No. 29
August 8, 2007

The Dog Days of Summer have set in and I suspect that many of you have escaped for your vacation away from the heat. I've been spending considerable time at my house on the Jersey Shore, and was joined there on a July Sunday by Steve and Bettye Barcan, who, when they are not at their summer home on Cape Cod, enjoy spending a day at Bradley Beach.

Anyway, it certainly seems that many of you are out of town as I have had very little news. So I decided to leave up last months notes, which I had added to extensively during July (if you checked it out early, take another look) with some interesting new contributors.

The Alumni Office tells me that we have another legacy in the Class of 2011, Onwuchekwa Jemie's daughter Nnenna Jemie will start in the fall. Congratulations Onwuchekwa! As you might remember from three years ago, Onwuchekwa older child, Ijeoma Jemie is a member of the Class of 2008, and is currently the co-president of the Nigerian Students Association.

How does it feel to be getting ready for your 45th Columbia College Reunion? Mark your calendar for Thursday, May 29 to Sunday, June 1, 2008. Your reunion committee is in formation, and if you have some time or ideas, please contact me and join us. We hope to make the reunion a super event and we will make sure that the planning process is enjoyable too.

Save the date! Homecoming Game will be on October 13 at Baker Field. The Lions will be playing to win against Penn. After last year's .500 season, the team deserves and needs your support. Last year we had a great turnout of 63ers, and I know we can do even better in the this our Reunion year.

As I mentioned in the last eNewsletter, the new web site is still in its early construction days. I intend to add separate pages for each classmate in the Columbian section. I will add these as I receive a contribution from you (or you attend one of our Class of 1963 lunches). You can always email me at pauln@helpauthors.com.

If this is your first visit here, I've added a link to an archives page, which in turn, will link you to the past issues of the Class of 1963 eNewsletter.

Table of Contents:

• Next Second Thursday Lunches - Join us on September 20 and October 11
• The Latest News From Your '63 Classmates

Next Lunches - Thursday, September 20 and October 11

Every Second Thursday of the Month, 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Columbia College Club - 15 West 43rd Street, NYC

Please join your classmates for an informal lunch at the Columbia Club every second Thursday of the month. It is our hope that these gatherings will renew old friendships and foster improved relationship with our class and the College. Because of Rosh Hashanah, I have been asked to move the September lunch a week later than usual, September 20 -- in October we will go back to our old routine. I hope you can all join us at the next lunches on Thursday, September 20 and October 11. Let me know if you will attend so that we can reserve a big enough table; RSVP to Paul Neshamkin (pauln@helpauthors.com).

June Lunch Attended By Three '63ers

On June 14, three classmates gathered at the Columbia Club Gill Room for lunch. The 3 included regulars Doron Gopstein, Paul Neshamkin, and Tom O'Connor. This ties our smallest (but select, as always) lunch turnout in the last three years. So lets all make an attempt to regroup in the fall and make the September lunch one to remember (details to follow).

(From left to right) Doron Gopstein, Tom O'Connor, and Paul Neshamkin.

Lunch Archives

If you like to see our previous lunches, click on the dates below:

For information and inquiries call Paul Neshamkin at 201-714-4881 or email at pauln@helpauthors.com.

Latest News from the Class of 63

Really slim pickings so far. You all must be enjoying the summer! As I have done for the last few issues,, I will add notes as they are received, so please send me some. Nothing much here again this month. So come back later this month and visit this page to see if you, or your classmates have sent in some new additions. Please send in your notes and pictures, and I will add them immediately.

Lee Lowenfish still is on the book tour with he latest, Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman. He writes, "I'm also part of the Glory Days Of NYC Baseball 1947-57 book and exhibit and will be signing with other authors on Tues., Aug. 14 at 6:30 pm at the Museum of City of New York, 5th Ave and 103rd Street. Also part of a panel at same place on baseball and civil rights, Wed, Sept 5th - time TBA." He also writes, writes, “here are a couple of quotes about my book. It’s in its second printing from University of Nebraska Press and I am pleased at the reaction so far.

‘A summer 2007 Hot Read’ from the AARP The Magazine; ‘A fascinating glimpse of the game's roots . . . detailed and nuanced’ David Ulin, LA Times; ‘Chock full of revelations and great anecdotes on Rickey's life.’ Bill Madden, New York Daily News. Enough of me tooting my own horn but who else is to do it?”

Patrick Cary-Barnard writes, " I just met Gil Zicklin here in Montreal as he was going to a music camp here in Quebec. We had a great conversation -- and of course 40 years have passed -- but Gil is still full of the warm intelligence for which I remember him. We talked about our classmate Marty Silver whom I would dearly like to contact. Do you have any news of him?

I enclose here, for your information, an electronic essay by me, "A Big Story in a Small Place." At the present time, I am in correspondence with the NYC Commissioner of Parks, Adrian Benepe. As you might know, on April 15, Betsy Gotbaum, the Public Advocate of The City of New York, called for New York City to place a moratorium on the installation of all new synthetic fields in the park system. In the words of the April 15th press release, "The rubber pellets, used to fill in the synthetic turf in more than 70 athletic fields throughout the City, are made from recycled tires that contain high levels of cancer-causing chemicals" ("Public Advocate Gotbaum Calls For Independent Testing of Pellets Used in City Parks," Public Advocate of the City of New York, Release #013--2007, April 15, 2007).

She asked the City -- and particularly the Parks Department -- to co-operate with a testing protocol planned by Prof. William Crain (CUNY) to be carried out with Dr. Junfeng Zhang, acting chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Rutgers. I have written Benepe in support of Gotbaum's request.

We here in Westmount, Quebec have issued a unique guide to the "synthetic issue" -- Turf Issue Resources - and just today, the editor of that Guide said to me: "What are we doing putting landfills in our city parks?" By that he meant to refer to the fact that the "third generation" synthetic fields typically consist of rubber crumbs from 20,000 to 40.000 recycled rubber tires.

This is the issue for New York and everywhere else. What's in there? Do we not want to know?

I have returned from Italy where I had a great time ...At the center of Hadrian's villa complex at Tivoli is a round, mini-villa, placed inside a tiny, artificial pond. There, in the middle of vast power, controlling 60 million people, the emperor Hadrian would have quiet converse with his saddest thoughts.

We have our public parks and streets to wander in at high summer -- I remember "walking around the block" on languid summer nights in our old neighborhood, Yorkville. Who needs an empire? All you need is a city block...Right?"

Harley Frankel reports that his non-profit, College Match, "had another very successful year helping low-income public school students get into great colleges. Our results follow:

Over the past two years,

• All of the seniors have been admitted to a four-year institution with a financial aid package enabling them to attend the school.
• Over 92% were admitted into a top-ranked college (defined as the 50 top national universities and the 50 top small private colleges as ranked by US News and World Report.)
• And in the current year, approximately 40% have been admitted into an Ivy League university or an Ivy-equivalent such as Swarthmore, Wellesley and Amherst.

College Match graduates have been accepted at Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, Pomona, Columbia, Swarthmore, Brown, Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Spellman, Morehouse, Tufts, Notre Dame, Bryn Mawr, Middlebury, Cornell, Mt. Holyoke, Wesleyan, Claremont McKenna, Brandeis, Smith, Barnard, Vassar, Trinity, Pitzer, Scripps, Carnegie Mellon, Bowdoin, Bates, Grinnell, Boston College, Tuskegee, Dickinson, Case Western, USC, Mills, Occidental, Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, NYU, and all the UC's.

In addition, during this period we raised the average SAT scores of our students by 330 points."

Harley, your non-profit is doing fantastic work.

Another one of our class authors, Hank Davis has just had his book about old movie serials, Classic Cliffhangers: Volume 1 published by Midnight Marquee Press (www.midmar.com). Hank and fellow Columbia alum Scott Parker ' 64 are completing production work on a book and boxed set on the music of Frankie Miller, to be published by Bear Family Records of Germany. Hank and Scott used to play Miller's music regularly on their country music show "Tennessee Border," broadcast by campus station WKCR- FM back in the early '60s.

I just received late news from Phil Satow that his firm, JDS Pharmaceuticals, has just been acquired by Noven Pharmaceuticals. Click here to read all the details in their press release.

I noted an interesting article in the NY Times on June 30 about the impact of wealth, in this case on our classmate Harry Saal and his wife Carol. In 1986, Harry’s company, Network General went public and he and his wife were suddenly multi-millionaires. The article says that they never expected to become rich. Harry was a computer science professor at Stanford University and had taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the early 1970s. In 1986, he founded Network General, based in Menlo Park, Calif. Carol Saal worked in the company's marketing department. Their two children were 16 and 19 when the family's wealth suddenly soared. In some of their earliest discussions, Mr. Saal recalls, “We said to ourselves, ‘Let's not spoil our lives.’ ” He explained, “There was a pending possibility of doom if we let the genie out of the bottle, if we didn't think carefully about our lifestyle.” The article continues “It has taken constant thought and effort to stay grounded in their financial and emotional lives, the Saals say, but money did make one thing easier. The two had always leaned toward the philanthropic; now they could give money in such quantities, ‘the grants and gifts we make are transformational,’ Mr. Saal said.” Among Harry and Carol’s causes was helping to establish a Center for Clinical Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

I was happily surprised to get an email from our classmate in Tehran, Farhad Ardalan. He writes, "I feel guilty in this age of connectivity not write. After receiving my Ph.D in Physics, theoretical particle physics, from Penn State in 1970 I went back to Iran to the then called Aryamehr University ( Aryamehr was the title of the Shah), now called Sharif University. Spent a year at Yale, 1973-74, and a year at Stony Brook, 1977-78. Upon return to Iran, the Iranian Revolution was in full swing. A year later the Iran-Iraq war started. Almost all of my friends and colleagues left Iran. I chose to stay and do something. I contributed to the establishment of the first Ph.D program in Physics in Iran and the establishment of the first theoretical physics institute, IPM, Institute for Theoretical Physics and Mathematics there.

Incidentally, I must emphasize that in no time, now or before, I and my colleagues at IPM have had anything to do with Nuclear Energy development in Iran, as I am sure this would be in the mind of the reader.

I am a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Developing World TWAS: http://www.twas.org/ . Information about IPM can be found at: http://physics.ipm.ac.ir/.

I am married for the second time. I have a son, Nima, from my first marriage who is living in California and is estranged from me unfortunately. I have a daughter, Malakeh Cramer, my wife's from a previous marriage who is living in Geneva, Switzerland, [who is the] mother of a son, Alexander 6, and a daughter, Darya 2.

I hope this note will get me in touch with some of my college friends."

I visited your site, Farhad, and I see that you are interested in string theory, and have an impressive list of articles. I hope some of the other physicists in the class will reconnect with you.

Alan Wilensky writes that he is still working full-time at the University of Washington Regional Epilepsy Center. "I was promoted to full professor in the Department of Neurology July 2006 and I will be inducted as a member of the American Neurological Association at their Annual meeting in Washington, DC in October."

[Send your notes in and I will add it here.]

When you send your notes in, please indicate if you would like to share your email address(or web site) with your classmates. Always great to hear from you all.

Share your news and views with your classmates. Contact your Class Correspondent, and let him know what you would like posted here or in Columbia College Today (CCT).

For information and inquiries call Paul Neshamkin at 201-714-4881 or email at pauln@helpauthors.com.

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