No. 36
March 5, 2008

I hope that you all will make an especially generous donation to the Columbia College Annual Fund in honor of our 45th Reunion. We are making good progress towards our goal of $250,000 and a 45% participation rate, but can not get there without your help. The Reunion Weekend should prove to be a rewarding time to see old friends. We will start with an informal gathering for cocktails and appetizers at the Columbia Club Grill Room on Thursday evening, May 29, after which you may wish to attend one of the many Broadway shows that the Alumni Office has made reservations for. On Friday evening, we will have a Class of 1963 only boat cruise and buffet dinner – a real chance to spend an evening just talking and enjoying each other’s company. On Saturday, there will be a full schedule of events to pick from including a panel discussion, a class lunch in the Faculty Room at Low Library, and the Class of 1963 banquet in the Kellogg Lounge at SIPA. You will soon receive a complete description and sign-up package from the Alumni Office, and I hope you will all fill them out and send them in. We have tried as much as possible to arrange class events so that we can spend a maximum amount of time meeting and reacquainting ourselves with our classmates. I hope to see you all there.

As I mentioned in the last eNewsletter, I intend to add separate pages for each classmate in the Columbian section of the Class of '63 web site. These will be added as I receive a contribution from you (or you attend one of our Class of 1963 lunches). You can always email me at pauln@helpauthors.com. As an example, I've added a few for some of your classmates who have been in touch, and populated these will some sample notes. I hope that you will contribute more information to make this an interesting section.

If this is your first visit here, I've added a link to an archives page, which in turn, will link you to the past issues of the Class of 1963 eNewsletter. If you haven't seen any of the earlier newsletters, take a look -- there's a lot more news, pictures, and interesting articles than I have been able to include in Columbia College Today.

Table of Contents:

 


Next Lunches - Thursday, March 13 and April 10

Every Second Thursday of the Month, 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Columbia College Club - 15 West 43rd Street, NYC

Please join your classmates for an informal lunch at the Columbia Club every second Thursday of the month. It is our hope that these gatherings will renew old friendships and foster improved relationship with our class and the College. I hope you can all join us at the next lunches on Thursday, March 13 and April 10. Let me know if you will attend so that we can reserve a big enough table; RSVP to Paul Neshamkin (pauln@helpauthors.com).

February lunch attended by four

Four classmates attended the February 14 lunch. You'll recognize regulars Doron Gopstein, Bruce Kaplan, Paul Neshamkin (sporting an experimental beard), and Tom O'Connor pictured below.

(Seated from left to right) Bruce Kaplan, Tom, O'Connor, Paul Neshamkin, and Doron Gopstein.

Lunch Archives

If you like to see our previous lunches, click on the dates below:

December 9, 2004 January 12, 2006 January 11, 2007  
January 13, 2005 February 9, 2006 February 8, 2007  
February 10, 2005 March 9, 2006 March 8, 2007  
March 10. 2005 April 20, 2006 April 12, 2007  
April 14, 2005 May 11, 2006 May 10, 2007  
May 12, 2005 June 8, 2006 June 14, 2007  
June 9, 2005 July 13, 2006 July 12, 2007  
July 14, 2005 September 14, 2006 September 20, 2007  
September 8, 2005 October 12, 2006 November 8, 2007  
October 14, 2005 November 9, 2006    
November 9, 2005 December 14, 2006    
December 12, 2005      

For information and inquiries call Paul Neshamkin at 201-714-4881 or email at pauln@helpauthors.com.

 


Latest News from the Class of 63

Harvey Cantor’s daughter Elizabeth, has been accepted for early admission to the Class of 2011. Congratulations to both.

One of Doug Anderson’s childhood friends is Robert Rodvien, who, as you all know graduated with our class. Doug writes, “He and I grew up a few houses from each other and went to grade school together. I knew him as ‘Rodvien.’ I used to joke that he probably didn't have a first name. Eventually, we called him Rod. Never thought of Robert. Rod is an oncologist/hematologist and his wife died of cancer a year or two ago. Terrific guy, he has been doing public service podcasts about Cancer for people who have been diagnosed. They are fabulous and Rodvien walks you through everything in the nicest way -- as only someone who is a doctor (on the one hand) and whose wife went through the process (on the other hand). You can get to them at www.smarterpodcasts.com/cancercare/cancercare.html. My suggestion was that Rod should form a 501c.3 not-for-profit, which he did. We made an investment in this as we thought it was so important. Maybe this will touch one of our other classmates.”

Another of Doug's childhood friends is Larry Wein, SEAS '63 who wound up at the School of Engineering in our class. After graduating from Harvard's Business School, Larry made a career at AT&T. He's retired now and spends a few months/year in South Florida. "We played golf and caught up with each other.....more of that to follow as he's a terrific guy."

Our correspondent from the State of Delaware, Paul Gorrin reports, “Nothing but same old same old. The seventy-first annual Georgetown Fire Company Oyster Eat was as jammed, cigar smoke filled, steamed and raw oysters as abundant as the beer, blue grass spilling over the saw dust, an oyster knife auctioned for $7,600; a happy, raucous crowd of rednecks, lawyers, journalists, college kids, older gentlemen, three generations of family; guys from New York, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania. Sussex County, Delaware...as my son's friend from Bethlehem, Pa said the year before and again last week: "This is America."

Between my fills of oysters and beer I had as close to a political talk as one might with Congressman Mike Castle. I thanked him for his work on federal funding for stem cell; later I threw out, the idea of capturing tidal energy, particularly on our coast where the Atlantic rushes inland and then sea ward between rock jetties twice a day in each direction. He said he didn't know a lot about it (well, neither did I) but seeing the thrust and power of the tidal flow, there was enormous energy there. I believe this work is going on in New York, but for any of us with remaining entrepreneurial spirit, the coast line is immense.”

Paul also writes, " I want to let you and our classmates know about the remarkable achievements of my dear friend Paul Zimet, whose work as playwright, director and founding member of the Talking Band has won acclaim in New York and Europe. You might check out the Talking Band's web site. Paul is too modest to let you know about his work. It does speak for itself."

Larry Neuman has still not come in from the cold of Inner Mongolia. In fact his wind energy company, China Power Development Corp. opened an office in the capital city Hohhot in January. If things continue on schedule, they could build their first 50 megawatt project later this year. He is also proceeding with his US solar energy activities through his Solar Bridge company and feels that the curve has finally caught up with him after years of being ahead or behind.

Patrick Cary-Barnard sent me an update on his ongoing battles to keep us all green, “Here in Westmount the news is official -- Save the Park! Sauvons le parc! has won the struggle to keep artificial turf out of historic Westmount Park. Our campaign of 1 year and 2 months finally bore fruit when the City Council of Westmount indicated it would spend $800,000 on natural grass fields. I am continuing to follow this general story of synturf versus grass, and I hope to spread information to groups fighting to save urban greenspace throughout North America. This struggle to save parks and urban fields and green areas of cities is real, ongoing, and terribly important. And who would have thought that often a park's worst enemy is a City official or the sports and recreation department.” Patrick, I’m sure that many of our classmates join you in trying to keep their local governments “Green.” In my town, Hoboken, we’ve lost the synthetic turf wars so far, but we are working towards reducing our carbon footprint and encouraging green construction through LEED ratings.

Lee Lowenfish’s book Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (U of Nebraska Press) won a Choice award from American Library Association and was runnerup for the Spitball Literary Magazine best baseball book of 2007. On March 15, he will keynote the Nine baseball magazine conference in Tucson Arizona, and will speak in April to the Negro Baseball League Museum in Kansas City. He is teaching Sport History during the spring term in Columbia's School of Continuing Education graduate program in sports management.

Peter Gollon reports two significant life changes: retirement and grand parenthood. He's been living on Long Island since 1979, when he and wife (Abby Pariser '67B) moved back from the wilds of suburban Chicago, where he had been working at what was then the world's leading high energy physics lab Fermilab.

Once back here, he divided his time between physics and what had been his father's business. Eventually being pulled in two directions at once became too difficult, and the business won out. In the meantime he's helped raise two grown children, Kate and David, and been active in the ACLU.

Almost two years ago, when the business and the economy were humming along quite nicely, he took advantage of those conditions to sell it, and finally phased out completely last spring. So far retirement has offered the opportunity to travel a bit more, join a gym and lose weight, clean out 30 years of junk, and become interested in solutions to global warming. And most important, to try to un-learn a Type A personality.

Through son David and his wife Mindy, Peter became a grandfather just this past December, when baby Olivia was born. So far this has not made much of a difference in his life, and certainly has not changed his self-image one bit, and probably won't until Olivia gets old enough to think him "special."

Harley Frankel will be bringing 61 highly-qualified low-income students of color from Los Angeles public schools to visit 30 different colleges on the East Coast March 25--April 3. These College Match students will be traveling in two groups; One will see New England colleges and the second great schools from Washington, DC to New York, including Columbia, of course. Harley writes, "We will be taking 30 of these students to see Columbia on April 1 beginning with lunch in John Jay at 1:00 PM in case anyone wants to join us."

The May edition of Columbia College Today will feature an article on the College Match program. Over the past few years, they have gotten 92% of their students into top ranked schools and last year, 40% were admitted by Ivies or Ivy-equivalents. You can visit the College Match website at www.collegematchla.org.





When you send your notes in, please indicate if you would like to share your email address(or web site) with your classmates. Always great to hear from you all.

For information and inquiries call Paul Neshamkin at 201-714-4881 or email at pauln@helpauthors.com.

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