Class Note 1961

A brief reflection abounds for the recently ended 2018 year. The highs for the class of ’61 included two outstanding and well-attended mini-reunions, one in Newport, Rhode Island (organized by Dave and Joan Prewitt), and one in Hanover (organized by Maynard Wheeler); a well-received new class project, The Class of 1961 Robert Frost Endowment for the Arts and International Relations (coordinated by Pete Bleyler), encompassing the Class of 1961 Arts Initiative Award and the Class of 1961 Stephen W. Bosworth Award for International Relations (honoring our deceased classmate); the receipt of the prestigious Dartmouth Alumni Award by one classmate (Harris McKee); the agreement by the class to adopt informally all of the spouses and widows and widowers of classmates; and being awarded the Class of the Year (led by class president Don O’Neill) for the 2017-18 fiscal year. The lows, however, cast an increasingly darker shadow over our class, as we lost too many valuable and valued classmates who passed on during the year and who can never be replaced. (Visit our class website for details.)

Oscar Arslanian may be getting older, but he certainly isn’t slowing down. As articulated in an extensive front-page article (with pictures) in a recent issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, veteran talent agent Oscar is being credited with finding the right business model amid the era of nostalgia and bringing the rock ’n’ roll of the 1950s and 1960s to former American Bandstand devotees as well as their children and even grandchildren, primarily through oldies tours of the original entertainers.

Pete Holbrook, a vagabond traveler, merchant seaman, draftsman, carpenter, N.Y.C. taxi driver, and college instructor of art for many years after graduation until he was able to support himself as an artist, eventually became a highly accomplished oil painter of Western American landscapes. Now deceased, his paintings still permeate high-quality art shows and are included in the collections of many major museums. His collection can be viewed at peterholbrook.net.

In closing, I leave you with an appropriate quote from Abraham Lincoln, who stated, “It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”

—Victor S. Rich, 94 Dove Hill Drive, Manhasset, NY 11030; (516) 446-3977; richwind13@gmail.com