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<strong>IN</strong> <strong>THIS</strong> <strong>ISSUE</strong><br />
Photography Around the World<br />
Scaling the World’s Highest Peaks<br />
Spain’s Athletic Architecture<br />
Poole Fellows
Bulletin Staff<br />
Editor<br />
Julie Reiff<br />
Director of Development<br />
Jerry Romano<br />
Alumni Notes<br />
Karen Dost<br />
Design<br />
Good Design<br />
Proofreaders<br />
Nina Maynard<br />
Karen Taylor<br />
Mail letters to:<br />
Julie Reiff, Editor<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
Watertown, CT 06795-2100<br />
ReiffJ@<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org<br />
Send alumni news to:<br />
Karen Dost<br />
Alumni Office<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
Watertown, CT 06795-2100<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>Bulletin@<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org<br />
Deadlines for Alumni Notes:<br />
Winter–November 15, 2000<br />
Spring–February 15, 2001<br />
Summer–May 30, 2001<br />
Fall–August 30, 2001<br />
Send address corrections to:<br />
Sally Membrino<br />
Alumni Records<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
Watertown, CT 06795-2100<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>Rhino@<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org<br />
1-860-945-7777<br />
http://www.<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org<br />
This magazine is printed<br />
on recycled paper.<br />
CONT
ENTSBy Peter Frew ’75<br />
BULLET<strong>IN</strong><br />
F A L L • 2 0 0 0<br />
Volume 71 Number 1<br />
S P O T L I G H T<br />
From HDT to Bora-Bora .......................................... 14<br />
One Photographer’s View of the World<br />
By Todd A. Gipstein ’70<br />
On the Ascent ........................................................... 22<br />
Taking On the Climb of His Life<br />
By Chris Shaw ’80<br />
Athletic Architecture in Cataluña .............................. 28<br />
<strong>The</strong> Beauty of Defiance<br />
Tribute to Donald F. McCullough ’42......................... 5<br />
D E P A R T M E N T S<br />
Alumni in the News .................................................... 6<br />
Presidential candidate, covers,<br />
words to remember, film award, and more<br />
Page 12<br />
Around the Pond ...................................................... 10<br />
Poole Fellows, new faculty, admissions,<br />
Parents’ Fund heads, and more<br />
From the Editor .......................................................... 4<br />
Letters ......................................................................... 4<br />
Endnote by Jon Willson ’82 ...................................... 32<br />
On the Covers<br />
Front: Todd Gipstein ’70 took this photograph of a fisherman in Wuhan, China.<br />
“At dawn, I walk out of my hotel to get a ride to some tombs. With a few minutes<br />
to kill, I round the corner and find this image before me. <strong>The</strong> fisherman mirrored<br />
in the lake seemed a vision right out of an ancient watercolor. It was the best picture<br />
I made that day, and one I just happened upon.” See page 12.<br />
Back: Summer Poole Fellow Karen Kwok ’01 performs the ancient Buddhist ritual<br />
of casting prayers into the air. Karen spent her summer in the Tibetan region of<br />
China, where she served as an English-Mandarin interpreter. See page 8.<br />
Page 20<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong>, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 and is distributed<br />
free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of the school.<br />
E-Mail Us! Now you can send your latest news, address change, birth announcement,<br />
or letter to the editor to us via e-mail. Our address is <strong>Taft</strong>Bulletin@<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org.<br />
Of course we’ll continue to accept your communiqués by such “low-tech”<br />
methods as the fax machine (860-945-7756), telephone (860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail<br />
(110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100). So let’s hear from you!<br />
Visit <strong>Taft</strong> on the Web to find the latest news, sports schedules, or to locate a classmate’s<br />
e-mail address: www.<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org or www.<strong>Taft</strong>Sports.com. <strong>The</strong> password to<br />
access alumni or faculty e-mail addresses—or to add your own—is<br />
Page 26
L E T T E R S<br />
From the Editor<br />
By now you’ve received the letter announcing<br />
Lance Odden’s retirement in June after 29 years as<br />
headmaster and 40 years at the school. He and<br />
Patsy have left their marks at <strong>Taft</strong> in innumerable<br />
ways, and yet, in the spring issue of the Bulletin we<br />
will attempt to describe what their leadership has<br />
meant to our community. I welcome your thoughts<br />
and recollections for this special tribute.<br />
Meanwhile, I would like to draw your attention<br />
to some of the highlights of the current issue.<br />
One of the benefits of printing the Bulletin<br />
completely in color now is that it finally allows us<br />
to portray the work of artists and photographers,<br />
such as Todd Gipstein ’70. I have long been<br />
familiar with his work as a student in early <strong>Taft</strong><br />
Bulletins and was thrilled earlier this year when<br />
Todd agreed to write about his work with the<br />
National Geographic Society and to share some<br />
of his favorite images. What a wonderful treat it<br />
is to be able to share them with you.<br />
Of course all of the features in this issue are well<br />
served by printing them in color, from Peter<br />
Frew’s sabbatical photos in Spain to Chris Shaw’s<br />
breathtaking images on K2.<br />
I’ll admit that a great deal of serendipity goes<br />
into finding interesting articles for the Bulletin,<br />
but this summer saw one of the more unusual<br />
turns of events. Chris Shaw, who returned to<br />
campus in May for his 20 th Reunion, left only a<br />
few days later for Pakistan. As a classmate of my<br />
husband’s, he was at our house for a while after<br />
the barbecue, but not a whisper about the upcoming<br />
climb. (He says he was so excited he<br />
thought he was only keeping it to a dull roar.)<br />
Two months later, faculty member Ted<br />
Heavenrich tells me he’s been getting e-mails from<br />
Chris at Base Camp and asks if I think they’d make<br />
a good article. Little did I know my husband had<br />
been getting the same e-mails the whole time!<br />
<strong>The</strong> experiences of these alumni are unusual; not<br />
many of us climb 8,000-meter peaks, shoot photographs<br />
from the mast of a racing sailboat, or pack up<br />
our families and move to Spain for a year, but I think<br />
you’ll agree the chance to live vicariously for a few<br />
minutes is well worth the time. Enjoy!<br />
—Julie Reiff<br />
We welcome Letters to the Editor relating to the<br />
content of the magazine.<br />
Letters may be edited for length, clarity, and<br />
content, and are published at the editor’s<br />
discretion. Send correspondence to:<br />
Julie Reiff, Editor • <strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin<br />
110 Woodbury Road<br />
Watertown, CT 06795-210<br />
or to ReiffJ@<strong>Taft</strong><strong>School</strong>.org<br />
Letters<br />
Older Than <strong>The</strong>y Look<br />
<strong>The</strong> football team being looked over by Al Fusonie<br />
on page 35 [of the summer issue] is way ahead of<br />
your estimate of the late ’40s. It is the undefeated,<br />
untied team of 1935. <strong>The</strong> second guy in the front<br />
line is Bob Clarke, and the third guy is Phil<br />
Weston. Phil was in the Class of ’36 with me. Sadly<br />
he was killed as a pilot cadet in the U.S. Army Air<br />
Corps. I was a cadet, too, at the time he was killed,<br />
but I was at a different school. My bet is that others<br />
of the nine pictured can be identified.<br />
Almost Famous<br />
—John A. Vanderpoel ’36<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Before <strong>The</strong>y Were Famous” photo of my<br />
classmate Peter Berg on page 22 [summer]<br />
caught my attention. I’m 99 percent certain<br />
the blond boy behind him is John Connolly<br />
’79 and the boy behind him is Andrew Plant<br />
’80. Just passing it along.<br />
A Teacher, Too<br />
—Jim Ramsey ’80<br />
On Alumni Day, Charles A. Coit—who was<br />
listed only as a member of the Class of ’35 in the<br />
program at the Memorial Service—was mourned<br />
not just by his classmates but by all who knew<br />
him as coach and French teacher from 1939 until<br />
he was called into military service.<br />
With his infectious smile and informal manner,<br />
he made the intricacies of French grammar<br />
something I actually looked forward to and his<br />
classroom one I entered without the fear of cold<br />
disapproval or scathing remarks.<br />
I remember once coming to class without<br />
having read the latest episode in Phileas Fogg’s<br />
80-day trip and being asked, along with the<br />
others, to write an account of what the intrepid<br />
traveler had done. Knowing only that he was<br />
somewhere in the wild West, I placed him aboard<br />
John Ford’s Stagecoach and had him shooting<br />
Apaches with the best of them. Charlie, on seeing<br />
my effort, roared with laughter and read it aloud<br />
to the class. <strong>The</strong>y joined in the laughter and,<br />
inexplicably, so did I, for he had the ability to<br />
criticize a student’s work without humiliating<br />
him. This was a gift not shared by all my masters.<br />
—Ted Mason ’43<br />
Faculty Friend or Foe<br />
I read with much interest Barclay Johnson’s comments<br />
in the summer issue. I came to <strong>Taft</strong> as a mid<br />
in the summer (that’s right) of 1963, and I remember<br />
the school much differently. I had all the<br />
interaction with masters that I wanted, or could<br />
stand. <strong>The</strong>y were everywhere you looked—on your<br />
corridor, at your meal table morning, noon, and<br />
night, in your classes, on the sports fields, even on<br />
the squash courts. About the only refuge was when<br />
you got away to Watertown. Even there, I was<br />
always running into masters or their wives. You<br />
were almost forced into conversation, and I realized<br />
sometime later that it was this constant proximity<br />
that forced you to get to know masters as people.<br />
I never had the feeling that masters were aloof<br />
or not available. I even remember once when I was<br />
a resident on Barclay’s floor, that he came into my<br />
room at about 5 a.m. I was reading Browning for<br />
class, and he smiled with a wink as he noticed me<br />
sipping coffee from my very illegal percolator and<br />
listening to tunes on my equally illegal transistor<br />
radio. He said something like: “I think we need a<br />
little discretion in our enforcement of some of the<br />
corridor rules” and that was that. And I’ll never<br />
forget that Tom Cherry and I were permitted to<br />
pack shotguns around the countryside during<br />
grouse season instead of doing “real” sports each<br />
afternoon. Can you imagine that happening today<br />
Are kids less trustworthy today than we were,<br />
or are we just more politically correct<br />
I do agree with one thing Barc said. Those<br />
forced mixers with St. Margaret’s and other girls’<br />
schools were awful for everyone. More than any<br />
other thing, I’m sure that life at <strong>Taft</strong> has been<br />
enriched by the presence of girls.<br />
Revisionist History<br />
—Bob Bloch ’65<br />
All of us see things differently, but Barclay Johnson’s<br />
memories in his “Spirit of Learning” remarks to the<br />
Class of 2000 are so unlike mine, I must respond.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> of the Cruikshank years was formal as<br />
were all other boys’ schools. Contrasting it with<br />
the informality of today in schools—as well as in<br />
the rest of our society—is not fair. Times change.<br />
In relating his memories over decades at <strong>Taft</strong>, he<br />
almost totally skips and actually distorts one of the<br />
most tumultuous and yet productive decades in<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>’s history. John Esty, a friend whom I admire<br />
and respect, was headmaster from 1963–72. While<br />
Johnson suggests that Cruikshank took the first risk<br />
of his life by hiring him, I would say that was no risk<br />
at all compared to the one he took when he turned<br />
over the reins to Esty. John was attuned to greater<br />
informality and to giving the student more freedom<br />
thereby better preparing him for college days ahead.<br />
Cruikshank recognized those needs and, importantly<br />
and to his credit, understood that Esty was<br />
going to manage quite differently.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> has prospered and matured since the<br />
Cruikshank/Esty eras. <strong>The</strong> Odden era boasts yet<br />
continued on page 50<br />
4 Fall 2000
M E M O R I A M<br />
It is an honor to be asked to<br />
speak about Don and to<br />
share our love and sympathy<br />
with Lulu, Greg, Nina,<br />
In Memoriam<br />
Donald F. McCullough ’42<br />
Camille Vickers<br />
Sally, Tracey, and the great<br />
McCullough family.<br />
Simply put, it is impossible<br />
to believe that Don<br />
McCullough is no longer<br />
here. It is as if a force of<br />
nature has been extinguished.<br />
His energy, his enthusiasm<br />
for life, and his convictions<br />
about everything surpassed<br />
those of any man I have every<br />
known. Where once there<br />
was a personal whirlwind, a<br />
tornado, now there is only<br />
silence; but we have our<br />
memories, our own stories<br />
that we will cherish forever,<br />
and Don’s legacies are the making of legends.<br />
I saw Don two weeks ago just before he was<br />
struck down for the last time. His physical frailty<br />
was undeniable, but his mind and spirit were as<br />
if he had a common cold. Typically, we were not<br />
allowed to dwell on him but on <strong>Taft</strong>, the future,<br />
and our plans to play golf together in Lyford Cay.<br />
To the very end, his energy and spirit radiated.<br />
For a moment, let us go back to Don’s youth. In<br />
the words of his headmaster at Brunswick, written<br />
to the headmaster of <strong>Taft</strong> in 1936, “Don is healthy<br />
and very, very, active. He has good marks and has<br />
displayed evidence of leadership. He is extremely<br />
fond of his brother, Bob, and patterns himself after<br />
him as much as possible. Since Bob is determined<br />
to enter the Naval Academy, Don wishes to do the<br />
same thing. However, their parents hope that Bob<br />
and Don will ultimately decide to enter a civilian<br />
college, for example, Yale, Princeton, Brown, or<br />
Amherst.” That same application tells us that Don<br />
McCullough loves sports, particularly football and<br />
sailing in junior yacht club races, and that he is<br />
fascinated by ships of all kinds and how they work.<br />
His curiosity was endless. <strong>The</strong> boy of twelve would<br />
become the man we knew, and quite quickly.<br />
Five years later, Paul Cruikshank, <strong>Taft</strong>’s headmaster,<br />
wrote to Don’s parents commenting on their<br />
sixteen-year-old graduate. “This has been Don’s<br />
finest year at <strong>Taft</strong>. Scholastically, he has excelled. He<br />
has done a splendid job as a monitor. His leadership<br />
is of the right kind, and he has done a good job for the<br />
school and for himself. Yale will not be easy, but if he<br />
devotes himself to it, he will do well.”<br />
And so he did. He played varsity football and<br />
Former Chairman of the Board Don McCullough ’42 with his wife, Lulu, and<br />
Patsy and Lance Odden<br />
lacrosse and was undefeated in his years as a member<br />
of the varsity wrestling team. He made the Sheffield<br />
Honor Society in his senior year, much to the delight<br />
of his old headmaster. By nineteen, he was an honors<br />
graduate of Yale University and proudly called to<br />
duty as an officer in the United States Navy, serving<br />
his country in World War II. After the war, Don<br />
barely had time to adjust to civilian life before he was<br />
called back to the bridge in the Korean War, where<br />
he served for two and a half years as an officer on<br />
destroyer duty. His years at <strong>Taft</strong>, Yale, and as a naval<br />
officer forged the man we would know so well.<br />
Whether he was balancing the budget or bringing<br />
the Wildcat into the pier, Don was precise<br />
and always in command.<br />
Whether he was facing perilous conditions on<br />
the seas, his own mortality, or the early fears of war,<br />
he was a man of certain courage. He did not blink.<br />
Whatever the venue, whether it was a wrestling<br />
match, the high seas, arguing about which<br />
club was better, or shamelessly negotiating on the<br />
golf course to make up for his lack of practice,<br />
competition coursed through Don’s veins. He<br />
rarely lost and never admitted it.<br />
Whether it was Stoneleigh-Burnham, the Girls’<br />
and Boys’ Clubs of America, Yale University, or<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>, Don McCullough believed in assuring that<br />
youth get the future they deserved. In fact, he was so<br />
proud of his school, so certain of his cause, and such<br />
an able fundraiser, that Lulu told me that crowds<br />
would part like the Red Sea at a cocktail party when<br />
they saw Don coming, fearing he was going to put<br />
the “arm on them” for <strong>Taft</strong> yet one more time. No<br />
one was a better fund raiser.<br />
While he was a demanding<br />
boss, he was loved by his employees<br />
at Collins and Aikman,<br />
where for years after his retirement<br />
they would say, “If only<br />
Mr. Mac would come back, he<br />
would straighten this out.” To<br />
the boys on the Wildcat or the<br />
team in Lyford, to the group<br />
in Greenwich, to the great<br />
Nantucket Gang, Don<br />
McCullough was loved by all<br />
who worked for him, in large<br />
part because he so respected<br />
and loved them. <strong>The</strong>y all knew<br />
what it meant when they<br />
heard that Mr. Mac was coming<br />
to “kick the tires;” they<br />
also knew what it meant to be<br />
there at the end of a party<br />
when so often there would be<br />
one last round and the best stories would be told.<br />
Don would be unhappy if I didn’t highlight his way<br />
with women. <strong>The</strong>y loved his tall, handsome looks, his<br />
style, and he lifted their spirits with a genuine interest<br />
in them and more than a little flirtation. He was a great<br />
ladies man, but he was also absolutely devoted to his<br />
beloved Lulu, his best friend, and the one person able<br />
to command his complete attention.<br />
I want to end by talking about the visionary leader,<br />
which he was whether leading C&A or <strong>Taft</strong>. He<br />
created successes beyond anyone’s greatest hopes. He<br />
was never afraid to make a decision and was contemptuous<br />
of discursive discussion by people afraid to<br />
move ahead. Enough said, he would utter. Let’s get<br />
it done. Action was his watchword. And so, Don built<br />
C&A into a billion dollar corporation and raised<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>’s endowment from $30 to $130 million, while<br />
entirely rebuilding our campus. He returned our<br />
school to a place of pride equal to Horace <strong>Taft</strong>’s days.<br />
James McGregor Burns, one of the most insightful<br />
scholars of presidential leadership, wrote, “Most leaders<br />
manage, but great ones transform their organizations.”<br />
Don McCullough was such a leader. He transformed<br />
his company, his school, and in one way or another, each<br />
of us here. Perhaps this was destined to be, for in his<br />
senior yearbook it was written, “Great has been his<br />
popularity, great has been his activity, and you can be<br />
sure he will so continue at Yale and throughout life.” And<br />
so he did by transforming organizations, by touching the<br />
lives of each of us here, and by making the world a better<br />
place for us all. <strong>The</strong> tornado is still, but his successes and<br />
our memories endure forever.<br />
—Eulogy delivered on October 3, 2000, by Lance<br />
Odden at Donald F. McCullough’s memorial service.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 5
ALUMNI <strong>IN</strong> THE NEWS<br />
Alumni<br />
<strong>IN</strong> THE NEWS<br />
Hagelin Favored by Perot<br />
While Republicans and Democrats convened<br />
over the summer to rubber-stamp<br />
their candidates in the presidential election,<br />
the Reform Party split into two camps—<br />
one supporting Pat Buchanan and the other<br />
hoping to nominate Third Party Coalition<br />
candidate John Hagelin ’72.<br />
Despite a walkout at the convention by<br />
a number of delegates who felt Buchanan’s<br />
tactics were less than ethical, Buchanan won<br />
out, making it onto most state ballots on<br />
the Reform Party ticket. <strong>The</strong> Federal Election<br />
Commission eventually recognized<br />
Buchanan as the party’s official candidate,<br />
awarding him the $12.6 million in campaign<br />
funds to which the Reform Party is entitled<br />
because of Ross Perot’s 8 percent share of<br />
the electorate in the last presidential election.<br />
Hagelin pointed out that the FEC decision<br />
went against the wishes of party<br />
John Hagelin ’72<br />
founder Ross Perot, who filed an affidavit<br />
siding with Mr. Hagelin as “the only proper<br />
candidate to receive public funding based<br />
on the votes I received in the 1996 election.’’<br />
Still, Hagelin received much more<br />
media attention this year than in both of<br />
his previous campaigns combined. He<br />
ran on the Natural Law Party ticket in<br />
1992 and 1996. Hagelin was still on the<br />
ballot in 42 states this year as the Natural<br />
Law Party candidate.<br />
“Government should be what<br />
works,” Hagelin told the Seattle Times,<br />
“not what is bought and paid for by<br />
political interests.” Prior to his campaign,<br />
Hagelin headed the Physics<br />
Department and a public policy program<br />
at Maharishi University of<br />
Management in Fairfield, Iowa. He received<br />
his doctorate in physics from<br />
Harvard University. With the election<br />
over, he is considering creating a public<br />
policy think tank in Washington.<br />
Phish Phrenzy<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Biggest Cult Band in America!” bragged the August 4 cover of Entertainment Weekly, sporting<br />
the likeness of Trey Anastasio ’83. Anastasio and his fellow band members have been called Generation<br />
X’s answer to the Grateful Dead. Like Jerry Garcia, they, too, even have a flavor of Ben and Jerry’s<br />
ice cream named after them: Phish Food.<br />
Best-known for their live performances, this band from Vermont has yet to release a hit single,<br />
despite grossing over $93 million in concert sales between 1996 and 1999. That may be in no small<br />
part because of the openly accepted practice of recording and trading tapes of live concerts. Anastasio<br />
doesn’t know how the band got so popular. “It started off with the four of us playing in bars for, like,<br />
two people,” he told EW. “People would tell their friends, and it’s somehow grown into this.”<br />
Not long after the release its eleventh album, Farmhouse, the band announced it would take<br />
a much-needed break. Manager John Paluska told the New York Times that not only was the<br />
band exhausted, but they also want time to re-envision their careers in a way that’s consistent<br />
with being family men.” Anastasio lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters.<br />
Trey Anastasio ’83, one of the<br />
new Phab Four covers featuring<br />
Phish. Photo by Joseph Cultice.<br />
6 Fall 2000
ALUMNI <strong>IN</strong> THE NEWS<br />
Audiences Love It<br />
Alan Klingenstein ’72 gave up a career in<br />
finance to enter the movie business, and the<br />
gamble paid off as his company’s first feature<br />
film beat out 1,600 other submissions<br />
to make it to the Sundance Film Festival this<br />
year and came away with the festival’s prestigious<br />
Audience Award for best drama.<br />
<strong>The</strong> film, Two Family House, was directed<br />
by Oscar-nominated Raymond<br />
DeFelitta. Michael Rispoli (Summer of<br />
Sam) stars as Buddy Visalo, a failed singerturned-factory<br />
worker who lives on New<br />
York’s Staten Island. In his latest moneymaking<br />
scheme, Visalo buys a duplex so<br />
he can convert the ground floor into a bar<br />
where he can perform. But he also inherits<br />
a pregnant woman and her abusive,<br />
alcoholic husband who live upstairs.<br />
“I can’t tell you what it feels like to<br />
have 500 people stand up and applaud<br />
your work,” Al says. <strong>The</strong> film received<br />
another coveted prize for independent<br />
film producers: distribution. Lions Gate<br />
paid Al’s production company, Filbert<br />
Steps, an undisclosed sum for the<br />
drama in exchange for worldwide<br />
rights. Filbert Steps also received an<br />
offer from USA Films.<br />
“As long as people keep letting me<br />
do this,” Al says of his new career, “it<br />
sure beats being a lawyer or a banker.”<br />
Trained as both—he has a law degree<br />
and an MBA from Cornell—Al traded<br />
in 12 years of number crunching “to do<br />
something more fulfilling.”<br />
His film career began in 1996, when<br />
he produced the half-hour<br />
documentary “<strong>The</strong> Church<br />
of Saint Coltrane” with<br />
friend and former NBC<br />
Dateline producer Jeff<br />
Swimmer. <strong>The</strong> short film<br />
won awards at seven film<br />
festivals and was ultimately<br />
picked up and aired on<br />
Bravo and cable outlets in<br />
Europe and Asia.<br />
In the meantime, to pay<br />
the rent, Al moonlighted on<br />
a project-by-project basis at<br />
the investment firm<br />
Kohlberg & Company with<br />
longtime friend Jim<br />
Kohlberg. It was here that Al<br />
and Jim decided to form a<br />
production company, and<br />
named it after the Filbert<br />
Steps on the eastern end of<br />
Telegraph Hill, San Francisco,<br />
where each of them<br />
had previously lived.<br />
Filbert Steps Productions<br />
was formed in 1998 to<br />
Kathy Klingenstein<br />
Former financier Al Klingenstein ’72 now<br />
happily produces movies.<br />
produce low-budget independent feature<br />
films. “Unlike most companies who call<br />
themselves ‘independent,’ our company is<br />
in a rare position when it comes to financing:<br />
We bring our own sources of capital<br />
and private equity, through long-standing<br />
connections on Wall Street and in the financial<br />
community, to our projects. Our<br />
focus is on well-told stories of any genre<br />
with heart, wit, and style,” Al says. “We<br />
simply want to make films with good stories<br />
that we’d like to see.”<br />
Two Family House, a 104-minute<br />
drama, also screened at the Boston Film Festival<br />
in August, the Toronto International<br />
Film Festival in September, and the Floating<br />
Film Festival. Al hopes to hold a special<br />
screening in Bingham Auditorium this winter.<br />
For more information on the film, or<br />
Al’s company, visit www.filbertsteps.com.<br />
Winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award, Two Family<br />
House is a drama about a 1950s factory worker and his latest dream.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 7
ALUMNI <strong>IN</strong> THE NEWS<br />
Timely Editing<br />
<strong>The</strong> Virginia Quarterly Review celebrated<br />
three-quarters of a century this spring<br />
with the release of an anthology, We Write<br />
for Our Own Time: Selected Essays From<br />
75 Years of the Virginia Quarterly Review,<br />
edited by Alexander Burnham ’45.<br />
Longtime VQR editor Staige D.<br />
Blackford says he had long thought of putting<br />
together a collection but lacked the<br />
time to do so. When Burnham—who had<br />
published essays in the VQR—approached<br />
him with the same idea, he pounced.<br />
<strong>The</strong> VQR has published pieces by<br />
the 20th-century’s leading lights—<br />
D. H. Lawrence, Andre Gidé, Aldous<br />
Huxley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Katherine<br />
Anne Porter, and C. Vann Woodward,<br />
to name just a few. Its selections appear<br />
frequently in the annual Best<br />
American Short Stories, Best American<br />
Poetry, and Best American Essays series.<br />
Considered by some to be <strong>The</strong> New<br />
Yorker’s quieter country cousin, the VQR<br />
published articles supporting civil rights<br />
for black people as early as 1925. It was<br />
also one of the first national journals with<br />
a woman at the helm: Charlotte Kohler,<br />
who edited it from 1942 to 1975, and<br />
published many of the writers now known<br />
for leading the Southern Renaissance.<br />
In the anthology’s introduction,<br />
Burnham takes a swipe at certain unnamed<br />
contemporary publications for<br />
“their slavish attention to the notorious”<br />
and lauds the VQR’s refusal to be impressed<br />
by “mere celebrity.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> title comes from a VQR essay<br />
by Sartre reflecting on art and immortality.<br />
“It’s the perfect title,” says<br />
Burnham, because all the authors—<br />
from Thomas Mann writing about the<br />
rise of Nazism to Frances Mayes remembering<br />
her years as a student—<br />
“were writing for their time.”<br />
That’s not to say their essays were<br />
ephemeral. In fact, Burnham decided to<br />
omit pieces by Dean Acheson and Adlai<br />
Stevenson that he thought were too<br />
much “of the moment.”<br />
A former New York Times reporter,<br />
Burnham lives in Sharon, Connecticut,<br />
with his wife, Joan.<br />
Source: Geoffrey Maslen and Jennifer K.<br />
Ruark, <strong>The</strong> Chronicle of Higher Education<br />
Kerney Helping Kids<br />
Atlanta Falcons defensive end Patrick<br />
Kerney ’95 [see summer ’99] has established<br />
two endowment funds for<br />
dependent children of slain law enforcement<br />
officers. <strong>The</strong> funds are in memory<br />
of his only brother, Lt. Thomas L.<br />
Kerney, who was killed in the line of<br />
duty on December 15, 1988, in<br />
Leesville, South Carolina.<br />
Speaking to an audience of several<br />
hundred children who had lost parents<br />
in the line of duty, at the opening of<br />
National Police Week in Washington,<br />
DC, Kerney described the special relationship<br />
he had with his brother even<br />
though there was a 14-year age difference<br />
between them. He told how his<br />
late brother inspired him to succeed in<br />
Patrick Kerney ’95 visits with COPS Kids<br />
at the opening of National Police Week<br />
in Washington, DC.<br />
the classroom and on the playing field,<br />
as well as his desire to be involved with<br />
community children.<br />
Like his audience, Kerney is a member<br />
of Concerns of Police Survivors<br />
(COPS), and spent the day touring the<br />
FBI Academy with the children. One<br />
of the two funds he is creating will go<br />
toward college scholarships for COPS<br />
children. <strong>The</strong> other will help defray<br />
transportation costs to COPS Kids summer<br />
camp in the Ozarks for children<br />
who need professional counseling to<br />
help adjust to the loss of a law enforcement<br />
parent or sibling. In addition to a<br />
discretionary amount, Kerney will donate<br />
$500 per sack of an opposing<br />
quarterback during his professional career,<br />
plus $5,000 for any year he has 10<br />
or more sacks and will match up to<br />
$5,000 in scholarship donations. To<br />
learn more about COPS, visit their<br />
Website at www.nationalcops.org or<br />
e-mail kerney97@aol.com.<br />
8 Fall 2000
ALUMNI <strong>IN</strong> THE NEWS<br />
Charitable Contributions<br />
Planned Parenthood Association of the Mercer area in Trenton, New<br />
Jersey, recently presented Edgar M. Buttenheim ’40 with its distinguished<br />
Sanger Circle Award. <strong>The</strong> award is presented to individuals<br />
who have made significant contributions to the advancement of Planned<br />
Parenthood’s mission and acknowledges outstanding loyalty and generous<br />
support. Geg Buttenheim is a long-standing member of the<br />
organization’s Board of Trustees, having served as both board president<br />
and chairman of the agency’s enormously successful $3.2 million Campaign<br />
for the Future. Geg and his wife, Elizabeth, also a longtime<br />
supporter of Planned Parenthood, live in Princeton.<br />
Sevanne on Stage<br />
Sevanne Kassarjian ’87, known professionally<br />
as Sevanne Martin, spent<br />
the summer performing with the<br />
Peterborough Players in Peterborough,<br />
NH. What was special about this summer,<br />
her fifth with the company, is that<br />
they performed Thorton Wilder’s Our<br />
Town, written about the town of<br />
Peterborough while Wilder was at the<br />
nearby renowned MacDowell Artists<br />
Colony. Vanni, as “Emily,” played<br />
alongside Emmy-Award-winner James<br />
Whitmore and Mary Beth Hurt.<br />
After five years teaching and acting<br />
in New York, Vanni moved to Los<br />
Angeles this fall “to pursue her career<br />
there even in the extra-dubious environment<br />
of the actors’ union strikes.”<br />
Her husband, Paul Griffin, runs a<br />
nonprofit organization called City at<br />
Peace. <strong>The</strong> subject of a recent HBO<br />
documentary, the group works with<br />
teenagers using the performing arts<br />
to teach conflict resolution, violence<br />
prevention, and leadership skills.<br />
Vanni’s classmate Garrett Wyman ’87<br />
is now on the group’s national board<br />
of directors.<br />
Deb Porter-Hayes<br />
Sevanne Martin ’87, center, with James Whitmore and Kraig Swartz in Thornton<br />
Wilder’s Our Town.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 9
AROUND THE POND<br />
pond<br />
Poole<br />
Fellowships<br />
One of the most prestigious<br />
awards at <strong>Taft</strong> isn’t given out at<br />
graduation; it isn’t even limited<br />
to seniors. A Poole Fellowship<br />
is travel grant money awarded<br />
each spring to help students<br />
fund service projects around the<br />
globe over their summer vacations.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fellowships are<br />
named for Bob Poole ’50, who<br />
returned to <strong>Taft</strong> to teach history<br />
and make a name for himself<br />
coaching football before embarking<br />
on a lifelong career of<br />
service, first with the Peace<br />
Corps and later with the African<br />
Wildlife Federation. His<br />
legacy of serving others lives on.<br />
Dennis Liu ’02 spent a month<br />
in Palmares, Costa Rica. “We did all sorts<br />
of community service,” he says, “painting<br />
classrooms and houses.” Work was also<br />
done individually; Dennis took an internship<br />
at a local day-care center with 4- to<br />
7-year-olds. Dennis brought his video<br />
Dennis Liu ’02, second from left, travels with his group up into the<br />
mountains of Costa Rica.<br />
camera along and presented a movie of<br />
his trip at <strong>School</strong> Meeting this fall.<br />
Kirk Kozel ’01 went to St. Lucia, in the<br />
southern Caribbean. While there he helped<br />
build a house, worked with day-care centers,<br />
painted schools, refurbished<br />
a community center, and<br />
cleaned beaches. “I was there for<br />
a month,” says Kirk, “and the<br />
best part was the remodeling of<br />
a community center in the capital<br />
city, Castries, where we also<br />
got to work with kids our age.”<br />
Karen Kwok ’01 went to Tibetan<br />
regions of China, where<br />
she served as an English-<br />
Mandarin interpreter for<br />
Americans doing charity work<br />
there. As an interpreter, she<br />
spent four weeks visiting a Tibetan<br />
hospital, a boarding<br />
school, a monastery, a factory<br />
for processing yak wool, an<br />
elderly home, a few nomads’<br />
tents, and sat in on meetings<br />
with town officials. (See photo<br />
on back cover.)<br />
“My best moment,” Karen says,<br />
“was probably at the elderly home.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were incredibly friendly and<br />
happy to see visitors. One of the<br />
women extended the warmest welcome<br />
by simply looking at me and holding<br />
10 Fall 2000
AROUND THE POND<br />
Leigh Fisher ’01 and new friends in La<br />
Sabila, Dominican Republic.<br />
my hands. We didn’t understand each<br />
other because she spoke only Tibetan.<br />
She just looked at me, held my hands,<br />
and started to chant prayers while the<br />
others surrounding us did the same. It<br />
made me feel special and appreciated<br />
because although they didn’t know me,<br />
they still treasured my company.”<br />
Leigh Fisher ’01 was in a small town called<br />
La Sabila in the Dominican Republic for<br />
two months. Although her group did<br />
bring in resources to do a home improvement<br />
project, they focused on<br />
“strengthening the community so that the<br />
people there could improve their situation<br />
without being dependent on Americans.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>y formed a youth group and worked<br />
with a mothers’ group as well. “Most importantly,”<br />
says Leigh, “we taught the<br />
community about basic health issues.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> people of La Sabila are incredible!”<br />
she says. “<strong>The</strong>y are the most<br />
generous, caring, and loving people I have<br />
ever met. <strong>The</strong>y were certainly the most<br />
important part of my trip and what I miss<br />
more than anything else.”<br />
Dubois Thomas ’02 spent six weeks in<br />
Costa Rica, where he volunteered in a<br />
youth hostel with the park service. “Making<br />
lasting relationships with people in<br />
another country and in another language”<br />
is what he’ll remember most of<br />
his time there.<br />
Admissions at a Glance<br />
<strong>The</strong> school opened this fall with 189 new students who were chosen from the largest<br />
applicant pool in <strong>Taft</strong> history. Also noteworthy is this year’s record yield of 50.4<br />
percent. <strong>The</strong>se numbers represent a steady upward climb. Applications are up 20<br />
percent in fifteen years. Campus visits have increased 116 percent since 1975.<br />
In the past year, 4,443 prospective students requested information. Admissions<br />
officers conducted 1,700 interviews on campus, and with the help of the<br />
Alumni-Parent Network, gave another 200 interviews off campus. This year’s 1,290<br />
applications represent a 6 percent rise over the previous admissions season.<br />
<strong>The</strong> clear message that <strong>Taft</strong> is a school with the highest of personal and academic<br />
standards as well as tremendous heart and tremendous soul accounts for the<br />
school’s consistent success in a highly competitive market, says Admissions Director<br />
Ferdie Wandelt ’66. “At the end of the day, students choose <strong>Taft</strong> for the faculty and<br />
their unwavering belief in the potential of young people.”<br />
Classes of 2001–04<br />
• 552 students: 279 boys, 273 girls; 446 boarding, 106 day<br />
• 189 new: 96 boys, 93 girls<br />
• Representing 37 states, 25 countries<br />
• 19 percent are students of color<br />
• 31 percent of students receive a combined $3.1 million in aid<br />
Worldwide Network<br />
Admissions Director Ferdie Wandelt<br />
’66, center, and Mr. and Mrs. Darrell<br />
Zander P’86, longtime parent representatives<br />
in Caracas, pictured with<br />
Daniella Gellini ’00, Maria Garci ’99<br />
and her sister Anna ’01, Eduardo Perez<br />
’00, and Pedro Mendoza ’01 at a reception<br />
in June. Ferdie interviewed<br />
candidates and hosted a dinner for <strong>Taft</strong><br />
families in Venezuela.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> students upheld a tradition in<br />
Hong Kong over the summer as they<br />
welcomed new <strong>Taft</strong>ies at a dinner<br />
hosted annually by longtime parent<br />
representative Pat Chow P’93,’95,’00.<br />
Seated from left, Annabelle Razack ’02,<br />
Hilary Hung ’03, Iris Chow ’02,<br />
Natalie Ie ’02, Florence Ng ’01. Back<br />
row, Cyrus Wen ’04, Arthur Lam ’03,<br />
Nick Kotewall ’01, Vincent Ng ’01,<br />
Jason Chen ’02, and Brian Cheng ’01.<br />
Addition:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Alumni Offspring list published in the summer issue neglected to include<br />
Henry Ludeke 1900 as the great-grandfather of Ilan S. McKenna ’02 in addition<br />
to her grandfather, Benjamin E. Cole ’36.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin<br />
11
AROUND THE POND<br />
New Faculty 2000–01<br />
A record number of new faculty took their<br />
posts this fall, among them a few familiar<br />
faces. Brett Carroll and Jo-Ann Schieffelin,<br />
who have worked at <strong>Taft</strong> for a while, were<br />
promoted to faculty positions. Loueta<br />
Chickadaunce returns (see below), and<br />
Greg Hawes ’85 came back to experience<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> from the other side of the desk.<br />
Erik V. Berg, Physics, University of Notre Dame, BA<br />
Claudia J. Black, Art, Parsons <strong>School</strong> of Design/<br />
Bank Street, MA<br />
Sheila M. Boyd, History, UPenn, BA<br />
Brett M. Carroll, Assistant Business Manager,<br />
UConn, BS<br />
Loueta K. Chickadaunce, Art, Yale, MFA<br />
Thibault De Chazal, Teaching Fellow–French/<br />
Economics, University of Virginia, BA<br />
Katherine B. Fritz, College Counseling, Boston<br />
College, MA<br />
Thomas J. Fritz, Upper Middler Dean/History,<br />
University of Virginia, M.Ed<br />
Pauline E. Goolkasian, Learning Center, Loyola<br />
College of Maryland, MEd<br />
Tyler Hardy, Teaching Fellow–History, Duke, BA<br />
Gregory B. Hawes ’85, History, <strong>The</strong> American<br />
Film Institute, MFA<br />
Paul J. Henley, Teaching Fellow–Technology Support/Math,<br />
University of Chicago, BS<br />
William H. Hinrichs, Spanish, Princeton, AB<br />
Laura Harrington<br />
David H. Kim, Chemistry, Johns Hopkins<br />
University, BS<br />
Christine Lalande, French, York University<br />
(Canada), BA*<br />
Anthony P. Lambert, Spanish, Middlebury, MA<br />
Lauren G. Lambert, English, Middlebury, MA<br />
Jim J. Lehner, Physics, University of New Haven, MS<br />
Jessica Matzkin ’90, Spanish, University of<br />
Wyoming, MA*<br />
Camilla Moore, Carpenter Teaching Fellow–<br />
Mathematics, Bates, BA<br />
Mark R. Novom, English, Yale, MFA<br />
Timothy Palombo, Mailliard Teaching Fellow–<br />
Physics/Math, Wesleyan University, BA<br />
Peter L. Press, Library Director, University of<br />
Wisconsin, MLS<br />
Rachael Hawes Ryan, History, Georgetown, BA<br />
Jo-Ann E. Schieffelin, Art, Southern CT State<br />
University, BA<br />
Thomas J. Thompson, Music, University of<br />
Illinois, MM<br />
Russell F. Wasden, Japanese, University of<br />
Washington, MA<br />
*Fall term only<br />
A Familiar Face<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s continuity in Potter’s art room this<br />
year. Loueta Chickadaunce returned to <strong>Taft</strong><br />
this fall, having served on the faculty for<br />
three years in the early ’80s. She was hired<br />
then to cover Gail Wynne’s sabbatical after<br />
receiving an MFA from Yale in 1979 and<br />
“stayed on for a bit.” While here, she not<br />
only worked with the late Mark Potter ’48,<br />
but she also taught outgoing art instructor<br />
Jenny Glenn Wuerker ’83, who’d been<br />
holding down the easels since Mark’s death.<br />
This time, Lou reigns over the painting<br />
studio (the old study hall) instead of the<br />
art room. Claudia Black was hired to replace Gail Wynne, who retired in June.<br />
Before returning to <strong>Taft</strong>, Lou spent 12 years as the Visual Art Department<br />
chair at the Santa Catalina <strong>School</strong> in Monterey, California, and four years as<br />
the Art Department chair at Forsyth Country Day <strong>School</strong> in Winston-Salem,<br />
North Carolina.<br />
Campus Projects<br />
<strong>The</strong> school completed an ambitious wiring<br />
project over the summer, installing<br />
state-of-the-art fire alarms, phones, and<br />
data connections in every student room,<br />
as well as a new school-wide database. Students<br />
were thrilled to have phones in their<br />
dorm rooms for the first time, and slightly<br />
less thrilled to discover that all but 911<br />
service is turned off at 10:30 p.m.<br />
More visible are the new Mark Potter<br />
’48 Gallery, the new dance studio located<br />
in the old Black squash courts, and the<br />
still-to-be-completed ice hockey rink.<br />
<strong>The</strong> construction of the rink also called<br />
for extensive renovations to the<br />
Cruikshank Athletic Center, to which it<br />
is attached. <strong>The</strong> new rink should be ready<br />
early in the hockey season.<br />
12 Fall 2000
AROUND THE POND<br />
Character Training<br />
Dr. Eli Newberger of Boston Children’s<br />
Hospital, author of <strong>The</strong> Men <strong>The</strong>y Will Become:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Nature and Nurture of Male<br />
Character, addressed the faculty at the opening<br />
meetings this fall. He highlighted what<br />
he calls the “five essential elements” for developing<br />
character in boys.<br />
Each boy, he said, needs at least one adult<br />
in his life who is crazy about him; boys need<br />
a vocabulary to express a full range of emotions;<br />
they should learn through inductive<br />
discipline—which starts with the assumption<br />
of a loving, caring relationship between adult<br />
and child; boys need protection from exposure<br />
to violence, and finally boys need to have<br />
“opportunities to give back.”<br />
Dr. Newberger applauded Horace<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> in his selection of a motto for his<br />
school, noting its “transformation power”<br />
that can “change one’s sense of self.”<br />
Excelling at APs<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> students had another record-breaking<br />
year on the College Board’s Advanced Placement<br />
exams. Three-quarters of the Class of<br />
2000 took one or more exams, for a record<br />
total of 422 exams taken. Ninety-three percent<br />
scored 3 or above (traditionally the<br />
standard grade to receive advanced placement<br />
in that subject in college). Despite the heavy<br />
number of students writing exams, the average<br />
increased to 4.1 on a 5-point scale.<br />
Mind-Body<br />
Connection<br />
Lowermid biology students are involved<br />
this fall in a study with the Mind/Body<br />
Institute at Harvard University as part of<br />
the Lowermid Biology curriculum. “<strong>The</strong><br />
study will give our students a unique opportunity<br />
to learn the techniques of the<br />
scientific method,” says Science Department<br />
Head Laura Erickson, “while actually<br />
participating as subjects of a real study.” <strong>The</strong><br />
project, directed by Dr. Gloria Deckro looks<br />
at the effect of relaxation techniques on<br />
memory and learning.<br />
New Parents’ Fund Chairmen Carol and Will Browne<br />
P’98,’01<br />
New Chairs<br />
Last year, the 1999–2000 Current<br />
Parents’ Fund, led by Joan<br />
and John Goodwin P’00, lifted<br />
the levels of parent giving at <strong>Taft</strong><br />
to extraordinary new heights.<br />
Ninety-four percent of the<br />
school’s current parent body<br />
participated, raising a recordbreaking<br />
$1,010,447 for the<br />
Annual Fund!<br />
<strong>The</strong> success of last year’s Parents’<br />
Fund could not have<br />
happened without the dedicated<br />
efforts of the Goodwins, the Parents’<br />
Committee, and the hundreds of parents who have given so much, in so many<br />
ways, to this great school.<br />
Joan and John Goodwin have handed over the reins to Carol and Will<br />
Browne, members of the Parents’ Committee for the past five years and parents<br />
of Alex ’98 and David ’01.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Alumni Office extends sincere apologies to the following alumni/ae and their spouses<br />
who were inadvertently excluded from the 1999-2000 Current Parent Donor Report:<br />
Robin and Michael Aleksinas ’72, P’02, ’02<br />
Joyce and Bruce Alspach ’71, P’01,’03<br />
Melanie and Bob Barry ’59, P’96<br />
Claudia and Richard Bell ’71, P’03<br />
Annie and Chad Bessette ’74, P’02<br />
Jody and Art Blake ’67, P’02<br />
Ellen and Kirk Blanchard ’68, P’97,’00<br />
Mimi and George Boggs ’65, P’02<br />
Donna and Gordon Calder, Jr. ’65, P’03<br />
Mary Alice and Hank Candler ’54, P’00<br />
Joan and Ed Cavazuti ’70, P’02<br />
Lisa and David Gillespie ’60, P’02<br />
Ann and Clark Griffith ’68, P’01<br />
Harriette and John Gussenhoven ’65, P’02<br />
Megan and Ti Hack, Jr. ’65, P’96,’03<br />
Penny and Rob Jennings ’67, P’02<br />
Laura Gieg Kell ’73, P’02<br />
David Killam ’70, P’98<br />
Robby and Jeff Levy ’65, P’01<br />
Sue and Bill Morris, Jr. ’69, P’97,’99,’02<br />
Susan and Fred Nagle ’62, P’00<br />
Cassandra Pan ’77, P’01<br />
Joni and Carlisle Peet III ’70, P’00<br />
Neil Peterson III ’61, P’03<br />
Carol and Joe Petrelli, Jr. ’56, P’91,’93,’00<br />
John and Jean Strumolo Piacenza ’75, P’00,’01,’04<br />
Christy and Grant Porter ’69, P’00<br />
Mike Powers ’69, P’00<br />
Jocelyn and Peter Rose ’74, P’02,’04<br />
Polly Dammann and Michael Shaheen, Jr. ’58, P’00<br />
Coco and Townsend Shean, Jr. ’66, P’00<br />
Daisy and Jamie Smythe ’70, P’03<br />
Ted and Laney Barroll Stark ’79, P’02<br />
Ann Havemeyer and Tom Strumolo ’70, P’98,’01<br />
Sioe and Mel Thompson, Jr. ’64, P’92,’00<br />
Mary and Dean Tseretopoulos ’72, P’01,’03<br />
Connie and Jim Volling ’72, P’02<br />
Kirstin and Chuck Wardell III ’63, P’97,’01<br />
Cindi and Chris Wardell ’69, P’03<br />
Hildy and Jack Wold ’71, P’02<br />
Sincere apologies also go to the following alumni/ae who have been loyal and generous<br />
donors to <strong>Taft</strong>. <strong>The</strong> star representing five or more years of Annual Fund giving was<br />
inadvertently left off their names in the 1999–2000 Donor Recognition Report:<br />
Edward C. Armbrecht, Jr. ’50<br />
Daniel B.C. Cote ’74<br />
Sherrard Upham Cote ’73<br />
John H. Denny ’51<br />
Herbert S. Frisbee ’44<br />
Robert D. Gries ’47<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin<br />
13
From HDT<br />
—By Todd A. Gipstein ’70
S P O T L I G H T<br />
BORA-BORA: I’m in a helicopter swooping<br />
over the island of Bora-Bora in the<br />
South Pacific. I peer through the<br />
camera as we bank on a roller-coaster<br />
trajectory. Below me the coral seas<br />
are rendered in a spectrum of blues<br />
and greens. Ahead, the mountain<br />
peaks of the island loom against the<br />
tropical sky. I try to keep the horizon<br />
straight as I frame my shots<br />
through the shake, rattle, and roll of<br />
the copter. I’m concentrating on<br />
taking my pictures, yet at the same<br />
time stunned by the beauty of the<br />
scene and the thrill of the moment.<br />
It’s a typical day at the office for me. A long way from shooting<br />
for <strong>The</strong> Papyrus back at <strong>Taft</strong> 30 years ago. And yet, not so very far<br />
away at all. For I am still pursuing a passion I was lucky to discover<br />
early—a passion that was nurtured and allowed to blossom at <strong>Taft</strong>.<br />
It’s a passion for exploring the world around me, interpreting it<br />
with camera and words, and sharing my viewpoint with others.<br />
My photography for <strong>The</strong> Papyrus, <strong>The</strong> Annual, and for an<br />
ISP project provided me with a miniature, self-contained world<br />
to explore and experience and document. It taught me how to<br />
work on deadline. In my four years at <strong>Taft</strong>, I nurtured a hobby<br />
that would become a way of life. Eventually, it became a profession<br />
that would take me around the world and create a<br />
richness of experiences impossible to describe.<br />
Along with my photography, all those essays I wrote, especially<br />
in Mr. Lovelace’s English classes, proved to be invaluable<br />
experience. I discovered I liked to write and had a knack for it.<br />
And when I later evolved into a producer, I was able to write my<br />
own scripts as well as take my own pictures. This is unique in my<br />
business. It gives my work a strong personal viewpoint, and allows<br />
me to manage a powerful harmony between words and images.<br />
I create in a variety of media. Mostly large-scale audiovisual<br />
presentations using multiple projectors synchronized to lavish sound<br />
tracks. <strong>The</strong>se slide shows use the extraordinary power of still images<br />
to convey their messages. I also create videos and, nowadays, DVDs.<br />
All of it involves writing, interviewing, selecting and editing music,<br />
working with composers, directing the sound-track editing and con-<br />
Bora-Bora<br />
to<br />
struction, creating computer graphics, and the final work of editing<br />
and coordinating the sound and the images. It’s a very interesting<br />
blend of highly technical and very creative work.<br />
What I have learned is that photographers are explorers and<br />
the camera is our compass. It’s the tool we use to navigate toward<br />
and through experiences. It is a magical machine that lets us capture<br />
dramas of life—both large and small—in a little black box. Later,<br />
(Opposite)<br />
Kids (Suva, Fiji)<br />
We didn’t speak each other’s language very well. But we didn’t have<br />
to. Smiles, a hand on the shoulder, and sometimes a magic trick. I<br />
have found I can interact with people almost anywhere. It’s my body<br />
language, my facial expressions, the aura I project that will either<br />
invite or stifle interactions. As a photographer, you learn that shooting<br />
is a kind of performance. Almost a dance. With a stranger.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 15
Oia Cubism (Santorini, Greece)<br />
<strong>The</strong> architecture of the small town of Oia, on the Greek island of Santorini, is a color jumble of planes and angles. Walking<br />
around, I feel as if I am in a cubist painting and take a picture that tries to capture this feeling.<br />
Vendor (St. Lucia, Caribbean)<br />
He rows out, hoping to sell us fruit. He waits<br />
as we make our boat secure. I look at him<br />
and wonder how many boats he’s greeted,<br />
how hard he’s worked to gather his fruit,<br />
how long his day will be hawking his wares<br />
under the relentless searing sun. When you<br />
take someone’s picture, you connect to<br />
them. Even if it’s only for an instant. I wonder<br />
about the people I photograph.<br />
Though I do not know their names, I will<br />
never forget their faces.<br />
16 Fall 2000
we share the images with others so they can<br />
experience some of it for themselves.<br />
Photography is not something you<br />
do; it’s something you are—a way of looking<br />
at the world. For 35 years my work<br />
has made me look closely at my world,<br />
and at worlds I might otherwise never<br />
have seen. It’s a gift, one I try to share.<br />
And so, over the course of my career,<br />
I’ve shot on the tops of mountains, in rain<br />
forests, deserts, and the bottom of the sea.<br />
What I have learned is<br />
that photographers are<br />
explorers and the<br />
camera is our compass.<br />
It’s the tool we use to<br />
navigate toward and<br />
through experiences. It<br />
is a magical machine<br />
that lets us capture<br />
dramas of life—both<br />
large and small—in a<br />
little black box.<br />
I’ve photographed from everything that can<br />
possibly be airborne, from a hot-air balloon<br />
to a glider, from helicopters to jets. I’ve photographed<br />
newborns and a 100-year-old<br />
survivor of the Titanic. I’ve shot at the World<br />
Series, the Boston Marathon, the Kentucky<br />
Derby, and aboard an America’s Cup yacht<br />
in New Zealand. I’ve shot fashion and fantasy,<br />
entire islands, and the world inside a<br />
single flower. I’ve shot when it was 20 degrees<br />
below zero and a withering 110<br />
above. I’ve photographed politicians campaigning,<br />
Greek villagers sacrificing a bull,<br />
fire dancers, Chinese opera, Earth Day,<br />
and Pilgrims cooking a goose.<br />
Just a few years ago, within just nine<br />
months, I took pictures on the Great Wall<br />
of China, the Parthenon, and Machu<br />
Shadow and Light (<strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong>, Watertown)<br />
I shot this portrait of my <strong>Taft</strong> classmate Richard Tietjen in<br />
1968, and I still have a print of it at home. It taught me a lot<br />
about minimalism and simplicity. About how just a few strokes<br />
of light could make a picture and evoke a mood. I try to<br />
make most of my pictures visual haiku.<br />
Imitators (Venice, Italy)<br />
One of the joys of being a photographer is that you notice the little dramas and<br />
ironies of life. In Venice, in the shadow of so many picturesque places, I find a<br />
common cat sitting by the statue of a lion and wonder: Is the statue imitating the<br />
real cat, or does the cat have delusions of grandeur<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 17
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Picchu. To get the best viewpoint, I’ve<br />
had myself hoisted up the masts of ships,<br />
ridden on the back of subways and<br />
horses, rappeled down hills, scuba dived<br />
at night, and stood on a friend’s shoulders.<br />
I’ve been threatened by a gorilla,<br />
charged by an angry bull, menaced by<br />
barracudas, mugged, and pelted with<br />
fruit. I’ve taken photos of famous people<br />
and unknowns, shot in rat-infested back<br />
alleys and aboard Air Force Two. I’ve sat<br />
at Napoleon’s desk and on a Chinese<br />
<strong>The</strong> deal is that we are<br />
ambassadors, that we are<br />
the eyes and ears and<br />
minds and hearts of others,<br />
and that we must share<br />
what we have experienced<br />
and absorbed.<br />
emperor’s throne. I’ve photographed a<br />
mummy being unwrapped, lambs being<br />
born, and buildings being blown up.<br />
My work as a documentary producer<br />
has also taken me out from behind the<br />
camera and put me across the table from<br />
innumerable people to interview. I’ve been<br />
privileged to meet some extraordinary explorers,<br />
adventurers, photographers,<br />
athletes, artists, politicians, scientists and<br />
entertainers. I have had the chance to<br />
probe their minds and hearts.<br />
Storm (Machu Picchu, Peru)<br />
It was the end of the day at the legendary lost Inca city of Machu<br />
Picchu. <strong>The</strong> sunny day had given way to a violent storm that<br />
came ripping through the Andes, lightning and thunder cracking<br />
and echoing through the valleys and the ruins. It felt like<br />
the ancient gods were returning to the mystical city, and I was<br />
spellbound by the moment.<br />
18 Fall 2000
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Though I have been given privileged<br />
access and opportunities, with them comes<br />
the responsibility of sharing the experiences<br />
with others. That is the role of a photographer<br />
or journalist. We don’t get paid to have<br />
neat experiences just for the fun of it. <strong>The</strong><br />
deal is that we are ambassadors, that we are<br />
the eyes and ears and minds and hearts of<br />
others, and that we must share what we<br />
have experienced and absorbed.<br />
Over the years, I have evolved my<br />
own style of photography and shows.<br />
I’m not really a journalist. I don’t shoot<br />
news. I think of myself, both behind the<br />
camera and as a producer, as a poet. I<br />
interpret what I experience on my travels,<br />
and often try to boil it down to a<br />
symbolic abstraction. <strong>The</strong> idea of something—its<br />
essence.<br />
I like my pictures simple and lyrical,<br />
with a strong graphic composition.<br />
Often there is a sense of mystery to my<br />
work. I hope it invites people to think.<br />
To wonder. To smile. To see a piece of<br />
life they might never have seen, or see it<br />
in a new way. I want to make them feel<br />
like they’ve been there.<br />
It’s been a great career. It’s been a perfect<br />
life for a guy like me. For someone<br />
who is curious, adventurous, artistic, and<br />
loves travel, my work has been an open<br />
ticket to the whole world. No two weeks<br />
have been alike, and I’ve loved it all. I’ve<br />
seen a lot. I hope I’ve gotten some of it on<br />
film and shared it. I hope I’ve opened a<br />
few eyes and touched a few hearts.<br />
Survivor (Southampton, England)<br />
I met Edith Haisman when she was 100 years old. She was a<br />
survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. As he placed her in a<br />
lifeboat, her father told her not to worry, that he’d see her<br />
again. But he went down with the ship. Eighty-five years later,<br />
salvagers found his pocket watch on the ocean floor and returned<br />
it to her. At long last, father and daughter were reunited,<br />
as he’d promised. In shooting the picture, I decided to focus<br />
on the essence of the moment: her aged hands clutching the<br />
frame with the watch—her link to her lost father.<br />
Friends (Shanghai, China)<br />
This is a picture that means a lot to me,<br />
even though it’s just a snapshot. Traveling<br />
with my dad in China in 1979, we spent a<br />
day in the company of a guide, a Mr. Lee.<br />
As we toured Shanghai, my dad and<br />
Mr. Lee hit it off. At day’s end, as I boarded<br />
our bus, they asked me to snap their picture.<br />
<strong>The</strong> smiles and handshakes are<br />
genuine. It’s a picture of hope. A reminder<br />
that we can look at strangers not as potential<br />
enemies but as possible friends.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 19
Boy (Cuzco, Peru)<br />
In the mountains outside of Cuzco, Peru,<br />
I encounter a family. <strong>The</strong> little boy stares<br />
at me. <strong>The</strong> picture captures the intensity<br />
of his glare. It’s interesting how people<br />
respond to the camera. Sometimes, they<br />
seem to look at the lens as if it’s a mirror.<br />
Sometimes for a second, their souls are<br />
revealed and captured on film.<br />
Nocturne (Peter Island, Caribbean)<br />
I trek to a high point on Peter Island and watch as a distant sailboat makes its way toward shelter for the night. As a sailor, I know how<br />
it feels to find a quiet place to anchor after a day of sailing. I photograph a scene of suspended tranquillity. <strong>The</strong> clouds seem to imitate<br />
the land in shape and hue as the day winds down and night slowly creeps across the Caribbean.<br />
20 Fall 2000
Different Perspective (Mutianyu, China)<br />
Over the years, I’d seen a lot of photographs of the<br />
Great Wall of China. Most were similar, including mine<br />
from my first visit. When I went there again, I was determined<br />
to find a different perspective. Something<br />
that would give viewers a feel for actually being on<br />
the wall. I crouched in one of the guard towers and<br />
composed a picture through the archway. And waited.<br />
Finally, someone walked by, and for just one frame,<br />
the composition was there. I got that different shot I<br />
was after. This picture ended up as a full page in National<br />
Geographic magazine.<br />
Todd Gipstein is the person responsible for introducing<br />
photography to the arts program at <strong>Taft</strong>.<br />
As part of an Independent Study Project, he<br />
worked with Gail Wynne, teaching photography<br />
to her introductory art students.<br />
While at Harvard, Todd studied English, writing, and<br />
filmmaking, and first began to experiment in creating multiimage<br />
shows. After college, he worked for Time-Life Films<br />
in New York, before starting Gipstein Multi-Media Productions.<br />
He began working for the National Geographic<br />
Society in 1987 and two years later gave up his business to<br />
work there full-time. His photographs have appeared in the<br />
Society’s magazines, books, and educational products, and<br />
his shows have been screened all over the world.<br />
Todd has won more than 50 gold awards, more than a dozen<br />
grand prizes, several lifetime achievement awards, and was inducted<br />
into the Association for Multi-Media International<br />
Producers’ Hall of Fame. His photographs are represented by<br />
the National Geographic’s Image Collection and by Corbis/<br />
Bettman Archives. <strong>The</strong> photographs in this article were selected<br />
from his work of over 300,000 images.<br />
When not traveling for the NGS, Todd lives in Arlington, Virginia.<br />
© Todd Gipstein<br />
Todd on Top of the Mast (Tobago Cays, BWI)<br />
Sometimes, you have to search for a different<br />
perspective. And sometimes, that<br />
takes a little daring. In the Caribbean, I<br />
had myself hoisted to the top of a ship’s<br />
mast. I had an ultra-wide-angle lens on<br />
my camera for a panoramic view. I held it<br />
out at arms’ length and snapped this selfportrait<br />
of yet another day at the office.<br />
My Popeye arms are from eating spinach—<br />
and carrying camera gear.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 21
On the Ascent<br />
K2 has been<br />
a dream for Chris Shaw<br />
since he started climbing in<br />
1989, but he says “It’s been firmly on my schedule<br />
(as much as these things ever are before your butt’s in<br />
the seat and the plane’s in the air) since May 1998, when I climbed<br />
Kanchenjunga in Nepal. Gary Pfisterer, who put that trip together, proposed<br />
K2 for summer 2000, and I sent him a check as soon as I got back home.”<br />
With a few ads in climbing magazines, and a lot of word-of-mouth, they wound up with<br />
a team of ten. Everyone had scaled at least one 8000m peak (there are 14 mountains above 8000m in<br />
the world), and five had climbed Everest. “All together, we had 23 8000m summits and 44 attempts,”<br />
Chris says. “Most important, we had 100 fingers and toes among us—nobody had had any frostbite<br />
injuries, despite all of the climbing we had done.”
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Chris Shaw’s expedition was unusual in that they only used<br />
porters to get their equipment to Base Camp. After that, members<br />
of the expedition hauled their own gear up the mountain without<br />
guides, sherpas, or porters. This is no small accomplishment on<br />
—By Chris Shaw ’80<br />
what climbing experts agree is the most formidable of the 8000m<br />
peaks, more challenging than Everest itself.<br />
Although commercial air travel and electronic communication<br />
have made the mountain somewhat more accessible,<br />
(Left)<br />
Billy Pierson, climbing on the lower<br />
slopes of the mountain. <strong>The</strong> angle of<br />
the slope is about average for the ABC<br />
to C1 section of the climb. Billy found<br />
an old backpack frozen into the ice and<br />
exposed by the melting snow.<br />
(Top right)<br />
K2 as seen from Base Camp. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
route, the Abruzzi Ridge, is the<br />
righthand skyline. C2 is just above<br />
where the ridge changes from rock to<br />
mostly snow. C3 is at the next place<br />
along the ridge where the angle eases<br />
a bit, and C4 is on the flat shoulder,<br />
below the final summit pyramid. <strong>The</strong><br />
summit is 3600m above BC.<br />
weather and altitude still require patience on the part of the<br />
climber. Chris left for Pakistan at the end of May and didn’t<br />
return home to Colorado until mid-August. While away,<br />
Chris sent regular e-mails to family and friends, recounting his<br />
adventure, bringing the mountain that much closer to those of<br />
us who will never see it in person.<br />
—Editor<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 23
S P O T L I G H T<br />
One of the tents in C2 (6700m) with a view<br />
straight down to BC (5000m) on the glacial<br />
moraine below. <strong>The</strong> high peak on the<br />
skyline is Masherbrum (K1), at 7821m, another<br />
Karakoram giant.<br />
Message from BC<br />
It’s another sunny, clear, windless day on<br />
the glacier—a perfect summit day if ever<br />
there was one. It’s even better than yesterday,<br />
when four members of a Korean team<br />
on the SSE Spur route reached the summit,<br />
becoming the first of the season and<br />
some of the earliest summitters of K2 ever.<br />
We have been in Base Camp for 16 days<br />
now, and we’ve had one three-day storm that<br />
barely qualified as such. In other seasons, it<br />
probably would have been climbing weather,<br />
but nobody wanted to set up tents at 6700m<br />
(Camp 2) in a storm if they didn’t have to.<br />
Nasuh and I climbed up to C1 the<br />
day after the storm, carrying heavy loads<br />
of personal gear (a week’s worth of food, a<br />
couple of gas cylinders for the stove, our<br />
down suits, miscellaneous other stuff),<br />
supplemented by a 200m coil of rope for<br />
fixing the route above C2. <strong>The</strong> tent,<br />
shovel, stoves, and climbing hardware had<br />
already been left in a cache at the end of<br />
the ropes about 30m below C2.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chimney<br />
Climbing from Advanced Base Camp to<br />
C1 is primarily a steep snow climb, with<br />
two short rock scrambles. From C1 to<br />
C2, though, there’s a lot more rock, as<br />
well as a bit of hard ice, to contend with,<br />
ending with House’s Chimney, a 20m<br />
high, 1m wide, more-or-less vertical slot<br />
that leads to the top of the ridge. I’ve seen<br />
pictures of House’s filled with snow, but<br />
this year it’s bare rock and blue ice.<br />
From the top of the chimney, it’s not<br />
much more than walking up a broad snowcovered<br />
ridge to get to C2—uphill, of<br />
course, but not too steep for a change. For<br />
the first time, we could see down to BC—<br />
6000 ft of air! C2 is a tent graveyard. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
are nylon tatters, broken poles, gas canisters,<br />
old socks—you name it. We found<br />
two oxygen bottles from the 1977 Japanese<br />
expedition that made the second ascent of<br />
the mountain! All carved into a 45-degree<br />
snow/ice slope. <strong>The</strong> old tents make the best<br />
platforms for the new ones, and so, like<br />
many before us, we pitched our tent on<br />
top of the remnants of at least five others.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Wait<br />
We’ve had a weather-enforced seven-day<br />
rest period for the whole team. We just sat<br />
here in BC, looking at the gray cloud that<br />
used to be K2, playing cards, and trying<br />
not to guess when we could climb again.<br />
Sentences that started with “It’s getting<br />
lighter around Concordia...,” “If only it’s<br />
like this tomorrow...,” “Look, there’s the<br />
summit, through that hole in the clouds...,”<br />
and the like got very old very quickly.<br />
Even bad weather ends, and we got<br />
back up the hill on 6 July, after letting<br />
the route shed its new snow for a day.<br />
We wanted to see what shape the route<br />
and the camps were in after a week, and<br />
hoped to get C3 set up on this push.<br />
On the Hill<br />
When I arrived at C1, it was cloudy and<br />
a bit blustery with a few flurries, but still<br />
pretty calm, and Nasuh agreed that we<br />
should plan on going up to C2 the next<br />
day, if the weather didn’t get any worse.<br />
As it turned out, we didn’t get hammered<br />
nearly as badly getting to C2 as the<br />
others had the day before. It just shows<br />
how different each person’s experience can<br />
be, even on the same mountain, in almost<br />
the same place, at the same time.<br />
Which is not to say that we got off<br />
scot-free, either. By the time I reached the<br />
Chimney it was snowing pretty steadily, and<br />
by the time I got to the top of it, Nasuh’s<br />
footprints were completely covered. I was<br />
glad that there was a rope for the last 200m<br />
to camp, because there wasn’t always<br />
enough visibility to get there otherwise.<br />
By the time Nasuh and I arrived, it<br />
had been snowing for an hour or two,<br />
and it didn’t stop until sometime that<br />
night. It was the most new snow that<br />
we’ve seen on the mountain, even including<br />
the long storm that kept us in BC.<br />
By morning it had stopped snowing,<br />
and there were quite a few clear spots in<br />
24 Fall 2000
the cloud layer both above and below us<br />
(we were at 6700m), so we decided to<br />
give C3 a try. Nasuh and I brought along<br />
our sleeping bags, mattresses, food, gas<br />
and down suits, so that if we did get a<br />
tent up, we could stay there.<br />
This was the “real” Black Pyramid—<br />
what little I’d seen on a push ten days<br />
earlier had been just a taste. It’s mostly<br />
steep rock, with many awkward steps,<br />
and steep snow-covered scree between.<br />
If the average angle of the whole route is<br />
45 degrees (so “they” say), then this section<br />
must average at least 55. It took us<br />
seven hours to climb 450m (vertical) with<br />
the ropes already in place, and another<br />
two to lead and fix another 150m to the<br />
edge of the Shoulder.<br />
Now You See It...<br />
We were hoping to establish C3 at 7450m,<br />
but for the night we would take whatever<br />
we could get. We saw a serac a ways above<br />
that looked like it might actually be sheltered.<br />
Even though it was farther away than<br />
we were hoping for, it was the best place<br />
around, and we headed for it. It turned out<br />
to be perfect—sheltered from the prevailing<br />
wind, and at least 7350m high. We had<br />
to find our headlamps to get the tent up,<br />
but by 8:30 p.m. we were in our bags and<br />
waiting for the water to get hot.<br />
Camp 3 on K2 is usually quite exposed<br />
to wind—and destruction—and<br />
many groups dig snow caves to try to<br />
avoid losing their camps. Since we had<br />
such a safe spot, Nasuh and I decided to<br />
sacrifice 100m of height for safety, and<br />
put up the second tent that Andy had<br />
cached, and call it C3. It probably won’t<br />
hold much more than our two tents, but<br />
at least we can be pretty sure of finding<br />
them there when we go back up. We then<br />
headed back down toward BC.<br />
Try, Try Again<br />
On 16 July, I went up to C1 again. <strong>The</strong><br />
weather looked good in the morning, but four<br />
of us spent the windiest night of the trip that<br />
<strong>The</strong> Team<br />
<strong>The</strong> 2000 International K2 Expedition<br />
was one of seven teams on the<br />
mountain and the only one unsupported<br />
by high altitude porters or the<br />
use of bottled oxygen.<br />
Chris Shaw ’80<br />
Andy Evans<br />
Billy Pierson<br />
Andy Collins<br />
Nasuh Mahruki<br />
Ivan Vallejo<br />
Fabrizio Zangrilli<br />
Tony Tonsing<br />
Hamish Robertson<br />
Gary Pfisterer<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
Turkey<br />
Ecuador<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
night. It’s hard to sleep when it sounds—constantly—as<br />
if someone were beating on your<br />
tent with bamboo wands. Andy E and I hung<br />
on until 2 p.m., but it was useless.<br />
Fast-forward—through a lot of<br />
grumbling and weather watching—to 21<br />
July, when the weather again looked<br />
tempting. Four of us headed for C1, with<br />
three more promising to jump all the way<br />
to C2 and meet us the next day if the<br />
weather held. Joining us were about 23<br />
members and porters from the three other<br />
teams. Also joining us that night were<br />
wind and snow—lots of it.<br />
After a third night of violently<br />
shaking tents and drifting snow, only<br />
four of us were left in camp. We spent<br />
the next morning in somewhat improved<br />
conditions trying to decide<br />
which way to go. An unfavorable<br />
weather report finally sent us back to<br />
BC in wind, rain, and snow.<br />
Today, we awoke to an almost<br />
cloudless sky. <strong>The</strong> morning winds up<br />
high on the ridge were impressive, but<br />
they died as the day wore on. By sunset,<br />
the whole mountain was practically<br />
still. It probably won’t last more than a<br />
day or two, but...<br />
Andy E and I will leave at first light<br />
tomorrow with Billy and head straight for<br />
C2. I don’t know what to expect, but my<br />
porters arrive on 3 August, so whatever<br />
happens, this will be my last shot.<br />
S P O T L I G H T<br />
<strong>The</strong> Push<br />
We had planned on making a big push<br />
with seven of us from our team to plow<br />
through the couple of weeks’ worth of<br />
new snow high on the route, but now<br />
there were just four of us anywhere on<br />
the mountain. <strong>The</strong> wind had lessened<br />
noticeably from the previous two days,<br />
but was still strong enough to stagger<br />
me with a gust when I made my daily<br />
“walk behind a rock.”<br />
Finally, at around 11 a.m., Nasuh announced<br />
that whatever Andy and I decided,<br />
he at least was going down. <strong>The</strong> day might<br />
be climbable from C2 to C3, he argued, but<br />
unless the weather got a whole lot better the<br />
next day, we would have done it for nothing.<br />
A forecast of high winds for the next<br />
few days that we got over the radio finally<br />
pushed him to make the decision. Andy and<br />
I were unconvinced, but with only three<br />
people now above BC, we felt that we had<br />
little choice beyond following Nasuh down.<br />
All the way to BC, Andy and I were<br />
wondering if we hadn’t made an incredibly<br />
bad choice and worried that we may<br />
have just thrown away the closest thing<br />
to a chance at the top that we would<br />
get. <strong>The</strong> lousy weather didn’t make us<br />
feel any better, but it at least seemed to<br />
justify our decision.<br />
Regrets, I’ve Had<br />
a Few<br />
I woke the next morning to hear Peter,<br />
our resident photographer, call out,<br />
“Look at it!” It was about 5:30 and there<br />
was nothing—no cloud, no snow, no<br />
rain, no wind plumes—to look at but K2<br />
in the morning light. It was a perfect<br />
summit day, and I was in BC.<br />
Andy and I tried to be civil to Nasuh<br />
(and there really wasn’t anything to be<br />
mad at him for—we’d each made our<br />
own call), but all we could think was that<br />
we should have been in C3 that morning,<br />
not BC. Nasuh, for his part, was as<br />
impatient as we were, if not more so.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 25
S P O T L I G H T<br />
...Now You Don’t<br />
Of course, any plan on a mountain like K2<br />
is subject to change without notice, and<br />
this time, the change turned out to be pretty<br />
dramatic. When Nasuh, leaving a day ahead<br />
of me, reached the serac where he and I<br />
had put the C3 tents two weeks previously,<br />
there was nothing to be found. Anywhere.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only sign that anything had ever been<br />
there was a hole in the ice where the ice<br />
screw (which had been tied to both tents)<br />
had apparently melted out. Either C3 had<br />
blown away, or it had been buried.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only solution was to start digging.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y dug a couple of trenches, and sank<br />
one hole 2.5 meters deep and 1.5 meters<br />
in diameter, without finding the slightest<br />
trace of anything besides hard, wind-compacted<br />
snow. As it was getting late, the three<br />
of them turned their attention to shelter<br />
for the night, sleeping in a gear tent and<br />
using another group’s C3 tent.<br />
<strong>The</strong> loss of our camp meant even more<br />
problems, though. Nasuh and I had left our<br />
down suits there when we had established the<br />
camp, and Ivan had left his there as well when<br />
he carried up to C3 the following day. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
were gone, and the three of us would have to<br />
find alternatives if we wanted to go much<br />
higher. We lost 100m of ultralight 6mm rope<br />
that was going to be used in and above the<br />
Bottleneck on summit day, and a small, light<br />
radio that we were going to take to the summit.<br />
<strong>The</strong> food and gas that was lost was<br />
almost—but not quite—incidental.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Eve of It All<br />
That night the wind got a bit gusty, but 29<br />
July was yet another clear day, with almost no<br />
wind by the time the sun rose. It was a perfect<br />
day for the four of us leaving C3. Those ahead<br />
of us laid marker wands along the route—<br />
sparsely, since we had lost about two-thirds<br />
of our wands with the old C3—and some<br />
Sherpas had made a carry the day before, so<br />
the climbing was about as easy and straightforward<br />
as things get above 25,000 feet.<br />
I got up to another group’s C4<br />
around 2 p.m. As Andy E, then Andy C<br />
About K2<br />
• <strong>The</strong> world’s second highest peak at<br />
8,611 meters (28,251 feet).<br />
• Part of the Karakoram Range in the<br />
Himalayas, it lies on the border between<br />
Pakistan and China.<br />
• First discovered and measured in<br />
1856. It was given the name K2 because<br />
it was the second peak<br />
measured in the Karakoram Range.<br />
• First known summit attempt in 1902.<br />
• First successful expedition on July<br />
31, 1954. <strong>The</strong> next successful ascent<br />
was not until 1977.<br />
and Billy arrived, we could see dots moving<br />
oh-so-slowly higher on the slopes<br />
above us on their way to the summit. <strong>The</strong><br />
four of us decided to climb up to a spot<br />
about 150m above to place our own C4;<br />
it would make for a shorter summit day,<br />
and we had plenty of daylight left. We<br />
did the climbing, leveled the platform,<br />
put the tent up and anchored it, got our<br />
mattresses and bags set up inside, and had<br />
both stoves going by about 5 p.m.<br />
Passers in the Night<br />
Nasuh told me later that he had had a<br />
17-hour summit day—not including<br />
the descent. He headed down pretty<br />
soon after summitting, but it was already<br />
fully dark and he had to move slowly<br />
and carefully on really steep and treacherous<br />
terrain. By this time, he was pretty<br />
exhausted and afraid of what he might<br />
do if he didn’t pay close attention to every<br />
step. Nasuh made it down to the<br />
60-degree slope next to the summit serac,<br />
across the Traverse beneath the<br />
serac, and down the Bottleneck couloir,<br />
all by headlamp. As the Bottleneck widened<br />
out to become a steep slope above<br />
C4, at about 8200m, he decided that<br />
he was too tired to continue safely,<br />
planted his axe into the 45-degree slope,<br />
and fell asleep on top of it.<br />
Another climber, Waldemar, got separated<br />
from his group that night, and the others<br />
called for him for hours as they made their<br />
own descent. <strong>The</strong> night was so still that the<br />
four of us camped at 7900m (and not really<br />
sleeping) could just hear the shouts, and sometimes<br />
make out words, or a name. <strong>The</strong>y were<br />
sometimes calling for Nasuh, as well, because<br />
they didn’t know where he was, either. It was<br />
one of the eeriest experiences I’ve ever had in<br />
the mountains, listening in the dark to those<br />
cries getting increasingly desperate as the night<br />
wore on. We would occasionally look out,<br />
and see their headlights on the Traverse, or in<br />
the Bottleneck, but the whole situation had<br />
the feeling of a dream that couldn’t be real,<br />
even though we knew it was.<br />
Eventually, at about 2 a.m., the two<br />
guides arrived at our tent on their way<br />
down to theirs. One had lost his overmitts,<br />
and they were both obviously trashed,<br />
barely able to keep walking. <strong>The</strong>y told us<br />
that Waldemar was lost, and Nasuh as well,<br />
and that maybe they had fallen into a crevasse—we<br />
should look, and help them if<br />
we could find them. <strong>The</strong>n they stumbled<br />
on down, leaving all four of us wondering<br />
what we would find above, and if we were<br />
off to the summit, or a rescue.<br />
Summit Day<br />
We had decided that Andy E and I would<br />
set off first (four people trying to brew<br />
up, get dressed and ready to go in a threeman<br />
tent at the same time would have<br />
been—let’s be polite here—unworkable),<br />
and Andy C and Billy would follow. I<br />
left at about 3:20 with Andy right behind<br />
me, about an hour and a half before<br />
dawn. It was a beautiful morning, still<br />
and clear. As we climbed, the slope grew<br />
steeper, the Bottleneck got closer, and the<br />
world lit up.<br />
As it grew lighter, I could see a figure,<br />
descending. As I got closer, I recognized<br />
Nasuh, and I got to him just as he started<br />
down the long snow slope below the Bottleneck.<br />
He looked dazed, but in good shape,<br />
and he was moving steadily, if slowly. He<br />
told me that he had slept in the Bottleneck,<br />
and that his rucksack was gone, he didn’t<br />
know where. I guess it fell down the slope in<br />
the night. He said he was all right (though<br />
he was worried about his toes), and that he<br />
26 Fall 2000
S P O T L I G H T<br />
would get down OK, now that he had gotten<br />
some sleep. I continued on up, and he<br />
continued down. I saw Waldemar about an<br />
hour later. He, too, spent the night out on a<br />
ledge—at about 8400m. Both of them owe<br />
their lives to the fact that the night was completely<br />
still and relatively warm.<br />
<strong>The</strong> slope here steepened and narrowed<br />
to become a rocky couloir, with deep, loose<br />
powder on top of slanting rock slabs. We<br />
climbed up the left side of this, sometimes<br />
almost swimming through the snow, sometimes<br />
balancing on the rock with our<br />
crampons. At the top, just three or four<br />
meters below the serac, the entire couloir was<br />
crossed by a rock band—a few more tricky<br />
balancing moves, and it was into the Traverse.<br />
<strong>The</strong> snow was still deep, but the rocks<br />
weren’t as much of a problem, and the<br />
now-frozen footsteps from the group the<br />
day before were much more of a help. I<br />
came around the left end of the serac.<br />
Here, the snow thinned out, and the angle<br />
increased to around 60 degrees. <strong>The</strong> surface<br />
was hard snow for most of the next<br />
75m or so, but there were a few places<br />
where even that thinned out, and I was<br />
kicking into hard ice for a meter or three.<br />
This wouldn’t normally be a big problem,<br />
but since a) we had no rope, b) I had only<br />
one ice axe, and c) there was about a<br />
10,000 foot drop below me, it was one of<br />
the more terrifying ice-climbs I’ve done.<br />
Fortunately, Waldemar left a rope behind<br />
that I later used to descend—unfortunately,<br />
it was far out of reach for the ascent.<br />
I still had a crevasse to cross. It was<br />
bridged by snow—not very secure, but<br />
good enough. <strong>The</strong> only problem was<br />
that the upper lip was about 10 feet of<br />
hard ice at 65–70 degrees, and despite<br />
all the wishing I had done below, I still<br />
only had one ice axe. I spent about half<br />
an hour chipping small steps in this before<br />
climbing it—there was no rope<br />
here, and I did want to be able to get<br />
back to the tent that night.<br />
This turned out to be the last really<br />
technical obstacle, and soon after I got<br />
past it, I came to a ledge at 8400m—the<br />
only flat area I saw between C4 and the<br />
summit. I sat down, ate a snack, and<br />
watched Andy C and Billy approaching<br />
from below. Andy E was just starting out<br />
above me. <strong>The</strong> sky was still clear, the air<br />
still, and we had our borrowed down suits<br />
rolled down to our waists. <strong>The</strong> only cloud<br />
we could see was valley cloud—all<br />
1000m or so below us.<br />
We knew that all we had to do at this<br />
point was to keep on—it was still early in<br />
the day, and no weather anywhere in sight.<br />
I got going before Andy got too far ahead,<br />
and passed him at about 8500m. I got to<br />
the top at 12:50, 9 1 /2 hours after leaving<br />
C4. Andy arrived just after 1 p.m., and<br />
we spent an hour enjoying the view, and<br />
trying to believe that we’d made it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Descent<br />
Andy C and Billy turned up next, and we<br />
all started down just after 2. Andy went first,<br />
tired and anxious to get down, and I followed<br />
just behind. We reversed the whole<br />
climb, except for two places where Waldemar<br />
had left ropes for descent, and all arrived<br />
safely back at C4 by 7. We did get the stoves<br />
going, but I’m pretty sure that none of us<br />
were still awake at, say, 8:30. <strong>The</strong> tent was<br />
still crowded, and the altitude the same, but<br />
somehow, it was easier to sleep.<br />
<strong>The</strong> four of us didn’t get out of camp<br />
until almost 10 the next morning, and<br />
by that time we were engulfed by the rapidly<br />
rising valley clouds. We groped our<br />
way down through what was by now a<br />
complete whiteout. No doubt about it—<br />
the weather had broken.<br />
Off the Mountain<br />
On 1 August, there were still a lot of<br />
clouds around, and probably a lot of wind<br />
up high, but C1 was peaceful. I took one<br />
of the tents down (we wouldn’t need two<br />
in C1 anymore, and this way I could help<br />
clear the mountain), loaded it into my<br />
pack, and left by 8:45. By 10:30, I was<br />
in ABC, and off the mountain for good.<br />
One more trip through the icefall, and I<br />
was eating a late lunch in BC.<br />
So, the 2000 International K2 Expedition<br />
put six out of ten members on top,<br />
from six different nations. Nobody killed,<br />
nobody injured, and all 100 fingers and<br />
toes still intact. I’m the 179th to climb<br />
K2, and the 13th American. It’s far and<br />
away the hardest climb I’ve done, and it<br />
was one of the most enjoyable trips. I’ve<br />
only got one question now: What’s next<br />
Chris Shaw summitted K2 on 30 July, 49 days after his arrival in<br />
Base Camp. He had flown to Pakistan in May, after returning from<br />
his 20 th Reunion at <strong>Taft</strong>. He says he spent a good part of that weekend<br />
trying to figure out what he was forgetting to pack for the<br />
trip. If Chris makes the trip sound relatively easy, it’s important<br />
to remember that 31 people died climbing K2 between 1978 and<br />
1994, many of them on the descent, and 16 consecutive expeditions<br />
failed between 1987 and 1990 alone.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 27
Athletic<br />
Architecture<br />
in Cataluña<br />
<strong>The</strong> Beauty of Defiance<br />
—By Peter Frew ’75<br />
As rebellious in art as in politics, the fiercely independent people of<br />
Cataluña—Spain’s New England—have a love affair with towers. If the<br />
spires of Catalan Gothic churches aren’t quite as grand as their sisters to<br />
the north—Chartres, Cologne, and Canterbury spring to mind—Gaudí’s<br />
moderniste Sagrada Familia is in a league of its own. Even the weariest<br />
eight-year-old tourist, cool to his parents’ promise of another special rose<br />
window, reliquary, or crucifix, springs ecstatically up the spiraling towers<br />
of Barcelona’s centerpiece. Surely the world’s most unusual temple, La<br />
Sagrada Familia does, however, have competition. Each weekend, in neighborhood<br />
plaças throughout Cataluña, teams of citizens erect human towers<br />
or castells. <strong>The</strong>se castellers (pronounced cast-eye-airs), clad in crisp white<br />
pants, black belly sashes, and bright matching shirts, defy gravity and<br />
human doubt in triumphant structures of sinew, bone, and muscle.
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Perhaps the castellers’ geologic and<br />
architectural heritage makes their endeavor<br />
inevitable. Gazing north on a<br />
rare clear day from Mount Tibidabo,<br />
the highest point in Barcelona, one<br />
sees the bizarre mountains of<br />
Montserrat sprout from the plains like<br />
a forest of petrified morels. Land of<br />
legendary giants and supposed resting<br />
place of the Holy Grail, Montserrat’s<br />
weird karstic formations lure nearly as<br />
many rock climbers as her black virgin,<br />
La Moreneta, draws Christian<br />
pilgrims. From Romanesque altars to<br />
Gothic tapestries to the canvases of<br />
Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, these<br />
mystical rock towers have been indelibly<br />
frescoed, sculpted, woven, and<br />
brushed into the Catalan imagination.<br />
Montserrat’s quest for the heavens<br />
is powerful, but Barcelona’s<br />
castellers draw from another potent<br />
source of inspiration. Still 50 years<br />
from completion, and forged not by<br />
God but by one of his disciples,<br />
Antoni Gaudí’s fantastic, irrational<br />
Sagrada Familia is the city’s lightning<br />
rod. Only eight of the temple’s eventual<br />
18 towers are finished, twisting<br />
heavenward encrusted with Gaudí’s<br />
signature cracked tile mosaics.<br />
Today’s stonemasons, steelworkers,<br />
sculptors, and ceramists labor 400<br />
feet above Gaudí’s tomb in the crypt,<br />
from which the pulse of the<br />
moderniste movement courses, 80<br />
years after its greatest practitioners—<br />
Lluis Domnech i Muntaner, Josep<br />
Puig i Cadafalch, and Gaudí—died.<br />
Every day, teams of workers push the<br />
towers higher and higher, a concrete<br />
assertion of man’s ability, through<br />
community and teamwork, to<br />
achieve heights unattainable through<br />
individual effort.<br />
No Barcelona tourist skips the<br />
Sagrada Familia, nor should miss the<br />
13 th -century Gothic towers of Santa<br />
María del Mar. But only the lucky<br />
find themselves witness to Cataluña’s<br />
most unique towers, or castells,<br />
formed by humans. Blessed by <strong>Taft</strong>’s<br />
sabbatical program, I became a devoted<br />
fan of Barcelona’s castellers,<br />
and was thus plunged into the midst<br />
of one of the most singular expressions<br />
of Catalan character.<br />
My fascination stemmed from<br />
the visceral combination of music,<br />
costume, coordination, strength, balance,<br />
and risk. Castells, even more<br />
than Barcelona’s beloved soccer, require<br />
teamwork and self-sacrifice.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y provide a perfect symbol for<br />
society, with energetic cooperation<br />
being paramount. Each member simultaneously<br />
contributes to and<br />
depends upon the whole, and the joy<br />
and sense of triumph over elements<br />
more powerful than one man is as<br />
palpable as the final drumbeat signaling<br />
a successful castell.<br />
Finding the location of casteller<br />
events was a challenge itself. Each<br />
morning, Baba and I would drop our<br />
children, Max and Amanda, off at<br />
school and head for the café in our<br />
local market. Flanked by geometric<br />
displays of fresh figs and mangoes,<br />
we negotiated busy cleavers, isles of<br />
hanging rabbits, pheasants, goat<br />
heads, and ubiquitous hind legs of<br />
Iberian jamón to which I became an<br />
ardent devotee. Every neighborhood<br />
café has its regulars’ orders memorized,<br />
and as the espresso machine<br />
oozed its staple into glass, we would<br />
be greeted with “zumo de naranja y<br />
café con leche para los Americanos!”<br />
and a kind grin. One of the great<br />
luxuries of our sabbatical was reading<br />
the newspaper cover to cover. We<br />
volleyed stories back and forth, I<br />
from the International Herald Tribune<br />
and Baba from La Vanguardia. A<br />
typical Monday morning casteller<br />
review might headline “ELS<br />
XIQUETS DE VALLS CARGAN<br />
UN QUATRE DE NOU AMB<br />
FOLRE” (Valls Boys Load Nine Sto-<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 29
Suppressed during Franco’s dictatorship (1936–75) along with Catalan language, music, poetry, and dance, castellers have rebounded<br />
enthusiastically. Since the 1980s this athletic architecture has enjoyed a renaissance, and new colles or teams are being formed to<br />
accommodate the popularity of the movement.<br />
ries of Four with Peak). Wednesday’s<br />
Vanguardia carried the “Setmana<br />
Casteller” with details of which<br />
castellers would be performing over<br />
the weekend and where. Armed with<br />
map and cameras, I grew to know the<br />
city far better than I know<br />
Watertown, tracking down castellers<br />
in all neighborhoods, from the tony<br />
to the tarnished.<br />
Equal parts art, sport, right of passage,<br />
and club social, the appeal of castells<br />
is irresistible. Mimicking the natural and<br />
architectural spires of their culture, groups<br />
of 50 to 75 neighbors, friends, and relatives<br />
challenge the heavens by elevating<br />
their children 50 feet above the ground.<br />
A multigenerational event, grandparents<br />
and middle-aged men and women join<br />
arms with pierced, neon-haired teens and<br />
young parents, whose little ones climb<br />
their way to the crest. <strong>The</strong>re is a peculiar<br />
beauty, watching villages raise a child, a<br />
glimpse of a culture fulfilling its essential<br />
obligation. It is also a dangerous venture,<br />
undertaken only after meticulous planning<br />
and practice, and an ambulance<br />
always ready in the wings.<br />
At the bottom level are the barrel-chested<br />
40- and 50-year-old<br />
men wrapped in 20-foot-long<br />
weight lifters’ sashes to support<br />
backs and bellies. Surrounding<br />
them like a rugby scrum, men and<br />
women from 20 to 70 years old bolster<br />
the foundation and form a<br />
30-foot diameter apron to cushion,<br />
when needed, the fall of a child.<br />
Standing on their shoulders are<br />
lighter, yet powerful 20- and 30-<br />
year-olds, while the succeeding<br />
levels are built of descending ages<br />
and weights all the way up to the<br />
very top element, a tiny but intrepid<br />
boy or girl of 6 or 7 who<br />
scrambles up the outside of the<br />
castell, finding hand- and toe-holds<br />
in belly sashes, and raises a hand in<br />
a hurried wave of triumph before<br />
quickly shinnying down.<br />
<strong>The</strong> window of opportunity is<br />
very narrow, and each level must be<br />
completed like clockwork. Imagine<br />
supporting a stack of eight humans<br />
on your shoulders for close to three<br />
minutes. Veins bulge, brows bead<br />
30 Fall 2000
S P O T L I G H T<br />
with sweat, while the captain shouts directions,<br />
anxiously monitoring the<br />
stability and confidence of each layer.<br />
Getting the agulla to the top is only half<br />
the battle; everyone must get down<br />
safely as well, and the dismantling is as<br />
tense and as carefully orchestrated as<br />
the assembly. Part of the magic is musical.<br />
<strong>The</strong> whole event is metered by a<br />
band called the cobla, featuring the<br />
nasal, oboe-like flaviol, and snare and<br />
bass drums. Eyes glued, they play as the<br />
castell evolves, part inspiration part<br />
accompaniment, carefully timing their<br />
crescendo with the little hand wave,<br />
then pick up their beat as gravity speeds<br />
the dismantling of the tower.<br />
Of course, if you’ve ever seen a castell<br />
buckle and crash—if you’ve ever seen the<br />
tiniest children from the uppermost levels<br />
floating leaf-like down upon the older<br />
generations below—you not only worry<br />
about the little fellows, but you also sense<br />
the metaphor, the truth, of the way our<br />
parents and grandparents provide the<br />
foundation, the base, upon which we<br />
erect our dreams, our castles in the air.<br />
Peter and Baba Frew spent 1999–<br />
2000 on sabbatical in Barcelona,<br />
Spain. While Baba took courses at the<br />
University of Barcelona, stuyding<br />
Spanish history, post-civil war literature,<br />
and contemporary Spanish<br />
society, Peter took 5,000 photographs<br />
of Catalan festivals and<br />
popular culture. Peter is working on a<br />
book of his work featuring castellers,<br />
gegants, cap grossos, and corre focs. Peter<br />
is <strong>Taft</strong>’s associate director of admissions,<br />
director of communications, and<br />
varsity squash and tennis coach. A<br />
former teacher of English, he dreams<br />
of castells in Centennial Quadrangle.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 31
E N D N O T E<br />
Embracing Seeming Difference<br />
—By Jon Willson ’82<br />
I grew up in Easton, PA, in the late ’60s<br />
and early ’70s. Both my mother and her<br />
sister had moved there when their marriages<br />
ended in messy divorces.<br />
Easton—where my maternal grandfather<br />
was a history professor at Lafayette College—was<br />
a mostly working class, smallish<br />
city right on the Delaware River, which<br />
separates Pennsylvania from New Jersey.<br />
It was also segregated; white folks lived on<br />
the north side of town, while black folks<br />
lived on the south side. In Easton, if you<br />
were a boy, you were an athlete first—and<br />
anything else about fourth—even on College<br />
Hill, where all the Lafayette professors<br />
and their families lived.<br />
About the only thing I remember<br />
doing in Easton is playing sports. By the<br />
time I was 11, I had been competing<br />
against black kids from the south side for<br />
four years, but had not been particularly<br />
friendly with any of them. It was an economically<br />
depressed and racially charged<br />
era, and race relations were pretty strained<br />
in Easton. I was 11, so I didn’t think<br />
much about all that; I just wanted to play<br />
ball. I was also white, and a member of<br />
the majority, so like most members of the<br />
majority, I hadn’t done much thinking<br />
about members of the minority. But then<br />
something happened.<br />
Several weeks after a basketball game<br />
in which I had made the winning shot<br />
just as time expired—against a team from<br />
the south side—a kid named Sporty and<br />
about six of his friends showed up at “my”<br />
playground when I was shooting baskets<br />
all by myself. I saw them coming from a<br />
full block away and thought that if I ran<br />
for it, I could probably make it to some<br />
sanctuary or other, but decided against<br />
that option since A) it went against my<br />
11-year-old’s notion of what a man is<br />
supposed to do in these situations, B)<br />
because to run as fast as I would have<br />
had to, to outrun them, I would have<br />
had to drop my new basketball, and C)<br />
because I couldn’t really believe that they<br />
were coming to beat me up just because<br />
I had made a shot in a basketball game.<br />
So, I just kept on shooting, and they<br />
just kept on coming—and then I was faceto-face<br />
with Sporty. He didn’t say much,<br />
but we both knew why he was there. Instead,<br />
I suppose in an effort to get me to<br />
throw the first punch, he tried to spit on<br />
me. And I, ball tucked under one arm, refused<br />
to let myself be spit on. He kept<br />
spitting; I kept ducking. Finally, his boys<br />
still behind him, Sporty, probably realizing<br />
that he’d better not hang around too long<br />
lest my older brother and HIS boys show<br />
up, decided to let me go with just a few<br />
choice words. I went back to shooting. But<br />
as I shot, I kept thinking, why was he so<br />
mad at me And I knew, even at 11, that<br />
this wasn’t just about basketball, it was<br />
about race—and there began my interest<br />
in trying to understand discrimination, and<br />
prejudice, and racial misunderstanding—<br />
where all these things come from, and how<br />
they can be dealt with.<br />
Now, why I had that puzzled reaction<br />
brings me to my father, who had been a<br />
brilliant student, a stellar athlete, a handsome<br />
and rich graduate of Harvard and<br />
Harvard Law. “Great catch, great match,”<br />
thought my mother’s family. She was a<br />
smart, attractive, well-educated society girl.<br />
Perfect. But there was one hitch. My father<br />
was schizophrenic. My mother didn’t learn<br />
of his early breakdowns until after their<br />
marriage; she knew that there was something<br />
strange about him, but he was so<br />
charming and everything that she married<br />
him anyway. And remember, this was the<br />
1950s, when even well-educated women<br />
like my mother were expected to find themselves<br />
a nice husband, not to question anything<br />
too much, and to hold on tight. My<br />
mother did hold tight, for eight years, but<br />
finally let go when my father was in the<br />
hospital through her entire third pregnancy.<br />
Six weeks after I was born, she ended the<br />
marriage and moved home.<br />
My father, after his release from the<br />
hospital, moved to New Jersey to be near<br />
us—but had no visitation rights owing to<br />
his condition. So, about once a year or so,<br />
he would show up unannounced with<br />
some bizarre assortment of foods, spend a<br />
few uncomfortable minutes in our house,<br />
then convince my mom to let him take us<br />
three kids bowling in whatever jalopy he<br />
was driving that year. To me, he was my<br />
tall, strong, handsome dad, and he clearly<br />
loved us. I was too young to understand<br />
much of anything other than what I was<br />
told to say when anyone asked about my<br />
father: “My parents are divorced.”<br />
As the years went by, and I became a<br />
teenager and then a man, I would try to<br />
visit him more frequently. But by then he<br />
had let his hair and beard grow, wore torn<br />
up, second-hand clothes, and lived in a<br />
shack with no heat or shower. He continued<br />
to read and study his whole life, mostly<br />
history and ancient languages, and would<br />
always ramble on, out of nowhere, about<br />
the Hebrew word for this, or how in 17 th<br />
century Russia they did that. He appeared<br />
to lead a hermetic existence, with no<br />
friends or acquaintances outside the library<br />
and his church. So whenever I visited, usually<br />
with my brother or sister, we would<br />
drive away crying—and cursing the illness<br />
that had stolen my father’s career, family,<br />
and any semblance of a meaningful life.<br />
Meanwhile, little sports-crazed me<br />
was raised entirely by women—my older<br />
sister, my aunt, my mother, and my grandmother.<br />
And all of them were responsible<br />
32 Fall 2000
E N D N O T E<br />
for how I reacted when Sporty tried to<br />
spit on me. In a neighborhood where the<br />
use of racial epithets was commonplace,<br />
my mother and grandmother let us know<br />
early on that if they EVER heard any of<br />
us use those words, our mouths would be<br />
washed out with soap, and we’d be<br />
grounded indefinitely. <strong>The</strong>y were both<br />
lenient, loving women, but the use of racial<br />
epithets of any kind was one thing they<br />
would not tolerate. I don’t remember their<br />
ever giving me a lecture on the equality of<br />
all peoples or races; they didn’t have to.<br />
After my mother remarried, we<br />
moved to an all-white suburb of Rochester,<br />
NY. <strong>The</strong>re I had few chances to<br />
become friendly with students of color.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n I came to <strong>Taft</strong>, and the same was<br />
true—<strong>Taft</strong> was a much whiter place in<br />
1980 than it is today. After college, when<br />
I knew that I wanted to teach, a multiethnic,<br />
inner-city public school was the<br />
only place I could imagine myself. And I<br />
taught at just such a place for nine years<br />
in Brooklyn. (When my wife and I decided<br />
in 1996 to move out of New York<br />
with our—then, two—small children,<br />
one of the things that attracted me to <strong>Taft</strong><br />
was how much more diverse it had become<br />
since I was a student.)<br />
Teaching and advising kids at Brooklyn<br />
Technical High <strong>School</strong> put me in touch with<br />
African-American, Caribbean, Latino, Chinese,<br />
Korean, Indian, Russian, and many<br />
other cultures to a degree I never would have<br />
known otherwise. I loved, and in some ways<br />
envied, those kids and maintain close contact<br />
with many of them. And I learned both how<br />
unique their cultures were, and also of the<br />
humanity that was common to them all.<br />
Would I have sought out this teaching<br />
experience had I not been raised by my<br />
mother and grandmother to be accepting<br />
of diversity and seeming otherness If they<br />
had not laid a foundation which allowed<br />
me to question rather than condemn<br />
Sporty’s actions If my father had maintained<br />
his sanity and I had been raised<br />
wealthy, insulated, and far away from my<br />
grandmother in an all-white suburb, with<br />
my father—not, despite his brilliance, a<br />
particularly open or loving man—playing<br />
a significant role in my upbringing<br />
When I was in my teens, I learned<br />
that my one and only uncle, whom I<br />
adored, was gay. Had the cards of my<br />
youth been played differently, would I<br />
have accepted him and his homosexuality<br />
and opened the door to another<br />
culture somewhat foreign to my own—<br />
and, while I lived in New York City in<br />
my 20s, have had two best friends who<br />
were gay When my oldest son Sam was<br />
four, his teacher, an African-American<br />
woman, was doing an exercise with him<br />
about identifying how things are different.<br />
When she held her hand next to<br />
his and asked him to name the ways that<br />
they were different, he said that her fingers<br />
were taller than his, and that all of<br />
her fingers were thicker and wrinklier—<br />
and that was it. I liked that. Would my<br />
son have been unable to identify differences<br />
in skin tone if I had been raised<br />
under other circumstances, and developed<br />
other sensibilities<br />
I got a classic middle-of-the-night<br />
phone call in 1993. It was a police detective<br />
telling me that my father had been<br />
killed. He had been walking on the shoulder<br />
of a stretch of highway that he walked<br />
twice a day for 25 years, and had been hit<br />
by a drunk driver. My uncle arranged for<br />
the service to be held in my father’s hometown<br />
church in Tom’s River, and my sister,<br />
brother, and I drove there expecting the<br />
worst—a sermon, about what my father’s<br />
life might have been, to a church, aside from<br />
us, empty. But when we arrived…the<br />
church was packed. <strong>The</strong>re were local businessmen,<br />
little old ladies, families with small<br />
children, even longhaired teenagers.<br />
It turns out that my father, unknown<br />
to any of his family, had been a<br />
most beloved person—quirky, but beloved.<br />
I was aware of people staring<br />
curiously at us—we three “normal looking”<br />
grown-up children—as we must<br />
have been at them. We were struck by<br />
the tears in these strangers’ eyes.<br />
My father had been famous, we<br />
learned, for his acts of kindness, usually<br />
performed with no discussion at all. He<br />
would carry groceries for overburdened<br />
women, help local high school kids with<br />
their research. And then he would stand<br />
quietly in the back of the church during<br />
services, with his long, unkempt hair and<br />
noble, upright bearing, just like—according<br />
to the minister—some Old<br />
Testament prophet. <strong>The</strong> biggest bouquet<br />
of flowers at the service, donated anonymously,<br />
was accompanied by a note.<br />
“He marched to the beat of his own<br />
drum. It was a very gentle beat. In time<br />
may we grow to accept his silence. <strong>The</strong><br />
keeper of the road is gone.”<br />
I was unlucky not to have really<br />
known my father. Even more, my father<br />
was unlucky to have been<br />
debilitated by mental illness—and I<br />
would never suggest otherwise. But<br />
had he somehow been able to stay the<br />
course of his intended track and become<br />
a high-powered lawyer, making<br />
big money but logging 80-hour weeks,<br />
would he ever have had the opportunities<br />
to touch an entire town the way<br />
he did To become the gentle and giving<br />
soul that he obviously did Would<br />
the people of Tom’s River ever have<br />
had the chance to learn from him<br />
about acceptance, about embracing<br />
seeming difference, and about the basic<br />
humanity within us all<br />
Most of us are faced at some point<br />
with what seem to be cruel or unfortunate<br />
developments in our lives. But with<br />
a little luck—something all of you have<br />
just by virtue of your being here— an<br />
open mind, and even more important,<br />
an open heart, those seemingly unfortunate<br />
twists and turns may, in the end, be<br />
your greatest good fortune.<br />
Jon Willson teaches history and co-chairs<br />
the Diversity Committee with Lynette<br />
Sumpter ’90. <strong>The</strong>se remarks are excerpted<br />
from his school meeting talk in October.<br />
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