2024
Happy New Year!! I hope you are looking forward to a healthy and eventful 2024.
I recently received the financial statement for our class treasury as of June 30, 2023 which reports a balance of $47,559 after accounting for the approximate $28,000 charge for the subsidy we provided for our 65the reunion held in June, 2022. That, coupled with the dues that we have begun collecting again, should keep us solvent at least through our 70th reunion to be held over Memorial Day weekend in 2026. Plans are also under consideration to hold a mini-reunion in New Haven during the weekend of September 28, 2024. More details later.
Bill Rees has continued to enhance our class web page with the addition of the Class of 1956 Whiffenpoofs’ record which can be found at https://yale56.org/the-56-whiffenpoofs/.
Bill Poorvu’s wife Lia has reported that our former class secretary, Ted Robb, has moved to an assisted living facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There he met a fellow Yalie, Class of ’57, who had attended the same grade school in New York City as Ted had. Ted won’t lack for friends given his warm and welcoming nature.
Previously, I had praised Jordan Cohen for having five great grandchildren and challenged others to claim more. John Rindlaub and Bob Hoerle claimed 10 each, but Bill Hinkes now holds the class record reporting “now up to 15” having eight children and their offspring to produce that impressive number. Apparently, he expects more to come.
Arnold (Arnie) Kaplan recently returned from a two week safari in Tanzania accompanied by his son and daughter and their spouses. He has been a practicing psychiatrist for the past 59 years and still delights in seeing patients 3 ½ days a week. He expects to be carried out of his office “kicking and screaming” before he voluntarily retires.
In my last notes I reported that Jim Kern planned to hike in the Kashmir area of Pakistan in late 2023. He has made that trip but had an unexpected ordeal getting there. When he arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, expecting to explore the peaks and valleys of the Himalayas, he was informed that he could not leave the airport as he didn’t have a visa for Pakistan. He had to await a flight back to Paris, France, to get the visa which resulted in four nights and days of sleeping on planes and in airports. Once back in Paris, the security police returned his passport, and he obtained his visa. He then returned to Pakistan where he spent four days on the shoulder of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain on earth. He then began a five hour hike to base camp for the mountain climb, but only made two of the five hours before calling it quits. He is looking forward to returning next year with his visa to explore Pakistan’s Hunza Valley. And he is 89!
Milton Gaines reported that Dr. Es Esselstyn and his family were featured on a podcast produced by The Exam Room in Washington, D.C. covering their pioneering efforts in studying plant-based diets to prevent and reverse heart disease. Es’s research on the subject was also featured in the groundbreaking 2011 documentary film Forks over Knives available to be streamed on Amazon Prime and other sources.
On a sad note, James G. (Jim) Glenn died unexpectedly on August 27, 2023. While he majored in engineering at Yale and worked in that field in Texas and Louisiana after graduation, he returned to his home state, Pennsylvania, in 1959 to take over his father’s Buick dealership in New Kensington. He thus became the youngest automobile dealer in the U.S. He became a very respected civic and business leader in the community, serving on numerous boards of directors. With fellow community leaders, he founded the Downtown Development Group to help revitalize and beautify the town’s business district. He was an avid fisherman, fly-fishing streams in Pennsylvania and major rivers in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and New Zealand. He and his wife Jane traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, and he was active until his death as a swimmer and tennis player.
Laurence J. (Larry) McCarthy died on September 6, 2023, following a three year battle with prostate cancer. His wife Cynthia (Cindy) was by his side Following Yale, Larry attended Georgetown Medical School and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1960. He then went on to receive an M.S. in pathology from the University of Minnesota and completed his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the Mayo Clinic in 1965. He became Director of Pathology and Laboratory at the A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle, Maine, where he met Cindy. Shortly after their marriage in 1978, they moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he served for 28 years as Associate Pathologist at Kuakini Medical Center. Following his retirement, he and Cindy moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington, where they lived for 17 years. Larry enjoyed sailing, cruising to Alaska and other destinations, coin collecting, fantasy baseball and football, trips to the local casino, and watching movies of World War II, especially Band of Brothers.