MIT Class of 1963, Class Notes for the May/June 2008 issue of Technology Review
Our 45th reunion is next month, June 5 to 8. You still have time to sign up; even better, call your best friend from our days at MIT and come with him or her as well. Barbara and I have come to all the previous reunions, and we're planning to attend the 45th. We've noticed that as we advance (decline?) in the hierarchy of reunion classes our seats at Tech Night at the Pops get better and better. In a few more years we'll be right up under the conductor's baton. I look forward to seeing many of you in Cambridge in June.
I had a Christmas note from Michele Thompson and *Woody Bowman. The Bowman family stayed close to home during the holiday season; they ventured up to Milwaukee to take in some of the museums there. Woody and Michele had two short holidays in Philadelphia during 2007 - one to see Faye and *Dan Ross, and one for a family wedding. On other trips they saw cousins in Texas and Atlanta. Woody and Michele are long time Fighting Illini fans, and at the time they sent the card they were anticipating seeing Illinois play in the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately USC trampled the hopes of the Illini rooters. Also in 2007 the Chicago Tribune ran a nice profile on Woody featuring his work as ethics columnist for the publication Nonprofit Quarterly. In 2008 Woody will spend four months in the Netherlands teaching nonprofit management to MBA students, and Michele will join him for part of the time. Unfortunately this trip will cause Woody to miss the reunion, the first one he has missed in many years. We'll be expecting some news of the trip to report in this column.
The headline story in the Toby and *Bruce Eisenstein year 2007 newsletter was the birth in September of another Eisenstein grandchild, to Toby and Bruce's daughter, Lana, and her husband, Tom Scott. Lana works as an assistant US attorney in Wilmington DE, while Tom has an anesthesiology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Son Andy and his wife, Ricki, live near Bruce and Toby, and have two sons, Eli, 7, and Noah, 5, and a daughter, Margalit, 2. Andy does real estate development, and Ricki manages her district at Au Pair America. Son Eric and his wife, Debra, live in Ithaca, NY, where Eric is a professor at the Cornell Business School, and Debra is taking a hiatus from work and sprucing up the house and garden. They are the parents of Evelyn, 4, and Miranda, 2. Bruce is still at Drexel, and keeps busy with professional affairs. He is the incoming president of Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical engineering honorary society, on the board of ABET, the engineering accreditation organization, and continues to be active in the IEEE. Toby is co-director of the Center for Substance Abuse. Her main interest is the field of neuroimmunopharmacology. Toby had one of those big, decadal birthdays in 2007 and her children threw her a surprise party with opera singers from the Academy of Vocal Arts.
On a sad note, MIT informed me of the passing last November of Ronald L Fisher. They had no details other than that he was living in Damascus, MD at the time of his death. Ronald was a course 6 graduate, and lived in East Campus at MIT. He was from Oswego, NY, and while at MIT he was in the Science Fiction Society and the Rifle and Pistol Club. If any of you have remembrances of our classmate send them to me, and I'll share them with the class. Our condolences to the family.
I've got some space left, so here's some personal news. I'm writing in January, and Barbara and I have just returned from a 2-week trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. The Angkor complex in Cambodia is spectacular; it should be on your must see list. The ancient temples hidden in the jungle are right out of an Indiana Jones movie. There are many tourists, but there are still places and times of the day when you can find some quiet in these old stones and imagine what it must have been like 1000 years ago. Vietnam was fascinating. About 60% of the population there was born after the "American War" ended. (The winners write history.) Vietnam has 86 million people -- more than Germany, and 13th largest in the world. And, irony of ironies, these people, our mortal enemies of 35 years ago, are now incredibly welcoming to Americans, and they want to be paid in dollars! Their local currency is inflating at 12% per year, so the dollar is king. Once they dump their communist government this industrious country will join the ranks of the developing "Asian Tigers" -- Thailand, Malaysia, and others.
Our next trip is to Boston, in February 2008, to celebrate a big birthday for Barbara with our daughter, Amy Candell '87, and her husband, Larry Candell '88 and their children, Allison, 10, and Jeffrey, 8. Our younger daughter, Laura Kornish, and her husband, Jim Kornish, and their boys, Ted, 12, and Nathan 9, are flying in from Boulder, Colorado to join us. What Barbara doesn't know is that we are having a surprise party for her at Amy's house in Arlington. We'll be joined at lunch and at a performance of Blue Man Group by Sue and *Frank Model, Margie and *Larry Krakauer, Candy and *Peter Van Aken, and *Martin Schrage. We're sitting in the "Poncho Area" so if we have blue hair at the reunion you'll know the reason why. If you happen to read this on-line don't spill the beans to Barbara. 2007 was a traveling year for us. In April we spent a week as tourists in Washington DC, visiting the monuments. I attended a session of the Supreme Court; ask me to tell you my Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsberg stories. Then we went to NYC for a couple of plays and lunch at the UN delegates dining room, where we hadn't been since 4th grade. In June we spent 4 weeks in Tonga, Fiji, and Vanuatu, swimming and snorkeling. We climbed an active volcano on the island of Tanna, and watched from the lip as a seething cauldron of lava threw firebombs 1000 feet into the air and the ground beneath us trembled. This year I had my 65th. We celebrated in August, picking up all four grandkids, two from Colorado, two from Boston, and taking them to the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY. From the Hall we drove New York City and visited the Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Zoo, and capped things off with a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. It was the best trip of all, one we'll remember for a long, long time.
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