Yale Class Notes for May June 2021
60th Reunion to be virtual June 4-5.
Yale 61to have 61st Reunion in person at Yale in late May/early June 2022.
Mark Lebow says: The advantages of marrying a younger woman becomes more apparent every year now. My spouse of 32 years, Patricia Edith Harris, continues her amazing work as chief executive officer of Bloomberg Philanthropies. Previously she was First deputy Mayor of New York City when Michael Bloomberg served as Mayor. Saving the world is a full time job!
Stan Burkey has a unique Yale momento: I guess I failed the senior year spelling test!! Actually, I bought this rejected “Yali” sweat shirt for five dollars in a local roadside flea market. It must have arrived here in Kampala in a bale of rejected clothes items from the factories in Bangladesh or Thailand or China. Uganda has so far been only lightly touched by the COVID-19 pandemic – less than 350 deaths since the first death in June 2020. No idea when we will get a vaccine.
Brian Kenney notes: Still very active in our investment advisory business with son Greg. Wintering, as usual, in Scottsdale AZ where I spend a great deal of time with daughter Lynne, granddaughters Olivia(ASU) and Alexis(USC) and son, Rob.
Ed Cussler speaks for many of us: I have no news, but frustration that we will not have an in person reunion this year. I was looking forward to this. Somehow, we need a joint promise to survive until we can gather en mass in New Haven.
Paul Tierney, still distancing and masking, writes: It is just over two years since my beloved wife, Joanne, left this world for the next one. She would have been 80 this past Valentine’s Day. The hole in my heart is still there. On a happier note, I will accomplish a hat trick of retirements from The Shipley School this June. I have been teaching physics and astronomy there since 2001. I love interacting with the students, but when you can barely pick up a dry erase marker from the floor, it is time. I will celebrate by spending nine days at our cottage on St John in the Virgin Islands at the end of June. I am looking forward to the reunion, even a virtual one!
Josh Taylor writes: When I think back about the eternity of the Covid Pandemic, it feels as though time has expanded and not a lot has been accomplished versus how time seems to fly when we are busy. However, I have found some interesting projects to fill this extra time:
- Publishing “Are We Related to Anybody Famous?”, a family history
- Birthday Greetings – “What I was doing at your age” for each of our 12 grandchildren.
- A presentation and article on “Writing and Publishing a Family History”
- Digitizing several hundred black & white negatives (using a Rolleiflex or Leica camera) from my great aunt’s archives shot in 1930’s in and about Clarksdale Mississippi
- Inventorying and cataloging thousands of source documents, photos and family letters from mid-1800’s through 2006 inherited from my father.
Our only travel was a trip to Asheville to celebrate our October birthdays (mine and our second son Christopher’s 53rd). Bob Hipps, Harvey Hill and I have zoom meetings every 2 to 3 weeks instead of our usual lunch out. Like most of our classmates we have had our Covid vaccination shots, and are looking forward to more travel and social connection with friends and family
Dick Lacey notes: I’ve moved permanently after exactly 50 memorable and fun-filled years in New York City. I now live in my exquisite lake house four hours north of the City in Oxford, NY, about 30 miles north of Binghamton, where I enjoy access to over 900 miles of the Finger Lakes Trail system and where I hang my shingle as a professional freelance writer.
- LPA/JWM