April 2012 - Alumni News - Williams College

CLASS NOTES
Jim also participated in a couple
of Williams-related events last
summer. In June Rob Hershey,
headmaster of the Episcopal
School up the street from Jim,
invited him and several classmates
in the area—Pat Bassett,
Gerry Stoltz, Harvey Levin Paul
Miller, Dick Ginman and others—
for a round of golf and dinner at
Alexandria’s country club, Belle
Haven. Rob humbly led off the
two threesomes with an eagle
on the first hole. Along with
available spouses, the six finished
with dinner on the clubhouse
patio overlooking No. 18. Jim
described another summer
(this one in August) Williams
event as follows: “I joined five
alumni (one a woman), from
the classes of 1982, two from
1987, 1990 and 1999, in a relay
swim from Port Jefferson, N.Y.,
to Bridgeport Conn.—15 miles
across Long Island Sound—in
the annual St. Vincent’s Medical
Foundation’s Swim Across The
Sound fundraiser. We—the Angry
Fish (though angry at no one)—
are several former swimmers for
Carl Samuelson, Williams swimming
coach from 1966 to 2000.
Carl tipped me off to the group
in 2010, and with a few emails I
was welcomed. Swimming alongside
a motorboat, we six rotated
15-minute swims over seven
hours. A post-race picture of my
teammates holding me up was in
the December class notes for the
Class of 1987. I knew none of
them before the race. We had a
blast, and except for making one
sharp right turn toward Maine,
provoking a frenzy of “come
back” signals from the boat, I
may have held my own enough
to be invited back.”
Don Berens wrote to say,
among other things, that in
June, he, his wife Maureen and
daughter Kate ’04 traveled with
their church choir to Bavaria,
Austria and Prague, singing in
five cathedrals and abbeys in
Salzburg, Melk, Vienna and
Prague. In August the three of
them, joined by son Tom, cruised
from Rotterdam to six Baltic
ports. In late September Don
began a 1,600-mile supported
group bicycle tour from Maine
to Florida, which ended in
mid-October in Daytona Beach.
His band of 25 bicyclists was
joined in that city by 100,000
Harley riders in town for
Biketoberfest, making for one
of the noisier bike rides Don has
done. In November Don walked
daughter Kate down the aisle at
St. Stanislaus Church in Buffalo,
46 | Williams PeoPle | aPril 2012
N.Y., where she married Craig
Bucki. Other Williams folk in
attendance were Ken McCurdy
’70, Don’s sisters Liz Berens ’71
and Julie Berens ’75, Julie’s son
Bob George ’04 and Kate’s friend
Daniel Rooney ’06.
Having had so few replies from
the rest of you (no doubt preoccupied
with writing your annual
checks to the Alumni Fund), I
am reduced to supplying the
following filler material about
myself. Julie and I took some
time off from our law practice in
October to go on a bike trip in
the Dordogne region of France.
This was our third European
bike trip, but the first not part
of a group and therefore a little
daunting. But the weather was
great, we saw very few tourists,
faced little traffic on country
roads and, most important, had
no bike breakdowns. Biking past
the literally hundreds of castles
and chateaux in the region of
France where the Hundred Years’
War was fought was a wonderful
experience. Highlights were the
Caves of Lascaux, Rocamadour,
Les Ezyies and La Rocque
Gageac. Well, that’s all, folks.
Thanks for the memories.
1971
John Chambers
10 Ashby Place
Katonah, NY 10536
1971secretary@williams.edu
Last time around we had a
farm report, a reunion retrospective
and purposes, pleasures and
perils as seen by members of our
class. This time contributions
from classmates lead us to the
arts, to acts of service and a set
of milestones. Thanks, as always,
go to contributors, along with
apologies to those whose news I
mangle or misrepresent. What is
good here comes from all of you.
The Arts: Paul Lieberman tees
off first; he has gone Hollywood.
They will roll out the red carpet
for him and Heidi in October at
the premier of a film he describes
as “based on my seven-part
narrative (for the LA Times) on
the LAPD’s secretive Gangster
Squad, which in the years after
WWII had the anything-goes
job of driving Eastern-linked
mobsters—particularly Mickey
Cohen—from the supposed City
of Angels.” Well, maybe the red
carpet is not just for Paul and
Heidi, given the names in the
cast: Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen,
Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma
Stone, Nick Nolte. Paul explains,
“The project has gotten a lot of
hype, and you’ll be hearing/seeing
more leading up to its release
next October. I’m a ceremonial
executive producer.” He is now
at work on the book version,
hoping to create a fund for future
greens fees.
Remember the photo of
Gordie Clapp in the last edition?
Following up, he wrote he
was to “be back at the Acorn
Theatre in New York in The New
Group’s World Premiere of David
Rabe’s An Early History of Fire.
Performances start on March
21. Come on down! We had a
wonderful four-week run of This
Verse Business at Merrimack
Rep in Lowell in October. The
word is getting around, and we
hope to shop it extensively during
2013, the 50th anniversary of
Frost’s death.” Taking note of
that start-of-performances date,
and realizing that the publication
of these class notes is April, let us
hope for a long run.
David Kubie reports further
on the New York theater scene:
“Audrey and I were pleased to
welcome Kathy and Peter Wege
and Linda and Jim Tam to NYC
this December. The Tams were
coming to attend the opening on
Broadway of the show Lysistrata
Jones. Their son Jason has a
leading role in the play and was
great, as usual. When the Weges
heard that we were gathering in
New York, they decided that it
was high time for a visit themselves.
We enjoyed a great few
days together highlighted by a
few shows and a tour of parts of
Brooklyn, including a great lunch
in Park Slope.”
Acts of Service: Wally Schlech
continues to be an exemplar:
“Four months of the year on ID
and Gen Med services keeps me
reasonably sharp for my trips to
Uganda and, now, Nigeria, for
teaching/research/clinical work.
… Was able to spend some time
with Mary and team at Tabiro
village in April to help with construction
projects at the school
(i.e., hauling bricks!). Yearly
team visits through Navigators
are now the norm, and the
project(s) are going well—check
us out at www.ugandaventure.
com.” Wally claims to be semiretired,
but just reading about
family weddings (Walter F.
IV—aka Bo—and Miss Eimear
O’Loughlin of Portmarnock,
Ireland, at Barberstown Castle,
Co. Kildare) and the exploits
of the rest of his and Mary’s
offspring left me breathless. In
between all this, Mary has fallen