Captain: ...................................................... Lauren Chu ’99 Record: ........................................................................... 8-5 Squash Award: .................................................. Lauren Chu Captain-Elect: ....................................... Kristin Wadhwa ’00

Wrestling Head Coach: ..................................................... John Wynne Captain: ................................................. Will Rakestraw ’99 Record: ......................................................................... 11-5 Hitch Award: ............................................... Will Rakestraw Wynne Award: ....................................... Mike Blomberg ’00 Captains-Elect: .......... Venroy July ’00, John McCardell ’00, Shawn McCormack ’00

Taft Bulletin

Archive Identifications Our thanks to all the alumni who responded to our call for information about the archive photos in the winter issue. The first photo, next to the table of contents, has been identified as the winter of 1956-57. People seemed to have an easier time recognizing the car than the faces. Here are a few of the many responses received:

I am almost certain the photograph is from the 1950s. The fresh snow should be a help. The date could probably be narrowed down to two or three possibilities because of the substantial Saturday night snowstorm. —C. David Burt ’58 All I can tell you is that the car closest to the boys is a 1956 Chevrolet. —Bill Hoglund ’52 My wife says it’s a ’56 Chevy in the driveway. In the first bunch I recognize Brock Manville, Farish Jenkins, and Russ Neuswanger, all Class of ’57. I recognize others, too, but I’d have to look more to get their names. —Roger Hartley ’57 As I looked at [the photo] I was sure that I saw several classmates. Refreshing my memory with my Annual, I found I couldn’t quite make a match for any of the guys I was sure about a few minutes earlier. Then I saw a real clue that told me it was definitely not my era. Look at the nearer of the two cars. Unless I miss my bet, it’s a ’56 Chevy. —Pete Gray ’47

I believe the photo was taken about 1956. I can recognize Russell Neuswanger, second from right in the front group. The fellow fourth from left, with his head down, glasses, and crew cut, might be Brock Manville. I vividly recall our treks to Sunday services, our only occasion to go off campus unless for a sporting event. Seems not so long ago. I enjoy reading the Bulletin. The issue I most enjoyed was about a year ago as it featured articles on Jim Logan and Len Sargent. It is wonderful to read about the masters of the 1950s. Although I attended Taft for only two years, I can recall the names, images, and classes taught of more than twenty masters. They were truly mentors and made a lasting impression on me. —Jack Buckley ’58

The winter photos on page 32 were less controversial. The photos are from p. 7 of the Winter ’40 Taft Pictorial and were taken by Richard Wood, Earle Hartley, and Blommers. Richard Davis ’40 and Neil Currie ’40 concur that classmates Jim Taylor and Charlie Willis are in the lower right photo. Charlie wrote in from Pittsburgh:

The two smiling young men in the photo are Jim Taylor, left, and Charlie Willis, both Class of 1940. We are about to shovel off snow from the old pond so the hockey team could either practice or play a game. —Charlie Willis ’40 Our thanks to all who responded! 32

Spring 1999

Looking at the faces of the guys in the front group, I found most of them familiar. Those on both sides of the tree are almost surely myself and my brother Carl ’60. We only overlapped the one year, so this would be winter 1956-57. I think the one in the lead, facing the camera, is Steve Greene. Behind him I believe Gerard Warden, then Ken Kleeman. Behind Kleeman, to the left, may be Bill Dean, and next to him maybe Stephen Dana. Behind him, Farish Jenkins. And then big and little Neus bringing up the rear. —Russell Neuswanger ’57 Class Agent Bill Weeks ’57 phoned in to help with the solution. He identifies his classmates as Steve Green, Gerard Warden, Ken Kleeman, Brock Manville, Carl ’60 and Russ Neuswanger. Tommy Hickox ’57 concurred. You will probably hear from hundreds of us, all thinking that we recognize our class, but I do believe that it is our class, 1959.... I am sure that it’s winter (have to get something right). —John Merrow ’59 Actually he was right about two things— winter and the number of responses! From the 1940s to the 1960s, the scene was familiar to all. Only cars seemed to change!

Why change? In continuing recognition of the 75th anniversary of the Taft Bulletin, and in response to those who asked to see it again, the 1976 Commencement address by Joseph Cunningham, then retiring director of admissions, is reprinted from the Summer 1976 issue. Perhaps you agree with a Harvard professor who wrote that education started out with the idea that the infant was a vegetable, the adolescent an animal, the adult a human being, the aged adult a wise human being with a touch of deity. All right, you animals, let’s get on with it. This is God speaking. There are several themes I could explore with you. For example, the Winston Churchill one—built on the idea that the farther you can look back, the farther you can see ahead. In other words, never cut yourself off from your heritage or from the wisdom of the past, for only through... Excuse me, but somebody out there who has been counting on his fingers has figured out that if I am 65 I can look forward to 130. He clearly thinks the whole thing is ridiculous. I could discuss the “I never promised you a rose garden” theme. Life out there is tough; your childish traits have gotta go. You’ve got to be competitive, realistic, mature. You’ve got to work if you want to feel fulfilled by the time you get to my age of retirement. Now I believe in knowing all we can about our heritage, in Bicentennial years and every year. I believe in learning from the wisdom of others, in basing one’s actions—to some degree at least—on reason, in working hard, and in living according to principles and ideals. Believe me, I do. As a result of having observed you people for one to four years, I know that most of you, most of the time, believe in these things, too— maybe even more so. That gives me a big edge on lots of commencement speakers. It also makes me look like an old fool up here, since I know that I haven’t got anything to tell you.

I do have a plea to make and a question to ask. I understand that you don’t want to be damned by destiny to a state of permanent adolescence. But my plea is that you try like the devil not to change too much during the next fifty years. There are a few of you, I am sure, who at one time or another have done destructive, thoughtless, cheap, or mean things. I hope you will change. But most of you have gone about your business here with a limited amount of baloney and have said what you had to say decently and directly. Later on with your spouse, your kids, your boss and in all your activities, why change? You’ve been under pressure, lots of it at times, but you haven’t cheated or stolen. So, when you run a labor union or a big international company or whatever, why change? You’ve respected your bodies as well as your minds. You’ve exercised, limited your intake of Geritol, and eaten wholesome but simple food in the Taft dining room. Why change? You’ve been competitive in sports, extracurricular activities, and academics. But you haven’t felt the need of sticking both fingers in the other person’s eyes. And you’ve run a newspaper with a positive attitude and criticism that was constructive but without arrogance or personal invective. Why change? Most of you have not become scholars, but you have advanced your knowledge and extended the precision of your thought. You have learned how to learn and have done more in a creative way than ever expected. When you are out of college four years from now, why change? You’ve had parents who let you leave home and come to a world that is not al-

ways beautiful, let you make mistakes and learn about cause and effect—all on your own. So when you have kids and you are as confident and proud, but also as frightened and worried, as your parents have been, think of them. And why change? Gibbon, the historian, said: “There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages and magnify the evils of present times and places.” By and large, this has not been your way at Taft. So, when you get older and start to bitch about modern times and “the kids these days,” maybe you can remember, and say “Whoa, why change?” You haven’t made a lot of ghastly decisions just because you were afraid. So, in another time when security may seem to be all important, don’t be fooled. Why change? You have been open and honest about your emotions and have let them show in a natural way. Instead of hiding them behind a drawn shade in the future, why change? Most of all, your life here has been characterized by camaraderie and by compassion, and by love. You have done hundreds of things to make life in this community better for little children, each other, for middle-aged people like Mr. Odden, and for old guys like Beezer and me. Now when you live out there in bigger towns and cities, why change? Because if you don’t change in these ways, and if millions of other guys and gals graduating all over the world this month don’t change... Just think about that for a minute. Wow! In the words of a man who didn’t change, Louis Armstrong, “What a wonderful world!” I hope that’s the way it turns out for you. Good luck and thanks for everything. Taft Bulletin