MIT Class of 1963, Class Notes for September 2004 issue of Technology Review
Here's a correction to the June Class Notes. At our 40th reunion Barbara and I stayed in Baker House room 417, which I identified as *Bob Ratner's freshman room. *David Johnson E-mailed me to say that Baker 417 was his room from 1959 to 1961. He shared the room with John Bochnovich first term freshman year, *Dale Meyer second term, and the late *Alan Ramo all sophomore year. In the fall of 1961, after they were married, David and his wife Lyla continued to share 417 with Al Ramo. They moved out when they found an apartment in Back Bay, and Al moved into a single. Bob Ratner and *Bill Tobin were in a room a few doors further down the hall. The events I wrote about in my June column did occur in Ratner's room, but it wasn't 417. David wrote, "Sorry you did not sleep in as historic a place as you thought, although some interesting things did take place in 417. There were many poker games, some bridge games, and some amazing meals; Mexican food cooked by me or Finnish meals brought in by Al's parents from North Abington, MA."
In May we attended the bar mitzvah celebration of *Martin Schrage's son, Seth. Seth did a fine job, including a perceptive speech about what it means to be both an individual and a member of a group, clan, or tribe. *Peter Van Aken and his wife, Candy, were there. Peter and Martin are business partners in Xanalog, a firm providing hardware and software for simulations. *Ira Blumenthal flew up from North Carolina for the event. We sat at a table with Susan and Dave Saul '64, Anne and Peter Sexton '65 and Margie and *Larry Krakauer. Larry retired last fall, after many years with Kronos Corporation. He and Margie took a long trip to Spain shortly thereafter. Larry has always been a language buff, and speaks fluent French. But now he is taking Italian classes on Mondays, Spanish on Tuesdays, and advanced French conversation on Wednesdays. If this isn't keeping him busy enough, he's involved in a mentoring program for prospective entrepreneurs at MIT.
In the June Class Notes I mentioned that *Barry Kurtzman had passed away in 1995. *Jeremy Gold called me to share some stories about Barry. Barry came to MIT well prepared and found the early work easy. He was fascinated by number theory, games, poker, pool, and all things probabilistic. Barry plunged into these pursuits, an easy thing to do at MIT. Focusing on games can get you into bad work habits, and after several semesters Barry flunked out. After leaving MIT he hung around Boston, writing microcode for Honeywell, and eventually got drafted. The army realized it had a fine technical mind in its ranks and set Barry to fixing typewriters. After that Jeremy lost touch with Barry, but heard about him later from an Australian folk singer named Carl Cleves, a member of a group called the Hottentots. Carl met Barry in the city of Zomba in Malawi in the late sixties. Barry had come from Cairo, southward bound, hitching rides, with little money but lots of time. He was still passionate about mathematics and whiled away the hot days solving geometry and algebra riddles from a well-worn math book. Carl spent weeks in the market and bars of Zomba, passionately debating African culture, philosophy, politics and travel with Barry. It was the late sixties and there was a revolution happening in the world, but Africa moved at a slower pace. Carl described Barry as an American sadhu, bigbearded, bighearted, ringwormed on both feet, but continuing on his quest. Barry continued to journey around Africa, visiting the strife torn Sudan, Libya, and Kenya. A romantic story! Jeremy Gold's odyssey is interesting too. Jeremy started with us, but also developed bad work habits, playing games and pool. He too flunked out sophomore year. Jeremy stayed in the Boston area, waiting to get back in to MIT, and eventually did go back to MIT one summer. But one day he walked into the John Hancock Building and signed up for his first actuarial exam, which he passed. This led Jeremy to a career in the insurance industry. He worked for a company that eventually became Computer Associates, became a fellow of the Society of Actuaries in 1977, and did actuarial work for pension plans. In the 1980's he went to work for Morgan Stanley and was the first pension actuary to work on Wall Street. In 1989 he formed his own firm, doing actuarial work for pension plans. In 1996 Jeremy went back to earn a Ph.D. at Wharton so he could add financial economics to his set of skills. Our classmate *Tom Gerrity, then dean of the Wharton School, signed Jeremy's degree in 2000. Since then Jeremy has been writing and lecturing, trying to revitalize pension actuarial services. Along the way he was married twice and divorced once. *Jeff Friedberg was a friend of Jeremy's at MIT and told me this story. Jeff was an experienced pool player when he entered MIT, but Jeremy hadn't played before. Jeff said that "After a year or 2, Jeremy became quite a good player. I don't think I've ever seen anyone improve their game to the extent he did." Jeff also remembered Barry Kurtzman as a fellow who was fun to be around and often had provocative things to say.
*Murray Morton, who lives in Coral Springs, FL, sent me an obituary for Chris Miller '65. Chris started with us in 1959 and rowed crew with Murray, but he graduated in 1965. Because he had friends in both the classes of 1963 and 1965 we are writing about him in both columns. Chris died May 13, 2004 after battling lymphoma for 12 months. Before his untimely death, Chris worked at GE Medical Systems in Waukesha, WI. His Alumni Directory entry says it best: "... Still designing electronic hardware after ALL these years - and loving it as always!" Chris is survived by his wife Betsy; a teacher, daughters Kathe, an MD in Boston, and Katie, a teacher in Tampa, FL; sons Bill, who does commercial insurance in Tampa, Jeff, an environmental engineer in St. Louis, and Christopher, a future engineer graduating in June 2004 in WI; and by his sister Luisa and brothers Jon and Jim. Chris rowed on the 1963 Freshman Heavyweight Crew and stroked the 1963 Heavyweight Varsity to numerous victories - including MIT’s first Compton Cup win. He captained the Boat Club in 1964. In addition to rowing he wrote excellent crew articles for The Tech. When Chris began treatment for the lymphoma, his daughter created a website for those interested in following his progress. I didn't know Chris at MIT, but I looked at the web site (http://home.earthlink.net/~c.b.miller/). There are nice family photos, and some touching entries by Chris and by members of his family, particularly from the last few months. Our condolences to Chris Miller's family.
Regards to all. You can reach me at: Mike Bertin, 22 Gillman St, Irvine, CA 92612. E-mail: MCB1@aol.com. If you want to schmooze, call me at (949) 786-9450.