YAM Notes: May/June 2026
By John D. Hatch III for the Y62 Communications Team YAM@Yale62.org
With two grandsons getting married in August, memories of the planning Marolyn and I went through for our wedding some 40-plus years ago keep getting triggered. With two granddaughters also engaged, the process will likely carry on through 2027. Memories by classmates, both then and now, seem to fit right in.
Memories of then, first:
Reminiscing about his Branford roommate Dick Ziebarth and freshman year in Farnam, Tom Triplett wrote: “We (our floor) got flagged for a messy habitat. They sent letters to our parents. My mother laughed as she had put a notice on my bedroom door that it not be opened until Christmas. Dick’s mom, a strict Lutheran, responded with a two-page, single-spaced diatribe re: embarrassment to the entire family. I copied it and posted it around the freshman campus.”
Creating newer ones:
David Hopkins shares: “John Stewart’s account of his trip through Europe last fall prompted me to recount briefly the trip that my wife Janet and I took about the same time . . . around the USA (more or less). This time we took the Hi-Line route across the northern tier, just 50 miles or so south of Canada—starting in northern New England on US Route 2, through Canada over the lakes, then Michigan to Washington, following US Route 2 again. None of this trip was done on the Eisenhower Road System—all off the beaten path ranging from US 2 down to dirt roads here and there. Two of us in the car, stopping at motels each night as we happened on them, dining out at one of the local options. After a few days with our daughter and family in Edmonds, we drove south along the coast to Northern California (shore views, redwoods), then cut inland through the central valley (olives, nuts, etc.) to sequoia land and the Zion/Bryce duo, and headed back east through Utah, New Mexico (‘next service 162 miles’), and as far as Arkansas. There, after 65 days of this, we decided we had had enough for one trip, so we spent the last day enjoying Crystal Bridges, then got back on the interstates and came back home to Connecticut. Impressions: there is a lot of very beautiful land to see; there is a lot of very empty land to see; a lot of friendly people met just in passing; the US has become more ‘homogenized’ even in the past ten years; there was not a single instance of politics obtruding. We missed a few states, so we may well do it again.”
From London, Richard Portes shares a video of memories of his post-Yale life. In it he highlights his ongoing academic life in England, with a brief stay at Princeton, spent primarily in economics with experienced or mature students (MA-level) and building academic programs and creating the Center for Economic Policy Research, a “think net.” The 14-minute video can be found at Yale62.org.
If you missed Sandy Mack’s March Coffee Hour discussion on “Words or Swords: Shakespeare’s Languages of Insight, Blindness, and Rapture,” treat yourself to a new memory while reviving an old one—he is Maynard Mack Jr. ’64—by visiting the class website and viewing the recording.
Adventures in AI: Trust But Verify! is the title of Lee Bolman’s recent memory piece, posted on our website in February. Lee says, “In searching for information about one of our classmates, an AI app said that he had once served as our class secretary. I didn’t remember that, so I pursued the issue with Google Gemini Pro 3, supposedly one of the best AI apps out there.
“It turns out that even the latest and greatest AI can hallucinate with confidence and enthusiasm. For anonymity, I’ve changed the names and some of the biographical facts, but here’s the conversation.” After the denouement, Lee sums it up with “There are many things that AI does brilliantly, but getting the facts straight isn’t always one of them.”
To add to your memories, I hope you saw some of the Winter Olympics. My lasting memories of that event are sure to be of the lush, but very well done, closing ceremony.
Your memories—either ones of the Good Ol’ Days (1958–62) or especially newly created ones that you’d like to share with classmates—would be most welcomed for this column.
For development of upcoming topics for your participation, our communications team is looking for:
A. Classmates who have some expertise from living or working in, or studying about, the Middle East who might participate in a Coffee Hour Zoom discussion on that topic.
B. Classmates who have been active in philanthropy. We would like to put together a Coffee Hour or a discussion for the website about your experiences and/or challenges, as well as the differences your experiences may have made or contributed to.
Please contact us about either topic at YAM@Yale62.org. Thank you!
Finally, and sadly, memories of classmates John Knutson, Larry Lipsher, and Bill Sullivan, whom we have recently learned are no longer with us, have been added to the Yale62.org website. Thanks to all who have shared their remembrances of these gentlemen to refresh our memories of them.