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:
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 |
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January
13, 2005 |
February 9, 2006 |
February 8, 2007 |
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February
10, 2005 |
March 9, 2006 |
March 8, 2007 |
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March 10.
2005 |
April 20, 2006 |
April 12, 2007 |
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April 14,
2005 |
May 11, 2006 |
May 10, 2007 |
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May 12, 2005 |
June 8, 2006 |
June 14, 2007 |
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June 9, 2005 |
July 13, 2006 |
July 12, 2007 |
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July 14,
2005 |
September 14, 2006 |
September 20, 2007 |
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September 8, 2005 |
October 12, 2006 |
November 8, 2007 |
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October 14, 2005 |
November 9, 2006 |
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November 9, 2005 |
December 14, 2006 |
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December 12, 2005 |
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For
information and inquiries call Paul Neshamkin at 201-714-4881
or email at pauln@helpauthors.com.
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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