Class Note 1965
What a difference two months makes. Last column featured plans for the upcoming 55th reunion, now deferred. This one is full of classmates’ discoveries of distancing via electronic media. Bev and I have gone online for family talkfests, writing groups, online classes, a book club, doctor visits, and strength training from our now-shuttered gym.
Rich Beams reports from splendid isolation in Chester, Vermont, not so much from Covid-19 as from the arrival of mud season. Ensconced therein with two black poodles, visited by a large black bear, Rich can continue his opera reviews and Mahala can continue her German lessons, both online.
Betsy and Mike Gonnerman decided that this was the year to run every road in Hanover. Betsy wrote a wonderful article about the effort: 201 miles, 255 roads (40-percent dirt), net 21,000 feet elevation. Hooray!
Bob Murphy is, as he says, hunkered down in Florida, where everything snowbirds come for is closed, including the southwest Florida class breakfasts. Murph notes presciently, “You better love your spouse (fortunately, I do, without limit), because you’re going to be seeing a lot of him/her for the foreseeable future.”
Jon Silbert notes that “thanks to the miracle of Zoom, I can continue to conduct mediations online from home. I suspect that even when the crisis has passed, some folks will find this method preferable. As the technology improves, it could create vast changes—whether for good or ill is not so clear yet—in the way we practice our professions (and live our lives).” He notes that probably all of us ’65s “are on a firm enough footing health-wise and financially to be likely to get through the worst of this. But there are millions of folks around the country and the planet who are not, and that is very scary.”
Korky Terada spends half the year in Japan and half in Australia, where he imbibes sulphur-free organic red wine, which has helped keep his internal age at 21 physically (we all look back and hope not mentally). He has 10,000 bottles and sends an invitation to visit.
Dick Tabors is still working and “thoroughly enjoying the three small companies that we have started since 2012.” He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering last year, a signal honor after years as “a strange economist and geographer.”
John Tobin’sstudy of the piano has moved from face-to-face lessons at MacPhail Institute (Minneapolis) to live lessons online. “More surprising,” he notes, “I believe I am learning from this method: not quite as I might have in person, but definitely more than I would have without them!”
Weaver Gaines continues his work at Evren Technologies, transcutaneous auricular (ear) vagal nerve stimulation to provide personalized, stand-alone treatment for PTSD and anxiety. He finds, surprisingly, that financing for small startups, which one might expect to freeze up during Covid-19 distancing, is active.
Finally, we recognize with sadness the deaths of Chuck Coe, Woodhall “Sandy” Stopford, and Tim Bryant. Obits will follow online.
—John Rogers, 6051 Laurel Ave., #310, Golden Valley, MN 55416; (763) 568-7501; johnbairdrogers@comcast.net
