July 27, 2016.
VOL. XVIII NO. 2

"DARK" CONTINENT,
"NOIR" L.A.,
AND THE CHIPPER CONSERVATISM WE NEED
How it's done -- by Hummel, "Sherlock" Stein (with video), Mills,
Winslow, Saari, Weeden, Wilder, Bent, Freeman and Stott

COMBINED ISSUE COMMENTS HERE

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TRAVEL
A View from the Coast of Africa
The Hummels close in on visiting 77 percent of the world's countries


Increasingly important but still hard to know, Africa was the target last fall of Dave and Cindy Hummel's 'satiable travel curiosity. For three and a half weeks, on a climate-controlled cruise liner with eight restaurants, they sampled the continent's west coast and offshore islands, making 14 stops and touring on shore primarily by day trips on buses.
From Lisbon to Cape Town, Cindy's eye for color produced a photographic cornucopia ranging from colonial architecture to women in ...

Click here for a small selection of Cindy's Africa photos -- and (here's the reveal) their mounting percentage of countries visited.

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LIFE TOOLS
"There are going to be some awfully red faces down in Linda Vista."
By Jim "Sherlock" Stein


Click on the arrow to start the video
Watch a hilarious trailer. Try your hand at solving an L.A. Math mystery.

Jim Stein, an emeritus professor of mathematics at California State University, Long Beach, and the author of such books as How Math Explains the World and Cosmic Numbers: The Numbers That Define the Universe, has just unleashed his love of science fiction and mystery in a noirish new volume, L.A. Math: Romance, Crime, and Mathematics in the City of Angels (Princeton University Press). It's an Ellery Queen-esque collection of short mysteries that require math to solve - with the deep technical stuff in the appendices. The math is good for everything from sports betting to commodity futures. Click here for a sample chapter (it starts "The phone rang just as I stepped out of the shower. It was Allen."), and a link to an interview with Jim by Debra Liese of the Princeton University Press.

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LANDMARKS
Some People Never Change...





Note to classmates: Send us YOUR website-suitable photos, and videos, too.

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COMPASSION
Vet-to-Vet
By Chris Bent

Chris is a former Navy SEAL. On March 8, he wrote:

I met with "Bill" for an hour yesterday at Juniper Village Assisted Living (in Naples, Florida). He was a Korean War veteran in the 5th Army Infantry Division. We talked for an hour as I led him through the service and afterwards where he was a truck driver for 30 years. Bill spoke about his family, and it was evident that his wife and family were loved.

Bill's attention span was diminished... but I bet he hadn't had a one on one with another man for an hour for many years. This Veterans Visiting Veterans program opens up dialogue that could not otherwise happen. Corporal Bill was alive for an hour in his small room with me.

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POLITICAL NOSTALGIA
Conservatism of Yore, Where Are You Now That We Need You?
If this be hagiography, bring it on, says William F. Buckley Jr.'s writer-of-all-trades

By Neal Freeman

As varieties of "conservatism" wax and wane in the US Presidential campaign, Neal Freeman has set out to remind the world of a clarion progenitor of that movement - our fellow Yalie William F. Buckley Jr. '50. Half a century ago, Neal much improved the reach of National Review-style conservatism by developing Buckley's celebrated TV show, "Firing Line," and helped write Buckley's syndicated column.


Recently Neil was a founder of the 3-year-old, off-campus institution at Yale named for WFB, the William F. Buckley Program, which conveys, by speaker and seminar, viewpoints that its partisans say get the short end of the blue stick. Last fall, Neil wrote the buoyant introduction for a 50th anniversary edition of Buckley's memoir of his unsuccessful run for Mayor of New York City, The Unmaking of a Mayor (Encounter Books). Click here for Neil's zest, which spins charming yarns and argues that Buckley rallied the precursors of today's "value voters."

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WRITING
"This is the 'Moby-Dick' of how-to-write books"



The headline's Moby-Dick comparison comes from an English professor reviewing Bill Stott's latest book on Amazon, and no wonder. Bill is one of our more thoughtful and erudite writers. That means you can skim the book, as I just did, and brush up your no-doubt flawless prose (when emailing your grandchildren, for instance).

You can relish ... click here for more, and brief excerpts)

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CAN YOU HELP FIND OUR
Mystery Men?

A few of our classmates have disappeared. Bob Oliver and Chris Cory would be interested in information - or informed speculation - about what happened to them. The recent deaths of Joseph G. Hargraves and Geoffrey A. Williams set Bob searching and Chris wondering. So far these gentlemen have defeated the often-fruitful sleuthing of both Bob and the Yale records office.

Of Hargraves, Bob writes: "Hargraves was in the 9/58 Old Campus Directory in 245 Durfee, rooming with J. A. Blake III and T. M. Brownell. He is not in the Banner and so likely did not graduate in 6/62. Unfortunately, Blake died in 2006 and I have not seen Brownell on any lists for our class since the 1960s." As for Williams, "his entry in our 50th reunion book says 'Address not available' and that he was attached to Saybrook."

If you know anything about these two, please contact Bob at oliver@moglaw.com or 203-624-5111. We may publish the names of other deceased mystery men in the future, and if you can help with them, please do. Send general thoughts about the phenomenon to Chris at chris@christophercory.com or 631-599-9123.

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REALITY
Should We Talk Gentle About That Good Night? an Invitation to Comment

We've heard varied opinions on a strong topic lately. Dylan Thomas famously said "Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light." More recently, David Honneus mused: "We are all in the stage of life that causes us to wonder about our own mortality."

Which raised the question of whether our reunion committee should consider including more about death and dying than the usual Battell Chapel memorial service, namely, a panel discussion, perhaps about longevity, literature about dying or medical thinking, or along the lines of our website edition about aging last year where Bill Stork advised us to ease the burdens of our own deaths on our relatives by providing advance wishes and plans.

Mike Kane warned: "We ought to tread lightly here. Who knows what classmates at our stage of life are dealing with?"

And David Finkle observed: "Being in denial about death is stronger in some people than others."

What are your thoughts? Would such a panel be useful or yucky? What could it address or avoid? Who'd you like to hear from - classmates? Professors? Please respond in our comments section or for greater anonymity, to our 55th Reunion co-chairs (listed below).

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55^th REUNION
Reunion Planning
June 1-4, 2017

Co-chairs:

Dan Koenigsburg suedan@optonline.net
Peter Sipple sipplemp@gmail.com
Peter Clark pelaclark@aol.com

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NECROLOGY
Lives Worth a Pause to Ponder

We report with sorrow the deaths of Clayton Alderfer, Tony Dean, Joseph Hargraves, David Loving, Stan Snyder, Lee vonRhau, and Geoffrey Williams. Obituaries will be posted on this site in due course.

CorSec's note: Classmates, I can't keep from urging you to join me in contemplating some of the new obituaries that Bob Oliver and his team have meticulously compiled and posted at the links below. Like those remembered before them, these were men you will be proud to have been among when we were young: George Basil, Bill Blose, Jack Cavo, Michael Flinn '63, Robert George, Alfred Gilman, Peter Madden, Roger Reese, and Jack Templeton.

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NOTIFYING CLASSMATES OF SERVICES

If you would like classmates to be notified about your funeral or memorial activities, if we get the information in time the Class of 1962 will send information to the names on our class email list. Please ask those who will be in charge to send the details to Bob Oliver at oliver@moglaw.com, 203-624-5111, and for backup to John Stewart, Co-Corresponding Secretary, at johnhargerstewart@gmail.com, 845-789-1407. We will not send out information unless someone makes this request.