By Rich Banbury
In the word of golf, there’s a relatively small window for shooting one’s age, perhaps in the range of 68 to 79. There will always be a few outliers, of course, like the senior prodigy who manages a 43-47 score on his or her 90th birthday. I’m not sure if Alan Gilison is the only mate to match his age by cranking out a 72 on a championship course in West Palm Beach. I expect there are others whose total strokes on some particularly good day equaled his total number of birthdays. Let me know if you have accomplished that admirable equivalency. Are you out there Keith Kittle?
According to Gilison, not all is economically dark in the Sunshine State. After the 2009 collapse in the exotic car business, the last quarter of 2010 witnessed a promising rebound for high end wheels, such that the enterprise in which Alan has invested, Chariots of Palm Beach, is once again thriving. Alan and his brother lucked out on another potential investment. They were “one week away from wiring the funds” to Bernie Madoff when a variety of circumstances caused them to change their investment plans. Incidentally, the Yale Golf Course where Alan honed his game, lo these many years ago, has recently been recognized by Golfweek magazine as the best collegiate course in the country.
I had previously reported that Jonathan Weiss was our class representative at the World Cup in South Africa. I have now learned that we had another delegate at that spectacle. Sam Lambert attended two of the matches at the Cape Town venue, which were “wonderfully managed with great officiating and very friendly and well behaved crowds”. Sam was able to reconcile the scheduling of the World Cup and our June reunion, resulting in a very special day at Derby for eight out of the nine members of our undefeated freshman heavyweight boat, who were also part of the undefeated 1958 varsity squad. Joining Sam at the new Derby boathouse were Captain Emory Clark, Dave Dominik, Herrick Garnsey, Sam Lambert, Ave Laundon, Baldy Ogden, John Ostheimer and Bill Wiese. All enjoyed getting back on the water and skimming the surface of the Housatonic River. Incidentally, I highly recommend Em Clark’s poetic ode to Bart on page 172 of the Reunion Book.
Boston psychiatrist John Renner has edited a treatise on the office-based use of Bupremorphine treatment of opoid dependence. John is the Associate Chief for Psychiatry at the Veterans Administration, Boston Healthcare System.
Jeff Kahn composed numerous poems during his senior year at Yale, including the provocative line: The ticking of the clock would seem to mock the beating of my heart, previously noted in the January column, with the author then unknown. Jeff reports from Scottsdale that these words were admired by his roommate, the late Harry Oliver, noting that “I intended to honor Harry by including it in our 50th yearbook”.
What is most surprising about the Reunion Book is the unexpected observation that a substantial number of us look better now than we did fifty years ago. Many of those naive and unvarnished cubs have matured into wise and weathered lions. A few even resemble well known movie stars. Rick Collins is a keen look-a-like for Alan Alda. The editor’s caption under Chad Dilley’s contemporary photograph reads “Yes, I too thought it was Sean Connery”. And if Class Secretary Peter Wells looks exactly like cameo actor Peter Wells, one of whose gigs was to play a Princeton professor in Russell Crowe’s A Beautiful Mind, then they must in fact be one in the same. RB
Stayoung