Over on the Class of 1969 reunion website, John Field ’69 posted a link to a five-minute video about long-term prisoners who were later exonerated and released. It was produced by Rhiannon Giddens of the Class of 2000. John writes: “The 22 men in the video were collectively robbed of 500 years of their lives, and 22-year-old Kalief Browder was driven to suicide. The prison system is not "broken"; it's a perfectly oiled machine for corporate jail companies to make billions of $$, while kidnapping mostly Black and Brown people from society.” A number of John’s classmates added comments, including Oswald Greg Lewis (Artistically strong, sociologically painful), Kerry Friedman Rosen (Been following Rhiannon and her music for years - her former group the Chocolate Drops, her opera Omar, etc. Thanks for posting this), George Spencer-Green (I saw her in concert last night at the Beacon Theater in New York. Well worth watching if you have the opportunity), and Tom Clark (Just finished watching a "60 Minutes" segment in which victims and exonorees are brought together in healing sessions. This dovetails nicely into the emotions expressed in Rhiannon's powerful work, which takes valuing one's freedom to a whole new level. Thanks for posting, John, and vote in 2024.) The video is at
https://youtu.be/FQ2_2A4vP4I?si=Ej_YewJiPIioMk-Z
and Rhiannon is interviewed about it at
https://www.democracynow.org/.../banjo_maestro_rhiannon...

Posted on: Nov 21, 2023 at 6:06 AM

Remember your first weeks on campus? When our reunion was in the planning stages, a group of us got together on an email thread to discuss how things should be done, and we also wandered off into tangents. Those included reminiscing about freshman Orientation, traditional songs, beanies, dining hall protocols, dating parlors, and women’s dorm restrictions. We were clueless then. But our viewpoints evolved, we questioned the patriarchal assumptions, and things changed. It all seems so long ago. Did it really happen? From that email thread, I’ve gathered comments from 15 of us. See < t2buck.com/happen.htm >.

On the Class of 1968 Message Forum page, Paul Lawn left this comment:

Thank you, Thomas Ilgen for your memorial to David Corwin. As a sportswriter and sports editor of the Review, I always admired Dave's skills and exploits on the gridiron, despite his having always to play on undermanned teams. We re-connected when I brought my beloved Kaidog (a 69-kinds of dog who adopted me through a friend and was the smartest farm dog anyone could ever wish for) for his veterinary check-ups. David was the kindlest, gentlest, most empathic vet imaginable and was always up on progressive developments in his field that made things easier for Kai, particularly as Kaidog got older and battled hip dysplasia and lyme disease. Mortality comes way too soon for dogs, and too soon for the people who care for them. Thank you, Dave, for living a good life.

On November 8, 2023, Robert Tuchmann '67 posted:
I’m pleased to share the news that Joel Rosenberg, my freshman year roommate, has been named the Utah Governor’s Mansion Artist Award recipient for 2023. Joel’s award for Performance Arts reads, “For his lifetime of virtuosity and service to the musicians and audiences of Utah.” The award will be made on November 29th at 7:30 pm in the Governor’s Mansion in Salt Lake City for those in the vicinity. Joel is the conductor of the American West Symphony and Chorus of Sandy, Utah and continues to play and record as a violist. You can reach him at maestro555@gmail.com and wish him a happy birthday at the same time. Rob

Posted on: Oct 26, 2023 at 5:25 AM

There’s an account at < t2buck.com/frisept.htm > on my personal website describing what I did and whom I met at the Cluster Reunion a few weeks ago, including photos of the new (temporary) home of WOBC-FM.

Chip was friendly and outgoing with a good sense of humor, so he had many friends among the other Conservatory students. During our first weeks at Oberlin in September 1965, I wrote home about dinnertime at Dascomb: "Eating at our table has been Chip Reardon, a blind organ student from Philadelphia. He must have a very good memory; he has to play either by ear or from memorizing embossed [Braille] scores. Also, he has to remember where all the various stops on the organ are. He seems to have the ability to do this, though, as he's done very well at remembering the names and voices of the people at our table." The following January I wrote, "He was telling a couple of weeks ago how his mother taped all the weekly Triple Chiller Theaters on the television this fall so he could listen to all those movies over Christmas vacation and get caught up." Later, sitting in the audience at Warner Concert Hall, I watched him taking notes. How did a blind student do that without modern electronic gadgets? With a slate and stylus to punch the Braille patterns.

Mark and his sister Karine recorded a collection of folk and protest songs in 1965, to which I linked in this article.

Posted on: Jul 23, 2022 at 9:49 PM