Congratulations, Class of 2010! - Columbia College - Columbia ...

An obituary for Conrad M. Sherman,
whose death Frank Grady
reported here several issues ago,
appeared in the May/June issue.
Harry Green recently completed
40 years as a faculty member at the
University of California (combined
Davis and Riverside campuses).
Thanks to the university’s vision
of long ago, he writes, “UC has a
defined-benefit retirement program
that reaches 100 percent at 40
years service. As a consequence, I
have retired to help with the financial
calamity that has befallen the
university.” Nevertheless, Harry
maintains his high-pressure laboratory
and pursues his research
into the physical mechanisms of
earthquakes at depths greater than
50 kilometers, where frictional
processes are quenched by pressure,
and identification of rocks
that have surfaced from hundreds
of kilometers depth during continental
collisions. Although Harry
has curtailed his teaching, he has
enhanced his external service. On
July 1, he will become the presiclass
notes
columbia college today
Bob Rennick ’61 (right) and his wife, Lisa, celebrated their 40th wedding
anniversary last year with Jon Liebowitz ’61 and his wife, Ruth, at
Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Bob Rennick ’61
wife, Reina, died six years ago, and
Irving immediately reached out
with his support, friendship and
encouragement. Irving’s empathetic
words helped immeasurably
to raise Bill’s spirits. An e-mail conversation
ensued that blossomed in
a continuous, frequent and lengthy
dialogue that touched on the wide
range of interests and concerns
of each, sprinkled with Irving’s
excellent, politically incorrect sense
of humor. With the approach of
the 50th reunion, Irving inquired
whether Bill planned to attend.
Bill was undecided. Irving was
not. Though his health had been
compromised by both an invasion
of cancer that had passed and
quintuple heart bypass surgery,
and though the journey to New
York from Honolulu, place of his
birth and always his home, was
certainly no stroll in the park, the
prospect of the 50th filled him with
enthusiasm. It was an enthusiasm
so contagious that Bill was
instantly persuaded that the two
meet at alma mater this June.
With the dawning of the new
year, Irving had news to impart. He
sent an e-mail to Bill. Their relationship,
he said, was such that he would
not want Bill to first learn the news
by reading obituaries in Columbia
College Today. He again had been
invaded by cancers; his body was
riddled with it; his doctors had given
him about six months to live. “Damn
it,” he wrote. “I was so looking
forward to the reunion.”
Bill, crestfallen, having just
returned from a visit to England
and France and having opened the
e-mail, informed me of Irving’s condition
on January 14. We felt that
to mention this in the Class Notes
would be inappropriate and an
affront to Irving’s pride and privacy,
but we agreed the news could be
shared with classmates who had
common bonds with Irving. Armed
with the class e-mail address list
(neither complete nor always current),
I sent the news and included
Irving’s e-mail and home addresses
to, among others, fraternity brothers
and fellow members of the
lightweight football team. Several of
those I was able to reach, Claudio
Marzollo, Neil Markee and Victor
Chang, soon let me know that they
had corresponded or spoken with
Irving.
On Friday, January 15, I wrote
to Irving as class correspondent to
“extend [on behalf of all the class]
a figurative hug, a spark of light
when there appears only darkness,
warmth in the most chilling of
moments, and a spiritual blanket
of affection to see you through that
which awaits.”
Irving replied immediately and
thus began an exchange of correspondence,
lengthy, discoursive,
filled with our respective memories
of Columbia, views on society and
politics, reflections on family, and,
of course, progress reports on his
condition. “I loved my time at Columbia
and I loved New York,” he
wrote, and he relished recalling his
days on the lightweight football
squad and relating the colorful details
of those games. He spoke of the
punishing emotions that plagued
him following his diagnosis, emotions
compounded by the fact that
his wife Jocelyn’s only, younger
sister had been diagnosed on Saturday,
January 16, with cancer and
had been given a life expectancy
even shorter than his own. He
despaired that Jocelyn would suffer
two such losses within a brief span
of time and that he was helpless to
counsel or console her.
As his condition deteriorated, and
the nature of the cancers had still to
be established, Irving explored the
availability of alternative treatments
and experimental treatment trials.
Richard Friedlander contacted
oncologist Ira Jaffrey. Ira graciously
offered to be of assistance, and I
provided Irving with Ira’s phone
numbers. Irving’s deterioration advanced
rapidly; too rapidly for him
to seek Ira’s help and advice.
Irving received his law degree
from the University of Michigan.
He clerked for the Hawaii Supreme
Court, was a deputy prosecuting
attorney and established a
highly successful private practice
from which he retired in 2004. He
chaired the boards of the Hawaii
Youth Symphony and the United
Cerebral Palsy of Hawaii, and
remained active in leadership positions
in Hawaii with regard to Columbia
affairs. Each of his children,
sons Timothy and Jonathan ’98,
and daughters Allison ’94 and Dr.
Kimberly ’95, attended Columbia.
Irving was passionate about food
and cooking. He had been writing
a cookbook. He tended beehives
and made honey (Bill Tanenbaum
has a sealed bottle of honey that he
received from Irving; he will open
it this Rosh Hashanah in bittersweet
remembrance).
T. Irving Chang died on April 1.
As I write this, one month and
a fistful of days before reunion, I
think, “Damn, how sad he’ll not
be there; how sad there’ll be no
opportunity for us to sit and talk
and continue to spin out the many
interesting threads of conversation
we had started four months
earlier.”
Reaching out to classmates to encourage
them to return to reunion
resulted in wonderful responses
and warm phone conversations. It
also brought news that some had
died. We learned from Nicholas
Bassiliou’s son that Nick had died,
as we learned from William Molloy’s
son that Bill had died. Bill’s
son, Bill Jr., wrote that his father
“was a wonderful man/dad/
teacher, and I miss him every day.
He died on July 25, 2007.”
Please send us your remembrances
of Irving, Nick and Bill. To
the families of each, we send our
heartfelt condolences.
Next issue: news of the reunion.
Please send me your impressions.
[Editor’s note: Go to www.college.
columbia.edu/cct to listen to Nathan
Gross’ singing and piano performance
at the reunion.]
61
Michael Hausig
19418 Encino Summit
San Antonio, TX 78259
mhausig@yahoo.com
This is the third reminder for our
50th reunion, which will take place
Wednesday, June 2–Sunday, June 5,
2011. A committee has been formed
to plan the event with the help of
the Alumni Office. Anyone interested
in helping should contact Tony
Adler (awadler@spartacom
mercial.com) or Burtt Ehrlich
(burtt@ bloomberg.com) with their
ideas.
Joe Rosenstein’s new prayer
book for Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur, Machzor Eit Ratzon, will
be published this summer. This is
a follow-up to Siddur Eit Ratzon, a
prayer book for Sabbath, festival
and weekdays that he published
a few years ago. Information
about both can be seen at www.
newsiddur.org. A pair of volumes
on mathematics education he
co-authored, Navigating Through
Discrete Mathematics in Grades K-12,
were published in 2008 and 2009
by the National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics.
Mich Araten was honored by
Westchester Jewish Community
Services, the largest not-for-profit,
nonsectarian human services agency
in Westchester, for his 20 years
of leadership on the board and for
his guidance in the last three years
as president of the board. WJCS
programs span generations with
an emphasis on mental health
issues, reaching 18,000 individuals.
Programs include services for
young children with early signs of
autism, adults dealing with end of
life and bereavement issues, and
victims of abuse and trauma. WJCS
provides counseling in schools and
in homes for children of all ages,
home health aides for seniors and
has 12 group homes for developmentally
disabled adults. In the
past year, it has set up a program
to provide financial, legal and emotional
counseling to those affected
by the recent financial crisis.
62
John Freidin
1020 Town Line Rd.
Charlotte, VT 05445
jf@bicyclevt.com
july/august 2010
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