Great Class Lunch today (5/13/26) at The Reading Room. From left to right: Richard Marshall (first-timer), Andrea Kaliski, Jeff McAulay, Les Bronstein, George Miller, Duayne Draffen, Patricia Bouley (Jeff McAulay’s wife), Michael Farewell, Andrew Satlin, and yours truly. Hoping to organize another one in August or September.
The Game, November ’25!
What a great gathering of classmates at The Game! Huge thanks to Michael Albis and his wife, Jacqueline Albis, for bringing delicious stuffed Italian breads and to BK Munguia and her husband, Jon Mark, for bringing some virgin Bloody Mary’s. Al Palitz and his wife Pam; Bob Cole; Fred Krupp and his niece (currently at Yale in Pierson); Chris Whipple and his wife, Cary Whipple, Paul Baumgartel; Wade Cleveland and Travis Seward, Class Secretary, Thomas Bourgeois; “Trey” Sidney Davidson; and my husband, Paul Ford, were at our Class Table in the Alumni Village. Once again, our stalwart group and other visitors managed to consume two gallons of my (in)famous Bloody Mary’s! Our class rep on the YAA, Heather Corbett, kindly stopped by to say hello. By sheer luck, my husband and I happened to be sitting right behind Alan Sorensen and his wife and her Yale college roommate during The Game. It was hard to believe that Yale scored with a forced fumble right at the kickoff and just kept romping over Harvard. I have added one photo of everyone rushing on to the field which was particularly funny since during the game a formal announcement was made that it was a crime to do so! We are all looking forward to Yale’s first playoffs. Much aloha, Nancy
Our 50th Reunion was SPECTACULAR!
Click here to see reunion photos, videos and other materials!
Below you’ll find earlier materials.
Another great Peking Duck Banquet today! 2 hours plus of great conversation and great food.
Sadly, Brock Holmes, Robert Sotta, and Ariane van Buren were not able to attend due to Amtrak and other issues.
Front row (left to right): Tracy Pogue, Jeff Korber, Lisa Kaslow, Nancy Young, Laurie Kerr, Laura Duncan, Robert David, Andrea Miller, Patty Bouley, John Friedman. Back row (left to right): Michael Hausman, Jim Duncan, Peter Kaufman, Michael Stein, George Miller, Duayne Draffen, Sidney Davidson, Jeff McAuley, Greg Zorthian, Lila Locksley, Mik Chwalek, and Paul Ford.
More photos of this event on our Facebook page.
Peking Duck lunch extraordinaire! We started at 12:30 and were still going strong two and a half hours later. The party only broke up because people had long drives ahead of them.
Pictured from left to right, front row: Lisa Kaslow, Andrea Miller, and Alicia Rubin; second row: Robert Davis, Jeffrey Korber, Nancy Young, and Ken Rubin; back row: Michael Albis, Jacqueline Albis, Laurie Devitt, Fred Krupp, Paul Ford, George Miller, Robert Sotta, and Lila Locksley.
First-time attendees to a New York class event included Robert Davis (roommate of Robert Sotta who transferred to Stanford after freshman year); Robert Sotta, and Ken Rubin and his wife, Alicia.
Our Poetry Project
The project consists of favorite poems submitted by classmates. It is inspired by Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project implemented during his tenure as US Poet Laureate. Poems offer concentrated glimpses into the world we inhabit. Our favorites may offer resolution and hope. All are welcome. — Serena.
(Each submitted poem in turn is featured on our front page for one week, then is archived on our Poetry Project page along with all previously featured poems. For more info and guidelines to the project, select the project link on the left that appears when you login.)
O, She Says
O, she says (because she loves to say O),
O to this cloud-break that ravels the night,
O to this moon, its mouthful of sorrow,
O shallow grass and the nettle burr’s bite,
O to heart’s flare, its wobbly satellite,
O step after step in stumbling tempo,
O owl in oak, O rout of black bat flight,
(O moaned in Attic and Esperanto)
O covetous tongue, O fat fandango,
O gnat tango in the hot, ochered light,
O wind whirred leaves in subtle inferno,
O flexing of sea, O stars bolted tight,
O ludicrous swoon, O blind hindsight,
O torching of bridges and blood boiled white,
O sparrow and arrow and hell below,
O, she says, because she loves to say O.
— Hailey Leithauser, Poetry (July/August 2009)
Megan Baldrige: I love the joy and delight in this poem, all its surprises (“o gnat tango”) and I love reading it aloud: “O” is such an open-ended reverential vowel.
Classmate Book Newly Published!
Paul Mascia send us the following news: “[A]t age 70, this is my first book, and my first work of historical fiction. The publisher is Austin Macauley of London, Cambridge, NYC, and Sharjah.
“Nazar’s Journey is about a heroic young man in the Nineveh Plains of Iraq, 2014, who is forced — along with more than a million Christian and Muslim villagers from the region — to flee his homeland due to ISIS. This is a charitable project to assist displaced peoples in conflict situations internationally.
“[…] The book also includes nine expressionist masterpieces by Qais Al-Sindy, an accomplished Iraqi-American painter. [Shown here is] my favorite of the images.”
Anyone interested in reading it will be able to obtain it from Amazon on May 24 (pre-pub ordering is available now).
Classmate Podcast!
Ben Yagoda reports: Very excited to announce the launch of my podcast, “The Lives They’re Living.” The trailer is available on Amazon Music, Spotify, Deezer, and Pocket Casts &8212; that is, *almost* wherever you get your podcasts. (It’s still wending its way through the Apple process, and I’ll announce when it’s on Apple Podcasts.) The first four episodes will drop (always wanted to use that word) shortly.
As some of you know, I’ve had the idea for this podcast for a long time. It’s basically to profile remarkable but not hugely famous people–the kind of person who, when they pass away, will get one of those fascinating New York Times obits written by Margalit Fox, Bruce Weber, William Grimes Richard Sandomir or Sam Roberts. The profile is by way of an interview with someone who’s knowledgeable about and fascinated by the person.
In the first series, I’m delighted to talk to David Bianculli on Mason Williams, Gene Seymour on Ishmael Reed, Laurie Gwen Shapiro on Abigail Thomas, and Michael Tisserand on Jules Feiffer.
So please give a listen and, if you’re so inclined, share this post and subscribe.
More soon. Podcast Link
Special thanks to my podcast guru and mentor, Seth Goldstein.
Bottom image: At long last!! Our Class lunch at the Yale Club of NYC. Great to see Serena Fox, Charles Kaplan, Lisa Kaslow, Lila Locksley (Charles Keefe’s widow), Andrea Miller, BK Munguia, Michael Stein, Laurie Stevens, Greg Zorthian (Zorro), Richard Reiner, and yours truly. What a truly good-looking and interesting group! The next one will be in the fall. In the meantime, hope everyone has a great summer. Much aloha, Nancy
Dear Classmate,
At long last, our class has its own private website! In addition to links to the Alumni Directory, In Memoriam, Yale Alumni Magazine and more, we have added links to showcase our classmates’ artistic endeavors in the fields of books, art, music, cooking, and acting. Julie Sullivan has agreed to help oversee these sections and Elissa Bernstein has agreed to head up the section on cooking. We have also added a link to enable you to join Circletime, which is our Class Book Club, run by Jackie Austin. This is definitely a work in progress and we welcome your participation and suggestions.
Much aloha,
Tommy Bourgeois, Class Secretary
Nancy Young, Class Treasurer
News
Lori Laitman tells us: Thrilled that my film The Apple Orchard, has won Best Music Score, Short Film, in the Berlin Kiez Film Festival! Thanks to Dana Gioia for the beautiful poem, the wonderful performers Dan Norman and Simon Lepper, Ian Beck’s amazing illustrations, and Positive Note for the direction and production. You can view the film on YouTube.
Posted July 26, 2023. A group of our classmates: Chris Donnelly, Michael Albis and his wife, Jackie, and Nancy Young joined our very own Joyce Maynard at a book signing of her latest novel, The Bird Hotel. Joyce is a best-selling author and has published twenty books, both fiction and non-fiction and hundreds of essays. She is finishing up her next novel, How the Light Gets In, the sequel to Count the Ways which was an Amazon Best Book in 2021 and will be published in 2024.
July 24, 2023: Lori Andrews’ essay, “A complaint to Mattel about my doll led me to become a lawyer.” Read it here.
Classmate Peter Halley’s featured in “The 13 Most Extraordinary Art Exhibits to Catch Worldwide in 2023.” His work is being exhibited in Luxembourg. The direct link to Peter’s collection is here.
Our huge 70th Birthday Bash was a roaring success! Click to read the report, and to see the photos. Video of Jumpin’ Jack Flash to come!
Great News from Ben Yagoda! – click for the McDowell Colony press release