May/June 2020
Bill Sargent, Class Notes
10 Pennsylvania Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971
Email: wsargent@tenpenn.com
www.yale61.org
Lou Allyn, Webmaster
Jamie McLane, Chair, Class Steering Committee
Josh Taylor writes “We live in interesting times. I look forward to discussing that in Charleston. Jeanne and I attended the May Y 61 mini in New Haven returning by way of Washington DC and Greensboro NC where we have friends. Our other travels included: two trips to Portland Oregon where our youngest son ( Y92) and his wife( Y93) live with their five children ( ages 11 to 18 ); visiting The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery Alabama; cruising on the Rhone river from Avignon to Lyon , and then to Paris by train; attending the Brevard NC summer music festival. Harvey Hill, Bob Hipps and I have lunch together every 5 to 6 weeks to discuss the latest books we have read and engage in what we used to call a bull session back in the day. I finally finished a three year project to publish a family history, “Are We Related to Anyone Famous?” It will be available in late January at Amazon.com and JETaylor.info . I continue to be active in various genealogy groups. Jeanne and I enjoy observing the career choices our older grandchildren are making.
From James McKinnon – “A friend just gave me a book: Football’s Last Iron Men about the 1934 Yale- Princeton football game. I recommend it to all members of “ The undefeated class” as a great fun read. My wife Marti, who I dated at Yale and married graduation week in 1961, and I, after 50 years of living in Princeton, just voted with our feet and decamped to Greenville, Delaware. We leave the Yale Club of Princeton, a missionary society, to younger advocates.
Brian Kenny had sent this note to the historian of the Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park, IL regarding Tom Singleton. “Tom and I were roommates at Yale where he was one of the greatest football players in Yale’s history. He played with Mike Pyle, who became a Chicago Bear great, and they led the 1960 Yale team to its only undefeated, untied season in the last 100 years. Tom was the quarterback and named the outstanding player in New England that year. After he served in the Marines, Vince Lombardi signed him to a contract with the Green Bay Packers. He was not going to beat out the great quarterback, Bart Starr, but Tom was such a terrific athlete that Lombardi offered him the position of starting safety on the defense. Tom would have been a member of the legendary Packer teams, but he declined the offer no doubt influenced by the fact that his salary would have been only $10,000 versus the millions players make today.
From Mark Lebow “My wife of 32 years, Patricia Harris, is chair of the Michael Bloomberg for President 2020 campaign. This keeps us both so busy that we only have free time to read the Class Notes in the Yale Alumni Magazine.”
Jim Tripp continues to send summaries from the monthly meeting of the New York City Y61 Discussion Group. The February meeting focused on healthcare and featured an NYU Law School colleague of Dick Stewart’s, William Sage, who reviewed his analysis of the transformative potential of “Medicare for All”. Participants included Doug Rosenthal, Dick Stewart, Vince Teti, Richard Weinert, Steve Kass, Andy Marks, Enrique Gittes, Peter Sprague and Jim Tripp. The next session is April 1 and will focus on opportunities for educational advancement available to low-income students. Ed Cantor and Doug Rosenthal are organizing a special meeting on April 15 in NYC with Sam Chauncey to review the events of the early 1970’s when the combination of opposition to the Vietnam War and pending Bobby Seale trial created a highly volatile situation in New Haven, which Sam Chauncey was instrumental in defusing.
From Jamie McLane, who is now addicted to racing his model Soling sailboat, attending the first class Sarasota Opera, engaging with the Ringling Museum, savoring a very active local bookstore, and trying to stay fit : Sarasota, FL continues to grow its Y61 group. John Maypole and Brian Kelly have lived here for years, with Brien playing a leadership role in the community. They are now joined by Terry and Barbara Shockey, Sandy and Mimi McMillan, and Jamie and Meg in the winter. Tom Edwards periodically joins the group from Dunedin, FL when he comes down to the Opera.
Brian Pendleton of Littleton, Colorado died on Thursday, January 16, 2020, from Alzheimer’s complications. He attended Phillips Academy Andover, and Yale, before enlisting in the US Navy as an Officer. He received his law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law, and was the senior partner in the Denver law firm of Pendleton and Sabian. Brian spent the last 20 years travelling extensively, especially to places where he could practice foreign languages. He is survived by his wife, Susan Stein, children and grandchildren.
A belated notice: Joseph Verner Reed Jr., who was under secretary for four secretaries general of the United Nations and chief of protocol under President George Bush, died on September 29, 2016 in Greenwich, Conn. He was 78. Joseph began his long career at the United Nations in 1985, after four years as ambassador to Morocco under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reed absented himself from the United Nations for two years when the first President Bush, whose parents had been close friends of his parents in Connecticut, appointed him chief of protocol in 1989. Exuberance sometimes led him astray. He told an audience at Hofstra University in 1997, jokingly, that he had committed more gaffes than any other chief of protocol in the history of the United States. “I flew flags upside down, I flew the wrong flags, I’ve had the wrong national anthems playing — I’ve done everything wrong,” he said.
—LPA/JWM