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Nieman Notesand author interviews). Retirementcame just in time. As chief book reviewerfor the paper, I was running outof space in the house for more bookshelves.When I retired, my papers wereacquired by the University of TorontoLibraries and my collection of Canadianfiction and poetry (first editions)by the University of Western OntarioLibraries. (Modesty be damned.)“Any success I had as a literary criticwas due in some measure to a course Itook at Harvard as a Nieman—the ModernNovel, given by Albert J. Guerard inthe English Department. I chose it asmy major course, did all the homeworkand assignments (I still have my lecturenotes). That’s where I first encounteredMalcolm Lowry’s ‘Under the Volcano,’which has since been recognizedas one of the great novels of the20th century. Lowry was living inVancouver at the time, and the citygovernment was trying to evict himfrom his seaside shack—a circumstanceI was able to turn into a good story forthe Globe and Mail. Professor Guerardwas a brilliant teacher, and his coursehad a profound impact. I saw his obitjust the other day; he spent his finalacademic years at Stanford, where hisThe Murrey and Frances Marder Fundfather had been a star on the faculty. …“Jean [French’s wife] and I havedone a lot of traveling, including acruise last year around Australia andNew Zealand. We spent a splendid dayin Wellington with Ian and Tui Crossand talked a lot about our days atHarvard. As you probably know, Ianretired after a very successful career ashead of New Zealand television. Wehad hoped to see Fred Flowers inMelbourne but were, alas, too late.”Mort Stern writes: “A couple of yearsago, after two terms on the Georgetown(Colo.) governing board, I let myselfbe persuaded to run for mayor againsta nice young lady whose qualifications(unknown to me) included a spell as aprofessional strip teaser. She allegedthat I represented the ‘Old Guard’ ofthis historic village since I was in favorof zoning as well as of having the townmarshal enforce the posted speed limits.She beat me by 31 votes, which wasroughly the number of people whocould drink standing up at one of ourdowntown saloons.“For some reason, the media …thought it was a great story and keptmy phone busy questioning how I hadThe Murrey and Frances Marder Fund, established in November 1996, hasprovided the Nieman Foundation with support for four Watchdog Conferences,the publishing of excerpts of the conferences and articles onwatchdog journalism in Nieman Reports and on the Nieman Web site, andthe Nieman Watchdog Project. Following is an accounting of expendituresfrom the fund as of October 31, 2003:Balance at 10/31/02: $285,800.14Income: $97,492.415,184.53 — interest on balance at end of FY 2002-03 (at 6/30/03)92,307.88 — income from endowment for FY 2003-04 (7/1/03-6/30/04)Expense: $51,354.6934,335.00 — design of Watchdog Project’s Web site13,942.31 — editor of Watchdog Project2,873.15 — travel/lodging/meals204.23 — miscellaneousBalance at 10/31/03: $331,937.86managed to lose. … In the normalcourse of headline-making, the newmayor managed to get herself arrestedfor driving under the influence and forallegedly faking an attack on her by afoul smelling man …. She subsequentlylost a recall election (not to me, thankgoodness), but she still managed to geta big spread and Playboy-type colorphoto in The Times of London, whichpresented the words stripped of officespread across her otherwise unadornedbosom. And I must add this footnote toillustrate the shape of politics on thisportion of the Western frontier: Shortlyafter my election loss, a neighbor calledto get my assistance with the towngovernment on a complicated matter.After listening to him explain the …issue, I said, ‘Thank God I lost theelection!’ to which he replied, withobvious sincerity, ‘Well thank me, too,because I worked against you.’“Late in 1990 Pat [Stern’s wife] andI both thought we would retire to fulltimeliving in this historic mountaintown about 15 minutes drive from theContinental Divide. But her interiordesign clients continued to requesther services, and I got occasional requestsfor writing and editing assistance.So we cranked up our consultingpartnership (P. Paty & Co.), and weare still at it and doing a lot of civicservice besides ….Bill Woestendiek retired in 1995 asdirector of the School of Journalism atthe University of Southern California,Annenberg. He writes: “Since my ‘retirement’… I have been a Knight InternationalPress Fellow in Russia andserved as a communications consultantfor the U.S. State Department insuch places as Zimbabwe, Swaziland,Kenya, Ethiopia and Azerbaijan.“My son John, who now works atThe (Baltimore) Sun, won a PulitzerPrize for investigative reporting at ThePhiladelphia Inquirer in 1987.“I should add that I had a heartattack about a year ago, but I am doingwell.”Sam Zagoria’s last full-time job wasas news ombudsman for The WashingtonPost from 1984-86, “courtesy of98 Nieman Reports / Winter 2003