Stan Martin

We are pleased to inform you that Stan Martin has accepted the position of Class President to fill out the remainder of Mel Gardner's term, ending in June 2010. Stan will perform the duties of President in addition to those of Reunion Gift Chair. We urge you to give Stan any assistance he may need, especially helping to build the class Reunion Gift. Stan has been very active in class affairs. In addition to the offices mentioned above he organized and led a very successful mid-course reunion in Annapolis, was area director of the Education Council in Dallas and president of the MIT Club of Dallas. Please join in wishing him well and thanking him for accepting this additional responsibility.

A short time ago Stan sent out the following letter to classmates for whom we have email addresses:

60th Reunion

Please remember to keep up-to-date on the plan and programs for our June 2010 Reunion on the Breaking News link at http://alumweb.mit.edu/classes/1950/

Eeva-Liisa Aulikki Olsen, the wife of Kenneth H. Olsen, died on March 2, 2009. Born in Lahti, Finland, she was a member of the Lotta Svaard, the women's auxiliary of the Finnish Army in the Winter War of 1939. She attended Valparaiso University as an exchange student after the war. She immigrated to the United States after she married Ken. She is survived by her husband and two children. She was preceded in death by one son.

Bureau of Missing Persons

From time to time, we present a list of "missing" classmates, individuals from our class for whom MIT has neither a valid email address nor a current postal address. There are some additions to the list since the last time we published it, in March 2008. If any of you who read this find your own name on the list, it may be news to you that you are a "missing person". Please let us hear from you. If any of you know the whereabouts of anyone on the list, please let us know, or, better yet, encourage them to be in touch with us:

Mr John O Adams Jr	Mr Theodore P Harding	Mr James W Murray Jr
Mr J R Ballinger	Mr Joseph F Hasselgren	Mr John F Nicholson
Mr Leroy H Barnum	Mr Richard N Hood	Dr Phillip C Packard
Mr Robert F Bean	Mr Thomas B Horgan	Father Joseph J Paradiso
Mr Richard K Bennett	Mr Jerry M Howell	Mr Madhusudan D Parekh
Mr Knut Berg	Mr Gordon C Hunt	Mr Ulysses A Pournaras
Mr Per Ole S Blomqvist	Prof Howard B Jenkins	Mr Roy W Quam
Mr Raymond L Bloomfield	Mr Bob A Jessup	Mr George A Ramsdell
Mr James H Callison Jr	Mr Frank F Johnson	Mr David Roller
Capt Franklin M Charette	Mr Roy A Johnson	Mr Donald T Ross
Mr Robert E Chase	Mr John M Kane	Mr Andrew K Ruby Jr
Mr Ludovico Cicogna	Mr John S Krol	Miss Martha O Sayles
Mr Edward C Clark	Mr Seymour V Lassen	Mr Victor O Sciaky
Mr Carl S Conner Jr	Mr Peter S Lewis	Mr Edward C Smith
Mr Alan L Craig	Maj Djalma F Lima	Mr Donald W Smith
Mr John E Curtis	Mr Edward M Lindholm	Mr Stephen W Smith Jr
Mr Simeon A De Jesus	Mr Charles A Lusher	Mr George M Stauffer Jr
Mr William P Deuel	Mr Fred Y Marshall Jr	Dr James R Stevenson
Mr Anthony J Dowkont	Mr Modesto Matarrese	Mr Arthur Summerfield Jr
Mr Richard C Fay	Mr W Patrick McDonald	Mr Allan G Tate
Mr Dragan Filipovic	Mr Charles N Mitropoulos	Mr Sinasi A Timurtas
Mr Gerald G Fisch	Mr Menelaos J Moore	Mr John W Wallis
Mr Stanley H Fleisig	Mr Carl Moos	Mr Bernard A Weber Jr
Dr Robert Gold	Prof William T Morris	Mr Wilbur A White
Dr Peter J Gomatos	Mr Warren H Moses Jr	Mr Robert L Wyckoff
Mr Julian E Gross	Mr Harold N Mulford
Mr Richard T Hall	Mr Geoffrey Munday

Al ("Pete") Petrofsky has been writing a monthly column on travel for the Sons in Retirement (SIR) group in San Raphael, CA, where he is a past president and is still quite active. His usual column is an interview (and mini-biography) of one of his fellow SIR members. This one, as you will see, is more about himself and his wife Peg. With the encouragement of Joe D'Annunzio, he has very kindly sent us this copy of his most recent column:

Many of you know that my wife Peg suffered a stroke on June 17th, causing us to miss her favorite Branch 47 event, the Garden party. She is making a slow but steady return to normal, but her need for help has not allowed me to do an interview and produce my usual column. It would be good if some other member took on the task of writing this monthly feature, for at least a few months. So rather than leave a blank page in the current issue, I have tried to entertain you with a travel story that is a bit long for Bill Kirschbaum's monthly travel story.

In about 1968, my job required me to visit a proposed dam site in the Ivory Coast, Africa. I flew into Abidjan, the capital, on a Saturday and was met by Mr. French, who was to take me to the site about 70 miles inland. We would not go up there until Monday, so he asked me if I would like to go along on a boating trip down the lagoon on Sunday. I accepted, and was picked up the next morning and taken to the dock behind his house, where he kept an inboard powered boat of about 25' length and a day cabin. The party consisted of Mr. And Mrs. French and their young daughter and another couple and child. I was told we were going to visit a village on stilts that he had not been to before, but that he had some good French Navy maps of the area. The dock was located in a shallow bay to the south of the main harbor, and there was hydraulic dredging in the area requiring traversing around floating dredge pipes.
Soon we were out in the main harbor, and passed a rusting old tramp steamer at anchor in the middle of a rather large harbor, perhaps three miles wide. We proceeded to the north side of the harbor, where the lagoon roughly paralleled the coastline with islands to the west. He knew the channel for some length, and perhaps an hour later he turned east into an inlet, where there was a restaurant and dock with gas.
We had a very nice lunch, my first meal of barracuda, as the boat was refilled with gasoline. Then back out to the lagoon, where he turned north, and I found out that he could not really read the maps, which were quite detailed and no problem for me. He was astounded to find that I could tell him what to expect on the left shore after the next bend. Along the way, I found the lagoon was pretty shallow, with many native dugout canoes propelled by pushing on a long pole, and that the many sticks I saw along the way were actually channel markers.
After another two hours, we came to the village. It consisted of about a dozen houses built out in about six to ten feet of water. There was a twenty-foot circular "corral" of stakes with woven fencing, where they kept a supply of live fish that they had trapped for food. Narrow planks connected the houses to each other and the shore, where there were vegetable gardens. After watching village life for about a half hour, I suggested that it was about time to start back. Mr. French agreed, and started to return. But the other couple and his wife and the children wanted to swim. Against my advice about time and distance, and need to refuel again at the restaurant, the swimmers won out and another 45 minutes were spent swimming.
Under way again, Mr. French took notice that the sun was nearly down, and we had quite a way to go.
He finally understood my warnings, and by the time we came to the inlet with gas station, he decided that it would get too dark if we took time to refuel. He was right, as even I was surprised how quickly it became real dark. We were able to navigate between the poles because he had a spotlight on the boat. We all breathed a little easier when the lights of the harbor appeared. As we started across, a light fog arose. We were nearly half across when the engine quit, out of fuel! By now the women and children were becoming a bit frightened by the situation. Mr. French spotted the lights of that old tramp steamer and headed that way, using the starter to turn the prop a little and move several feet. Eventually we were able to get alongside the steamer, and what a dirty old rust bucket it was. There was a very rough looking crew staring at us over the side. We attempted communication in French, Italian, and German with no results. Finally, a voice said in a strong accent, "Vhat you vant?" We said gas; no response. Then petrol. They said they had only a little, and proceeded to give us less than two gallons. While this was being procured and poured, the swarthy crew were staring at the boat and the women, who became very alarmed that we had fallen into the hands of pirates when a voice asked "How much that boat worth". But they were honest men and sent us on our way without accepting payment for the gas as fellow seafarers in distress.
Now we headed for the south bay and home. Finally clear of the dredging pipes, we had a mile of clear run to home, when the motor quit again. This time the battery gave out after moving us another hundred yards. It was now 11:00 pm. No other boats about. What to do? I suggested we throw the anchor out as far as we could toward the dock, and then pull it in slowly to move ahead a bit. After a half hour of this, a rowboat appeared with Mr. French's houseboy at the oars. He had been worriedly waiting at the dock for us to return. He had heard the splashing commotion out in the dark, and rowed out to our rescue. Women and children first.
I wonder if Mr. French ever visited that village again, but I know I will never forget an exciting and exasperating boat trip down the lagoon.

Pete Petrofsky

Mal at Work

On August 19 Mal and Susan Green will be leaving their home for the last twenty years and moving to a newly constructed retirement community called Newbridge on the Charles. Several MIT alums and retired professors will be living there also. Their new address will be 4319 Great Meadow Road, Dedham, MA 02026 and their phone number will be 781-234-2279. E-mail addresses are unchanged. The new development is about one-half mile from the entrance to MIT's Endicott House where the class holds an annual Christmas party. The party date this year is Dec. 12 and all are invited.

The Greens have enjoyed their Wayland condo and community. Mal's major regret is leaving his well-equipped workshop where he has built furniture, repaired many broken appliances, and listened to lots of Red Sox games. The picture shows Mal working on his last project, a shelf to go in their new foyer. The workshop has now been dismantled and most of it shipped to Newbridge where management has promised to make space for it and open it to the entire community.