April 2012 - Alumni News - Williams College

CLASS NOTES
international humanitarian
missions. He enjoys the travel
and the work and has found
the changes in U.S. health care
increasingly frustrating. He has
trips already planned this year to
India, China and Benin, Africa.
Lisle Dalton continues to practice
obstetrics and gynecology at
the University of Kentucky. He
and Kathy have a new interest:
a grandson, Reilly Lisle. Lisle
also finds time for fox hunting
and ski trips, so he can zip down
the black diamond trails. Who
says you can’t be active after hip
replacements?
Bill Ewen, though retired from
teaching math, continues to
coach racquet sports. He is in
his 44th season of coaching boys
varsity tennis and sixth season of
varsity squash.
Bailey Young was discovered
last summer by Belgium Public
Television (RTB). They were producing
a documentary on castles
in Wallonia (French speaking
part of Belgium). A crew spent
three days filming the excavations
at Walhain Castle that Bailey
directs with colleagues from the
University of Louvain-la-Neuve.
They were so intrigued with the
idea of an American professor
and students coming to Belgium
to dig in the dirt and excavate
a castle most Belgians do not
know exists that they followed
him back to Charleston, Ill., to
film the American backstory. The
piece is scheduled to be aired in
May.
In December, Ron Bettaur spent
a week in Vienna for meetings
of the board of the U.N.
Register of Damage Caused by
the Construction of the Wall
in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory. (See www.unrod.org.)
This happens quarterly. For the
rest of the time, Ron is a visiting
scholar at George Washington
University Law School and the
policy officer for the Section
of International Law of the
American Bar Association. For
now, he and Raija are off on a
trip to Southern Patagonia.
On Feb. 2, the annual Class
of 1966 NYC Dinner with No
Special Agenda took place. This
year it was held at the Williams
Club at the Princeton Club in
Midtown. Twenty-one living
worthies of the class attended
(tying the record for attendance)
along with three from the alumni
office. Lance Knox was again the
genial host and had negotiated
the arrangements. The ambiance
was jovial. The food was palatable,
though noticeably more
40 | Williams PeoPle | aPril 2012
heart-healthy than in years past.
Those attending were all robust
and appeared well, though two
had already dealt with prostate
cancer and several were managing
diabetes.
Co-secretary John Gould rode
into town on Amtrak from
Boston and Lynn, Mass., where
the winter had been more typical
of DC than New England: rain,
moderate temperatures, brown
grass, only one snowfall of any
measurable amount. Dreary,
but it kept him inside to plan
his “Through Syntax to Style”
course that he will teach at
Bennington in April and May.
John was in NYC to see his son
Gardy, who was about to head
to LA for the completion of the
filming of Life of Pi, for which
he is the assistant film editor.
John sent in this report about
his memories of the class dinner:
“I sat next to David Corwin, an
attorney who is now beginning
a stint working for Legal Aid,
assisting people who are trying
to deal with the housing crisis.
And I chatted with many others.
Jody Dobson is still living in
Philadelphia, where he continues
to practice his educational consulting
business. Dave Kollender
looks extraordinarily fit; he does
contract work for a number of
spooky governmental agencies—
NSA, FBI and so on. If I told you
any more, he’d have to kill you.
I can say that his daughter is a
struggling actor in California,
working her way up the acting
food chain. Bob Rubin told me a
hilarious story about dealing with
Ronald Reagan and his cabinet,
and if I told you any more about
that, he’d have to kill me. Rusty
Haldeman has recovered from
cancer surgery and looks terrific.
Jim Meier was preparing for
another 100-mile ski race across
Canada. (He is disappointed that
the age record for swimming the
English Channel just went up to
71, so he’ll have to wait till he’s
72 to reset it!) Jim makes me
proud to know him, without in
any way wanting to do the stuff
he does. All in all, it was a great
evening.”
Others attending included John
Carney, who had come in from
Cleveland, and Punky “Ed” Booth
from Arizona, who was on his
way to visit his daughter. Wink
Willett and Bill Bowden joined the
alumni office folks in speaking
about the beginnings of plans
for our Reunion L. Other locals
included Karl Garlid, Dave Tunick,
Ned Davis, Dave Batten, Alan
Rork, Jon Linen, Mike Burroughs,
Bob Krefting and me. Next up
is the Class Dinner in Boston
in April or May. Details will be
forthcoming.
John and I managed to meet
with Peter Koenig in London the
next morning via Skype for initial
discussions about the class book,
which will come out shortly
before Reunion L. After some
technical difficulties, we were
able to chat and watch flickering
images of each other. Happily we
each have tech-savvy sons, and
with their tutelage things should
go more smoothly next time. Be
warned that we will be asking
you for a biographical reflection
(not a CV) about where you’ve
landed a half century down the
road and how you got there.
There are many stories out there
that are not the ones we imagined
in 1966. We all want to hear
them. We also will be looking for
other materials—artistic, literary,
photographic, philosophical—
that you would be willing to
share.
Later that morning, several of
us met with Chris Robare, Mary
Richardson ’91 and Lew Fisher ’89
from the alumni office to begin to
flesh out some of the planning for
Reunion L. That rag-tag group
will grow some in the next several
months, and you will all hear
from them between now and
June 2016. Many of you have not
been able or inclined to maintain
close connections with our class
or the college. There were no
doubt good reasons for this, but
we hope you will think anew
about it all in the next few years.
A half century is a big share of
a single lifetime. Fifty years out
of college is a notable milestone.
None of us has come through it
unscathed, but we did share time
together in Williamstown.
In that regard, John Gould
recommended a book called
Rerunning, written by Jonathan
Stableford ’67, who was a colleague
of John’s at Andover. This
is a terrifying and ultimately
happy account of his near-death
experience with a particularly
fast-acting and virulent form of
pneumonia. “It’s fodder for all of
us post-60 guys. His coming back
from this precipice is a fascinating
and heartening story.”
And this shameless late news
is just in from Bob Mitchell. “My
wife Susan is an artist, and I am
a novelist. We both love what we
do very much. But as the Italians
say, ‘Non ci son rose senza spine’
(’There are no roses without
thorns.’) Because accompanying
the joy of art and writing is the