YAM Notes: September/October 2023
By John D. Hatch III
YAM@Yale62.org
Graduations—including reunions of our own high school graduations of 65 years ago, and those of grandchildren and great-grandchildren in some cases—have figured heavily in many of our lives this summer, along with weddings and vacations, plus all of the “usual” occupations of time and energy of this time of year. We’d love to share your experiences, so please send them in.
Those we have heard from include David Ross, who reports that his summer began with dealing with the ramifications of discovering that the fuel tank buried under their summer home had been leaking all winter. By June, the old tank was filled in with sand and a new one buried near it. Marianne and Wyllys Terry’s summer in Castine, Maine, is pleasant: “We play tennis, golf, and pickleball, along with venturing out on the water. Our winters are spent in Antigua, Guatemala, where we do the same. In Castine, we are active in the golf club, are working on bringing outdoor pickleball courts to the town, and we maintain our property, a never-ending task. . . . In Antigua, the school I helped start provides pre-K through 12th grade education for local kids. All the graduates have gone to college; . . . over 50 percent of the kids receive financial aid. . . . Perhaps most importantly, we find time to relax—me in my hammock and Marianne on her couch. We have been doing this routine for 15 years, after having lived on our sailboat for eight years. Life is good.”
Fred Appell continues to paint and sketch as he moves between his home in Minneapolis and his place in Mexico, where adjacent land he owns is being developed into a small-scale events venue by his daughter. You should find a recent sampling of his artwork on our Yale62.org class website. Patrick Rulon-Miller reports that he “continues to tend to my bees, and play golf, poker, and bridge while enjoying family and friends.” Michael deHavenon discovered that his love of good wine, and investment in quantities of some of it, resulted in a very handsome remuneration when he had to put the collection to auction. It must have been hard to let the collection go but certainly the success of the sale reflects well on his choices and taste.
“I am now attending church more regularly, as I have joined a small rural church choir of four to nine persons,” says Ellis Wisner. After graduating from high school, Ellis did not join any singing group until his late 20s, but has been greatly and happily immersed with choruses in Washington, DC, ever since. As of mid-June, he was awaiting a call back from the Washington Cathedral Chorus where he has sung for over 15 years. Your scribe (Jay Hatch) particularly enjoyed his 65th high school reunion, discovering the interesting lives and thoughts of some he knew well back then and others he was glad to know better now. “Trying to encourage the soil to grow produce for home consumption, and not injuring myself while attempting to play better pickleball have been my summer’s goals.”
At our June Coffee Hour (CH), Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, presented a very clear picture of how Yale Admissions operates and what they are looking for to make a class. This was a follow-up to Lee Bolman’s earlier CH of an outsider’s understanding of the trends and processes of Yale admissions and Al Chambers’s interview of Quinlan four years ago. Alumni interviewers’ experiences and concerns were one of many topics covered in the Q&A and subsequent discussions. Lee has since penned a very good and short article for our website on what the Supreme Court’s recent decision means and may portend for the admission processes. All of this is available on Yale62.org.
John Stewart and Peter Sipple, stalwarts of our Whiffs, produced a very entertaining and informative July Coffee Hour which examined the changes in singing styles and content at Yale since ’62. We heard a wide range of music, with some really interesting and unusual arrangements, saw and heard some of today’s groups, and learned how things have changed and what’s improved, as well as what renders us nostalgic. You’ll find the recording of the Coffee Hour on our website.
We now have a classmate-written obituary on the class website for Stephen W. Buck, whose death we sadly announced in our last column.