By Arthur Greenwald
Yeah! We’ve got co-chairs! For the reunion! BK Munguia has been joined by Thom Holaday (practice the spelling!) to plan and produce our 35th reunion in May 2010. If that seems a long way off, that means you haven’t ever chaired a reunion. Thanks to our increasingly active listserv, several classmates have already volunteered for the reunion committee and you can, too. Write to BK at beeks58@aol.com or to Thom at tlholaday@gmail.com. Your ideas are welcome, the sooner the better. More details next time.
I’m just coming off a technology streak, having recently returned from the Consumer Electronics Show and Macworld Expo. You can check out my articles by searching my name on tvnewsday.com (free subscription required). Tech highlights? Watch for Sony and Samsung’s nascent OLED video screens in the years ahead. Amazing high definition, cardboard-flat, and, for now, super-expensive. Macworld highlights? The impressive MacBook Air and grabbing a quick visit with Paul Miller, who was scouring the show for gadgetry to enhance his medical practice. We had fun comparing notes on the show and on the many New Haven renovations in and around Yale.
And here’s a surprise Macintosh connection—the sunny smile of Galen Brandt opens the official trailer of a new documentary called MacHeads: the Movie (see www.macheadsthemovie.com). Galen’s holiday card brought friends up to date on her latest creative pursuits, including writing and recording an NIH-funded series of safety songs for children with learning disabilities, along with a companion DVD. (See www.do2learn.com.) Galen is also studying the Feldenkrais movement system, all while editing a vegetarian cookbook and celebrating rustic life in a series of articles “Diary Of A Farmwife.” (See http://diaryofafarmwife.blogspot.com.)
Also pushing the boundaries of bucolic living is Jane Peppler, whose been updating the listserv about her new eco-friendly vehicle: a cart drawn by a “large young donkey” named Jethro. Seriously. “He cost as much as John Edward’s ($1200) haircut,” writes Jane from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “I also had to buy him a very long fence, which cost as much as several haircuts. And a barn full of hay, another haircut. Luckily I cut my own hair, so it comes out even.” Jethro, it seems, “interprets ‘STOP!’ as ‘stop if you feel like it’,” which has delayed Jane’s plan to drive him to the grocery store. Keeping Jethro company is a flock of chickens. Jane built the coop from scrap lumber then “splurged on a light-sensing door opener so I wouldn’t be late to my rehearsals directing the Triangle Jewish Chorale, waiting for chickens to straggle in at dusk. My industrious hens lay eggs every day. My roosters are hooligans.” Jane’s kids, though, are better behaved. Son Ezra is at Wesleyan. Daughter Hannah ’05 is thriving in Manhattan. In addition to agricultural pursuits, Jane runs http://caraycaray.blogspot.com—which recaps Spanish telenovelas in English!
Another eco-warrior is Trip Van Noppen, who writes, “As of January 2008, I’ve become the president of Earthjustice (www.earthjustice.org), the largest public-interest environmental law organization in the country. My wife Rivka Gordon and I moved to the Bay Area from North Carolina to join Earthjustice in 2005. We have a son, Eli, who recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and a daughter, Aden, who is a junior at Brown. I am happy to follow in the esteemed footsteps of other Class of ’75 members at the helm of a national environmental organization—Fred Krupp at Environmental Defense and Rand Wentworth at the Land Trust Alliance.”
But wait! There’s more! After 24 years Jeffrey Finer has shut down his private law practice in Spokane, Washington, to join the Center for Justice, a large, nonprofit, public-interest law firm specializing in environmental protection and high-impact federal civil rights work. “Based upon my gray beard and disgraceful longevity as a trouble maker, my role is described as senior litigator or director of litigation, or something. Mostly I help the younger lawyers rassle with city hall, jail commanders, police captains, and polluters. Fun! One recent assignment has us bailing out our founder and principal benefactor who’d gotten himself arrested protesting the war in Iraq. Health permitting, this law gig may work out. If not, I’m falling back on my art (oil and encaustic paintings).”
Finally, did you know that when not practicing or teaching the craft of writing, Joyce Maynard teaches pie-making workshops? Well you may have a chance to find out first-hand if I persuade Joyce to host a piefest at our next reunion. I confess I snickered at the knitting circle at our last reunion, but look at it this way: a night of knitting yields half a sock. After a pie workshop you get pie! More on Joyce’s writing and pie workshops at www.joycemaynard.com—including an essay, a recipe, and even a class on video.
Please keep in touch! Subscribe to the listserv at www.aya.yale.edu/lists. And update your contact information at www.alumniconnections.com/yale. As always, your class notes news is welcome. Write to yale1975@aya.yale.edu.