Photo courtesy of Bob Loeffler '65
Upcoming Reunion in May - Register now
Our delayed 55th reunion will be held at the Harvard Club of Boston on May 13th and 14th. You can see Gene Skowronski and Linda Dewing's letter about the reunion here. A detailed schedule and information about accommodations can be found on hr65.org. This would be an excellent time to register! The button below will take you to the Harvard Alumni Associations registration page. (You do not need to have a HarvardKey to register, simply click on "Continue" rather than "Log in with your HarvardKey".)
Memorial Service
The first item on the schedule for Saturday morning is our Memorial Service. It will be held in Harvard Hall and will start at 9:50 am.
As we approach our May assembly, we will mark the 57th year since our entry into the “world of educated men and women.” At this our 55th reunion, we will once again pause to remember those of our classmates who have pre-deceased us. We will not enjoy the simple splendor of the Memorial Church nor the resonant peals of its bells. Yet, we will recall those lives and what might have been. We will sing and hear music, familiar and new, as well as customary readings and prayers. We will intone each of the names of friends and mates. Some of them will have long since passed. Others have more recently died. We will look to the past with a new perspective. We will turn forward with a new spirit. We will make peace with the inevitable.
David Mersky
Photographs from the Sixties
We have quite a few photographs from our days in Cambridge on hr65.org but we can always use more. I know that we weren't all carrying cell phones around and taking selfies but there must be a few tucked away in the attic or in desk drawers. Please scan them and send me a copy; or mail me the photograph and I will scan it and return it right away. (William Bean, 960 Waltham St. Apt. 571, Lexington, MA. 02421)
To see the pictures that we already have, go to hr65.org, log in (or register for the web site if you haven't already), then go to Photo Albums under the Classmates menu to the left of the page.
Harvard in the 60s Video
The video that we showed at the 50th reunion is still available on hr65.org. Just look at the "50th Reunion" section of the menu to the left of the main page. The video is the last entry in that section. It carries me back to an earlier era.
This video was produced by the class of '64. We have it thanks to the efforts of Janna Collins '65.
Symposia
We will have four symposia at our upcoming Reunion, all of them on Saturday, May 14th. Three of them are grouped under the overarching title, The Defining Issues of Our Time, and they will bracket lunch—one just before, and two immediately after. They will all be shorter than our usual symposia because of time constraints, but we intend for the presentations to be pithy and provocative, and we will allow at least half of the total time for questions and discussion. The fourth “symposium” will take place in our traditional small discussion groups, and it will follow a short break, ending finally just before dinner.
Symposium #1 before lunch is entitled “Public Discourse: The Search for Truth.” Craig Whitney will speak about the subtopic of The Media, Curt Fried will speak about Science, and Howard Gardner will speak about Values. Gail Falk will moderate.
Symposium #2, which is immediately after lunch, is entitled “Inequities: Addressing Fairness in Wealth, Race, and Education.” Joel Cohen and Peter Bronstein will address this large subject from several perspectives, and Geoffrey Carliner will moderate.
Symposium #3 will follow a brief Visual Interlude provided by Sarah Kafatou. The symposium is entitled “National Identity: Is America Actually Exceptional?” Jeffrey Race and Sarge Cheever will view this vexing issue through their own professional lenses, and Alison Brooks will moderate. A Humorous Interlude by Bert Ross will follow.
The discussion group “symposium” will follow after a short break. It is entitled “Negotiating the Challenges and Articulating the Wisdom of Age.” Before we break up into small groups, Katharine Redmond will speak briefly about “The Challenge of Rediscovering Zest and Meaning,” and Charles Styron will speak briefly on “The Wisdom of Age: Personal Reflections.” The small discussion groups will then ensue and will be tasked with discussing “What Will Be Worthwhile Going Forward,” among, of course, many other things.
Charles Styron
Possible Pre-Reunion Dinner
When: May 12th, 2022 from 6:00 - 9:00 pm
Where: Tony C's Sports Bar & Grill, 699 Assembly Road, Somerville, MA 02145
Subject to classmate interest, we have tentatively scheduled an informal, casual pre-reunion dinner on May 12th, 2022 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Tony C’s Sports Bar & Grill, in Somerville, MA. We have reserved a private room for the dinner. Tony C’s is named after Tony Conigliaro, a Boston kid, who broke in with the Red Sox as a teenager in the spring of 1964, our junior year at Harvard-Radcliffe. He was an immediate star and became a matinee idol in Boston at that time. He is the youngest American League player to hit 100 homeruns. When he became a star, he cut a record called “Playing the Field”, which was quite popular. We think Tony C’s is a perfect venue for our dinner since Conigliaro broke into major leagues while we were undergraduates. It is perfect reunion nostalgia.
We would have a simple menu consisting of Caesar salad, a choice of three entrees (orecchiette pasta with Italian sausage, broccoli, spinach, garlic and parmesan cheese; fresh, fried fish tacos with mango slaw, pico de gallo and chipotle aioli served with Cajun rice; or Chicken Conigliaro scallopini style with angel hair pasta in a lemon wine caper sauce) and dessert of a warm chocolate brownie. The cost will be approximately $65.00 per person, including tax and tip and room rental. Included with the meal will be soda, iced tea and American coffee. All other drinks will be done by cash bar.
The dinner will be a casual, informal and fun evening. We hope to play background music from the 50’s and 60’s. Classmates will be free to entertain us with music, a poem or any comments/observations/memories they wish to share.
There is plenty of parking near the restaurant and it is in walking distance of the La Quinta, where some classmates will be staying. It is only about 6 miles (a short cab ride) from the Eliot Hotel and the Harvard Club of Boston. It can also be reached by subway on the T.
We will go forward with this dinner if there is sufficient classmate interest. If you would like to attend this dinner, or have any questions about it, please contact Gene Skowronski at eugene.a.skowronski@gmail.com or telephone at 203-734-3315 (work) or 203-305-5754 (cell). We will advise you of the response in mid-April. Please note this is an optional event outside the official reunion program which begins on May 13th, 2022 and is not included in your registration fee. We welcome your thoughts.
Gene Skowronski
Optional Bird Watching at Belle Isle Reservation
Place: Belle Isle Marsh Reservation, 1399 Bennington Street, East Boston
Time: Sunday May 15, 2022; 9:30 am
Duration: Approximately 2 hours
Recommended: Wear all-weather clothing and sturdy footwear. Be prepared for sun, wind, mosquitos. Bring binoculars if possible.
Transportation and parking: Belle Isle Park is off a major road, Bennington Street, in East Boston. There is plenty of parking just inside the Park entrance.
To get there by public transportation, take the Blue Line eastbound (toward Logan Airport). Suffolk Downs station is three stops past the airport. Belle Isle Park entrance is across Bennington Street about 200 yards to the left when you leave the station.
Belle Isle is an urban park and wildlife preserve owned and operated by Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). The approximately 250 acres of the reservation is mostly coastal salt marsh with about 40 acres of a former drive-in theater now serving as the visitor section of the park.
Meet near the feeders off the parking lot. We expect to walk on gravel paths on relatively flat ground. May is migration time, so with luck we may run into a variety of migrating bird, as well as locally nesting species, in the upland sections of the Park: Such as Yellow Warbler, Grey Catbird, American Robin, Red-tailed Hawk, American Goldfinch, and Tree Swallow. We will walk to the main boardwalk at the far end of the Park where there is a chance for viewing herons and egrets, lingering ducks, some shorebirds and possibly the federally listed Saltmarsh Sparrow. A pair of Ospreys nest directly out from the platform and they should be quite active at that date.
Our 9:30 start should coincide well with the onset of high tide which tops out at 11:30. Typically, high tide is the best time to view marsh residents.
Just in case we have trouble meeting up, Soheil's cell phone number is (617)763-5637.
Soheil Zendeh
