By Arthur Greenwald
Let’s start this month with a reverent moment, in honor of two reverends who wrote in: Caroline Bail and Jessica Crist. Jessica and Turner Graybill have been together since Kingman Brewster occupied Woodbridge Hall. These days they live in Great Falls, Montana, where Jessica is associate bishop of the Montana Synod of the Lutheran Church and director of the Northern Rockies Institute of Theology. Turner is a partner in Graybill, Ostrem & Crotty. (We call that top billing in my line of work.) Jessica writes, “We’re empty-nesting. (Son) Raphael is a freshman at Columbia and (daughter) Rhiannon is a first-year PhD candidate at UC-Berkeley in near-Eastern studies. We celebrated our 30th anniversary with a trip to Great Britain, where we were visited by roommate Andrea Berly.”
In the smallest, most precise handwriting I’ve ever seen, Caroline Bail writes, “After 19 years in a parish ministry, I finally got three months’ sabbatical at the end of 2006. I managed to finish the first draft of the young-adult novel that’s been in my head for seven years, despite a house bursting at the seams with five teenagers.” Caroline assures friends that no, she hasn’t birthed two more kids. The new additions are nephews of husband Darius Jonathan who “came to this country from Cairo where they were refugees from Sudan.” Caroline and Darius have twin daughters, “Geneva and Orelia, who are in eighth grade and are fearless athletes,” as well as a bit more space now that “eldest son, Jonah (18), began a jazz performance conservatory program at William Paterson in New Jersey, where he makes good use of his six-foot, three-inch height playing string bass.”
Joanie Berliner Spear e-mails, “Have we announced Pam’s wedding yet?” Kohlberg being the Pam in question. “She married Curt Greer in February of last year. I was on their first date about eight years ago. (I really was!) Also, at their pre-wedding dinner in NYC, I gave a little speech roasting them. Curt’s a great guy, and a lucky guy, and she is very happy — gushingly! Don’t quote me. Really. No, seriously, call her and get the scoop!” Sorry, Joanie dear, but I couldn’t possibly say it better than you just did. Really!
Jane Peppler writes, “I’m playing British Isles and other more-or-less traditional music again, and have a new CD (see http://pratieheads.com). I joined Facebook to see what my kids were up to. Any classmates there, please ‘friend’ me (a new verb). I’ve been painting, studying Spanish and Yiddish, writing songs, and catching up with old TV shows in satisfyingly perfect chronological order via Netflix while I crank away on the elliptical trainer. My daughter Hannah works for the Samuel Bronfman Foundation in NYC. My son Ezra is enjoying his second year at Wesleyan — a minor miracle since his 2001 brain cancer surgery, radiation, and chemo in 2000 took figurative and literal chunks out of his brain. Reminds me each time the sun comes up: every day above ground is a good day.” No arguments there, Jane.
If you haven’t signed up for the class listserv, you’re missing out on a wealth of intellectual stimulation, opinion, and salacious gossip. Trumansburg, New York, mayor John Levine’s spring was “immeasurably brightened by a disgruntled resident’s impeachment petition to state court to remove me from office for offenses too obscure to describe here. At press time we were still waiting to hear back from Albany.” John and his sister, Margaret Levine Young (DC ’79), are revising the 11th edition of Internet for Dummies, that is, when John isn’t moonlighting as an expert court witness “for downtrodden clients such as Google and Microsoft.” May Berenbaum created quite a stir with her March 2nd New York Times op-ed piece “Losing Their Buzz” about the sudden and mysterious depletion of international honeybee populations and the ominous worldwide implications for agriculture. Says May, “More than 90 crops in North America rely on honeybee (pollination for) effecting fertilization and production of fruit and seed. (This) is worth an estimated $14 billion a year to the United States economy.” Worse, writes May, there’s no federal program to monitor, much less solve, the problem. The good news? May and other top entomologists are on the case. (Cue the Green Hornet theme music!)
Giving new meaning to “class notes,” Doug Henwood writes, “I’m in the early stages of a book on the American ruling class, if such a thing even exists these days. Since Yale is often thought of as a vocational school for that class, I’d be very grateful to hear from any classmates who consider themselves members, or have some pertinent thoughts. E-mail dhenwood@panix.com, or write me at 38 Greene St., 4th floor, New York, NY 10013-2505.”
Mary Ann Rose sparked another listserv delight, seeking the help of a graphic artist to design an historically accurate poster for a production of Macbeth. “This is an emergency tartan question: Given the storyline, which would be the correct tartan: the family Macbeth, the ancient Macbeth, or Campbell of Cawdor?” Almost immediately, Rob Watson came to the rescue, citing his UCLA colleague “A. R. Braunmuller, editor of the superb New Cambridge edition of Macbeth, who reports that the clan tartan is an invention of the English in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Tartans are adulterated versions of the rough, parti-colored trews (trousers, not kilts) worn by males in Macbeth’s day. So the choices here are all equally false to history and therefore equally available for the poster.” In another listserv exchange about Gertrude Stein, Rob mentioned that his wife, Dana Cairns Watson, had recently written a new book, Gertrude Stein and the Essence of What Happens. I instantly ordered a copy and was delighted by Dana’s wonderfully original exploration of how Stein’s literature was shaped by her fascination with the rhythms and deeper meaning of everyday conversation. Years ago I immersed myself in Stein’s handwritten journals at Beinecke library. Can’t wait to invite the Watsons over for dinner.
Michael Schwartz “just returned from two weeks in Africa shooting short videos about two social entrepreneurs. One started the only free university in South Africa. The other figured out a way to deliver vaccines safely to the most remote villages of Mozambique.” The videos can be found on Michael’s website, www.kikim.com. Michael’s also busy on several PBS projects and just delivered two more “special features” to HBO to illuminate the next DVD set of David Milch’s Deadwood.
Finally, it’s my sad duty to report the unexpected passing of our classmate Alan Solbert. After graduation, Alan distinguished himself in the environmental field, most recently as a principal and chairman of the board of the consulting firm Jones and Stokes. Alan is survived by his wife Marion and their children Victoria, Kevan, and Shayan. The family requests that donations be made to the Nature Conservancy, Attn: Treasury, 4345 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22203 — or visit www.nature.org.
Please help us keep in touch. Update your contact info by visiting www.alumniconnections.com/yale. And please subscribe to our class listserv at www.aya.yale.edu/lists. As always, your class notes news is welcome. Write to me at yale1975@aya.yale.edu.