Fall 2003 Participant - Pitzer College

‘Strong Flames Extinguished in Full Brightness’
Pitzer College mourned the loss of
distinguished alumnus David
Bloom ’85 at a memorial service
during this year’s alumni weekend. On
Sunday, May 4, more than 50 alumni,
faculty, staff, and friends of the college
gathered to celebrate David’s buoyant
spirit and dedicate a new Garden of
Remembrance on the campus in his
name. The College has also established
two commemorative funds: the David
Bloom ’85 Memorial Scholarship, which
will provide assistance to Pitzer students
who embody David’s passion for
communications and debate, and the
Arboretum Fund, which will support the
David Bloom Garden of Remembrance
itself. Through these legacy funds,
David’s enthusiasm will continue to
inspire this community.
Several of David’s special friends and
mentors shared fond memories of him as
an enthusiastic student, articulate
debater, and intensely professional
network news journalist. A special Pitzer
Roll of Remembrance of community
members who have passed on was read.
Steve Glass, Professor of Classics,
shared these poignant remarks at the
memorial service:
Reflections on Pitzer’s
Roll of Remembrance
When I was sent the list of those members
of the Pitzer Community who have left us
over time, like Mallory’s Lancelot, I “wept
not greatly, but I sighed.”
Ever since some Sumerian, millennia past,
pressed the wedge-shaped end of a reed
into a piece of soft clay, the transitory
nature of human existence has been a
continuing object of resigned reflection.
In the western world, not surprisingly,
Homer was the first to sing of it:
“As is the generation of leaves, so is that
of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the
ground, but the live timber
burgeons with leaves again in the season
David Bloom ’85
of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while
another
dies” (R. Lattimore, Trans.)
And yet, this list … this roll … seems to
me to be dismayingly large, and, while
more numerically-apt acquaintances have
pointed out to me that the figures are
about right for an institution at forty, I’m
not much solaced thereby.
These were, after all, our colleagues, our
friends, our students, but, still more, they
were part of a near table-fellowship of
host and hosted, a symposium of minds
and wines and learning and laughter that
at length engendered those permanent
guest-friend bonds of which the ancients
spoke with such reverence. So it is that
the involuntary severing of those bonds is
a difficult thing to absorb with equanimity,
Homer’s own equanimity notwithstanding.
In particular it will not have escaped you
that students compose most of this roll,
and that is not as it should be. Our
students are our children, after all, and,
while one hopes they will come to lead
their teachers in life, it is not meant that
they should precede them in death, a
strong flame extinguished in full
brightness, as Cicero puts it.
This past year, alas, more such flames
were extinguished:
David Bloom, class of ’85
Linda Gerber, class of ’69
Jamie Johnson, class of ’00
Barbara Beechler, long-time professor of
mathematics at Pitzer
Mel (Emilio J.) Stanley, one of Pitzer’s
founding faculty members
This David Bloom Garden of
Remembrance is still in its inchoate
stages, but the College intends that there
shall be a permanent monument here so
that we may always mark and remember
both the good times and the good people.
The Greek lyric poet Pindar observed
that:
“We are things of a day. What are we?
What are we not? The
shadow of a dream are we, no more. But
when the brightness comes, and God
gives it,
There is a shining of light on us and our
life is sweet.” (R. Lattimore, Trans.)
I hope that life was sweet for our friends
and children who have left us;
Surely, our lives were sweeter for their
fellowship.
Delivered by Steve Glass at Pitzer
College, May 4, 2003
The David Bloom Garden of
Remembrance has been created to
provide a memorial for those of the
Pitzer community who are no longer
here. Your help would be appreciated in
ensuring that the Roll of Remembrance
is complete. The updated list may be
found at: http://www.pitzer.edu/
memorial/remembrance.asp. To make a
gift toward the Arboretum or
scholarship fund or to share the name
of a member of the Pitzer community
who has passed on but is not yet on the
list, please contact the Office of
Advancement at (909) 621-8130 or
email memorial@pitzer.edu.
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