50TH REUNION RECAP

BY DICK FRIEDMAN '73, AND THE CLASSACT HR73 COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE

Amazingly, our 50th reunion has come and gone. Like a wedding, a battle or a coronation, it was months in the planning and anticipation, and over in the blink of an eye.

The numbers were eye-popping. Some 484 classmates attended. Total attendance was 722. That is a lot of old people with time on their hands! Longtime friendships were renewed, new ones were made. People scrutinized and caught up with one another. They ate, drank and danced. People took naps. (As ClassACT media maven Rick Brotman said: “It was exhaustive…and exhausting.”) As good a time was had as could be had at this age.

“Cordiality was in the air,” said ClassACT communications committee member Jacki Swearingen. “We all struck up conversations with people we did not know or with their spouses and partners. We all wanted to make each other feel welcome, appreciated and remembered. We used the time to laugh at the follies of youth as well as to reach out to reconnect decades later.”

Classmates and guests were able to sample from a banquet of provocative activities that would do credit to a Gen Ed curriculum. There was news, weather (or at least climate change) and sports. What did we hear, and what did we see?

On Tuesday evening, early arrivals were treated to a showing of classmate Donna Brown Guillaume’s heartrending film Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives. Following the release of the Report on Slavery at Harvard last year, this film and the accompanying panel discussion brought home the unspeakable barbarism of America’s Original Sin. 

The panel included Guillaume, Vincent Brown (Harvard’s Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies) and classmate Catherine Clinton, the Denman Professor of American History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Sitting together in Sanders Theatre and watching Oprah Winfrey and Samuel L. Jackson intone the piercing words of formerly enslaved people reminded us all how we had hoped in our youth to redress past injustices and cruelty. “I was honored to be a part of this film when HBO first approached me, and am extremely grateful to classmates who, in planning the 2023 reunion, raised the idea of screening it,” said Donna.

Wednesday morning brought a reunion mainstay: the report on the Class Survey. Ever-jovial classmates Walt Mercer (co-chair with Stan Mark) and Therese Steiner took us through a PowerPoint presentation. (The survey results are available here.) Many thanks for their hard work go to the chairs and Therese, plus classmates on the Survey committee: Marilyn Go, Rich Kelly, Manuel Monteiro, Walter Morris and Rick Weil.) Most of the 481 respondents were happy with how their lives and careers turned out. Looking back at our time at Harvard: “If we could have had a mulligan, 30% said we would have liked to have studied more.” (Three cheers for we of the 70%!) One thing we all seem to want to do in the time left to us: “travel, travel, travel.”

This session was followed by an all-classmate panel titled “What You Believe About Aging Might Not be True,” moderated by Patty Potter and including experts Greg Hinrichsen and Robert Waldinger. (None of whom seemed to have aged very much.) The biggest myth? “Aging is not what we thought,” says Patty “The awareness of having our time being limited leads us to pay attention to what is important, particularly relationships. This can lead to greater happiness and satisfaction than our previous focus on accomplishment.”

Many think that if there’s one event that should be mandatory at every reunion, it’s the Memorial Service—difficult to sit through and for all that, necessary and restorative. There were stirring readings by classmates including Louise Reid Ritchie, Ellen Denniston and Stephen Madsen, and exquisite musical performances by ClassACT HR73 Chair and Co-Founder Marion Dry, Katharine Flanders Mukherji, Yeou-Cheng Ma, Thérèse Steiner, Ken Sullivan and Jerome Harris, plus the reunion choir coordinated by classmate Christopher Fletcher. Most somber, of course, was the reading of the names of the 153 classmates who are no longer with us.

Then it was on to the steps of Widener for some needed sunlight and levity—the taking of our class photo. The embattled photographer must have been wondering which group was harder to handle: us or a bunch of second-graders? The afternoon’s activities closed with an experiment called “Open Mic: Me in Three.” The idea was for each participant to give a talk—limited, supposedly, to three minutes—on “passions, experiences and perspectives that are close to [his or her] heart.” This was the brainchild of Louise Ritchie. It turned out to be charmingly whimsical, thanks to the bravery and talents of, among others, classmates Winifred Creamer, Elaine Denniston, Ned Notis-McConarty, Sarah Ulerick and Ray Urban.

After dinner, where we were serenaded by the Kuumba Singers (introduced by classmate Linda Jackson Sowell), we enjoyed a showing of “Love Story,” which of course was filmed on campus during our freshman year. Classmate Joe Bertagna, who was an All-Ivy goalie for Harvard and doubled as a netminder in the movie, was the master of ceremonies. The highlight was the appearance of ageless former Crimson star and coach Bill Cleary ’56, wearing the same helmet he used while serving as Ryan O’Neal’s stunt double. Spoiler alert: Love still means never having to say you’re sorry. (Sorry!)

Thursday brought out some big guns. ClassACT HR73 sponsored symposia on two of the most critical issues of our time: democracy and the environment. “Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century” included classmates Roger Ferguson, Al Franken, Bill Kristol, Patti Saris and moderator E.J. Dionne. They were joined by Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. Professor Allen presented three key proposals for reinvigorating American democracy: expanding the House of Representatives by adding more members, setting term limits of 18 years for Supreme Court Justices, and taxing social media-targeted ad revenue in order to invest those funds in local journalism.

Asked about the gap between public support for gun control and abortion rights and recent court decisions and legislation, former Senator Franken (D-MN) pointed to the ways that the gerrymandering of state legislative and House districts has skewed laws and policies in the years since 2010. Later, he got back into comedian mode. When an audience member asked him if he planned to run for president, Al indicated he would not, because if he won, he would then have to take the job.

The second ClassACT panel was “From the Charles River to Half-Earth: 50 Years to 50 Percent,” a continuation of the Environmental Committee’s efforts to support the ideas of the late Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson. Moderator John Kress welcomed the contributions of ten classmates: John Adams, Jesse Ausubel, Kimball Chen, Lindsay Clarkson, Robert Dreher, Henrietta Wigglesworth Lodge, Michael Mayer, Anne MacKinnon, Roger Myerson and Sharon Shurts Tisher. Each offered concrete plans for preserving and restoring natural habitats to benefit the Earth’s creatures, and the group announced two new initiatives that classmates are invited to join. John sees this as just a beginning. “Members of ClassAct HR73 are bursting with ideas on how to improve our environments and solve some of the problems that we as humans have created on this planet,” he said. “We welcome everyone’s input and encouragement.”

At the same time that the environmental session was held, Arthur Feinsod was leading five fellow classmates—Kavery Kaul, Marie House Kohler, Sandra Mathews, Louise Reid Ritchie and James Snyder– in a discussion of “The Role and Responsibility of the Arts in Today’s Culture.” Classmate Brian Butler hands the envelope for best performance to Marie for her “dramatic reading, recreating the young girl finding the smutty book in the family library.”

After lunch and before the afternoon symposiums, several classmates walked across the Common to the Radcliffe Yard where there was an Open House. Buildings of interest included the Schlesinger Library which had on display many artifacts from the Class of 73 and other reunion classes. Yearbooks, photographs and strike posters could be viewed. In addition, if you didn't remember your college phone number, you could look it up in the directory of students!

Thursday afternoon’s session—on ”Sports and Society”—promised some literal fun and games. Instead, Sanders Theatre became an arena for a discussion of how sports have changed since we were in school—and generally not for the better. The moderator was yours truly, a classic ink-stained wretch. Intrepid Joe Bertagna was joined on the panel by former All-Ivy basketball player turned sportscasting superstar James Brown, and Radcliffe and U.S. Olympic team rower Charlotte Crane. All spoke with humor and heart, especially when it came to the hijacking of youth sports. The heavily recruited JB (we are referring to James Brown here) was most affecting when he recalled how when as a high school senior he began to have second thoughts about his commitment to Harvard, his mother (nickname: “The Sarge”) told him that he had made a promise to come to Cambridge and he was going to honor it, by gum! Would that happen today, when student-athletes can negotiate ever-higher compensation? (On a personal note: Moderating this panel was one of the most meaningful assignments of my life.)

After a long day, those with energy could relax at a wine tasting conducted by classmate William Nesto.

Thursday night we let our hair down. (What is left of it, anyway.) Our class dinner began with entertainment from the Reunion Choir and continued with old reliable Sundance, which was its usual smash hit. You never saw so many septuagenarians boogying to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash!” (And how many times have we heard “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,,” anyway?) We hope chiropractors were at the ready.

Friday morning, those with extra energy could avail themselves of a small group tour at the Harvard Art Museums of Edvard Munch prints and paintings from the collection of the parents of classmate Phil Straus. Phil says, “The Harvard Art Museums gave seven small groups fantastic docent tours of 24 Munch works on paper. I hope this taste of beauty, emotion, and experimentation will convince you to join us for a show of the whole collection in 2025.”

Friday also brought the final symposium, this one on “Race, Reckoning and Repair: Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery—What’s Next.” Classmate Sylvester Monroe moderated a panel that included classmates Rebecca Sykes and Seth Waxman as well as Richard Cellini, the inaugural director of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, and Alden Fossett ’21. The panelists took up questions posed in the Report on Slavery at Harvard to discuss the possible ways that Harvard University and its alumni can redress the crimes of slavery that existed from the institution’s founding in 1636. Facing a Supreme Court ruling in the near future that could upend affirmative action, Seth, who argued Harvard’s case before the nine justices, explained the best-case and worst-case scenarios and what they might mean for Harvard’s admission process. “Panel discussions like these are a small but important step toward racial reconciliation because only by listening to each other and learning from each other can we ever get to know each other,” said Sylvester afterward.

Then it was on to the Yard, where we assembled outside University Hall and joined the Alumni Day procession, a joyful and mercifully short stroll in the heat to our seats of honor in front of Memorial Church. There we heard speeches, including the final public remarks by outgoing president Larry Bacow and an excellent oration by NPR’s Mary Louise Kelley ’93 on the primacy of reporting in journalism.

And then…it was all over but the shoutin’. Farewells were exchanged, as well as many a “See you on Facebook.” Anyone who attended every event will receive the Croix de Réunion, awarded by the French government. Félicitations!!

A rumor swept the gathering that after the 50th there would be no more five-year reunions. Taking Mary Louise Kelley’s words to heart, we checked and found that this was not true. The 55th reunion will take place as scheduled in 2028. Optimistically we say: See you there! But first it’s time for a nap.