By Arthur Greenwald
Like many of you, I turn 53 this year. This month, in fact, on March 16. Despite working in the media biz, I’m not especially age-conscious. Still, 53 sounds a lot older than 33. I take comfort in a wise friend’s advice: “You’re only young once, but you can always be immature.”
No doubt mortality is on my mind because of the sad news of the recent deaths of two of our classmates: Joel Fain on September 3, 2005, and on October 7, Stefan Presser. Yale’s Alumni Records office sent me formal obituaries, which I’m glad to supplement with more personal remembrances by our classmates.
After graduating from Yale, Joel earned his law degree at the University of Connecticut and had been a practicing attorney ever since. He rose to managing partner of Morrison Mahoney LLP in Hartford. Paul Baumgartel hadn’t seen Joel in many years, but offers these memories of Joel and his wife Moira, who “married after our junior year. Joel worked part-time as a Saybrook master’s aide, and Moira worked at the Co-op. Despite barely scraping by economically, Joel and Moira frequently invited me, Tom Ziko, Bill Oppenheimer, and other friends to dinner, which as often as not was spaghetti with Ragu sauce and a loaf of bread. They were great hosts and, for me, their bond epitomized what marriage should be.” Paul attended a memorial service for Joel where he saw “our former freshman counselor, Skok Little ’70, and his wife Peggy. It was clear from the turnout and the emotion filling the room that Joel was well respected and well loved, and that he loved generously in return.”
In addition to Moira, Joel is survived by his three children, Hannah, Michael, and Rachel. The family requests donations be made in Joel’s name to Fund Development at Hartford Hospital, Bliss 11, 80 Seymour Street — P.O. Box 5037, Hartford, CT 06102.
I remember Stefan Presser as a frequent and friendly presence at the Hillel office in Yale Station. He studied law at NYU and became a professor of law at Temple University in Philadelphia where he won famous victories as legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU. Michael Rothman offers some richer memories. “Stefan was my sophomore-year roommate in Morse College, and one of our most generous and interesting classmates. I rarely met a harder-working scholar, and never a more organized one. A couple weeks before the end of the first semester, he stopped studying and spent his time socializing and playing handball, explaining that he had finished his course work and studying for finals. (Imagine the self-confidence!) He did just great on his exams and I discovered that this was his pattern, every semester.”
In a lengthy e-mail to Michael in the spring of 2000, Stefan described his family. “My bride Sandy Sherman and I are raising three children: David, Natania, and Rachel Sherman-Presser. We’ve taken them camping in Yosemite, Olympia Peninsula, Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone, the Tetons. . . . These trips have proven the high point of my life.” Family and faith remained central in Stefan’s life, according to his obituaries. Chip Carey kindly supplied links for the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/national/10presser.html) and the Philadelphia Inquirer (www.philly.com/mld/philly/12857056.htm). Stefan’s family suggests contributions to the Germantown Jewish Centre, 400 W. Ellet St., Philadelphia, PA 19119.
Happily, life, like nature, has its ways of providing balance. From Doug Henwood comes this happy news: “While the children of most of you are probably around college age, I just had my first: my wife, Liza Featherstone, gave birth to Ivan Joseph Henwood, 8 lbs. 2 oz., in New York, January 1, 2006, 7:36 AM. It’s odd to feel like a teenager in love at the age of 53.”
Mark Peters plays a psychiatrist in the new film op-ti-mis-tic, which screens this month in the LA portion of the NY Independent Film & Video Festival (see www.nyfilmvideo.com). Mark plans to join his daughter Amanda for part of her junior year in Central America, where they hope to visit the rain forest and the Galapagos, not to mention the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, the Honorable Linda Jewell.
David Applegate sent a note along with his class dues. (Thank you, David!) “Life continues to be much too busy as I continue to build the patent, trademark, and copyright litigation practice at Chicago-based Williams Montgomery & John, Ltd. It was great to see everyone at the reunion, especially Calhounies Cliff Hendler, Dan Fintel, Tom Blake, Barb Ziko, Nina Horowitz, Diana Hamlet-Cox, and ‘Dr. Bob’ Zaglin. Time does ‘so quickly fly’ but you guys haven’t changed a bit.”
By now I hope you’ve completed our online class survey. We’ll e-mail the results soon and summarize them here. So if you haven’t entered or updated your all-important e-mail address, rush right over to http://www.alumniconnections.com/yale/, and to subscribe to our listserv, go to www.aya.yale.edu/lists. Next notes: news about our class conference calls and podcasts!