Class of 1960

Prescient words from Robert Frost: “Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”

Although the horrendous fires in California occurred months ago, here are some tidbits from that time. The Los Angeles fires affected four of our classmates, Marty Weiss, Joe Mandel, Tay Weinman, and Ed Geraghty. Here are some details as of this writing in February.

Joe writes: “Jean and I are fine. Our house was threatened but unscathed. Our situation is such that we went ahead with our plans to spend the Chinese New Year holiday with our Hong Kong-based family. We are monitoring developments from here and find ourselves hopeful and confident that all will be in order when we return on February 8. In short, we consider ourselves among the fortunate.”

Marty writes: “We were under mandatory evacuation starting last Wednesday. Originally we went to a hotel in Pasadena, but the air quality was so poor that we moved up to Santa Barbara. We returned home last night. All is well at our place; unfortunately, not so for several colleagues, who lost their homes in both Pacific Palisades and Altadena.”

Tay Weinman has retired but his office nurse says he is fine and in no danger from the fires. Efforts to contact Tay directly were unsuccessful. I left a message for Ed Geraghty and heard from his son, Pat: “Thank you for reaching out. We are both fine. We are about 10 miles from the Eaton fire in Live Oak Canyon. We had wind damage but not fire here.”

Now, as for ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], Lord help us!

I invite readers to send comments regarding fires or ICE for our next Class Notes.

—Sid Goldman, 78575 Avenida Ultimo, La Quinta, CA 92253; (305) 849-0475; sidgoldman@gmail.com