61 Christmas is almost upon us as your faithful correspondent wrestles with a deadline in the midst of holiday confusion. Several classmates have sent their contributions. Some input has lingered a bit, given the constraints on column length.
I'm going to start off with an extended note from Dave Waks that didn't quite fit our last column: "My wife, Sandy Teger (Vassar '61), and I have consulted on advances in residential broadband for more than ten years. We run a website, www.BroadbandHomeCentral.com, for the industry, and every month or so we write a newsletter that goes by e-mail to readers all over the world. We write a column, 'Two Sides to Every Story,' for a quarterly magazine that goes to all the technical people in the cable industry. We find time to visit our grandchildren (and their parents) in California and Colorado, and our other children in Boston and Florida. We own and operate a couple of beachfront rental condos on Sanibel Island. We're remodeling the newest one to make it perfect for families with small children, or several adult couples traveling together. The website (www.SanibelPlay.com) shows our plans for that condo. I joined the board of the complex a couple of years ago and find it interesting and rewarding. I've had a pilot's license for 40 years. We've owned the same plane for almost 20 years and use it for most trips east of the Mississippi. Finally, I was probably the first undergraduate computer geek at Cornell, writing my first program a few weeks after arriving on campus in September 1957. A couple of years ago a fellow alum convinced me to add my recollections to the History of Computing at Cornell section of the university's website: http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/history/Waks.html."
I visited the link to the History of Computing at Cornell and recommend it to all classmates. You will find an informative and entertaining two-page article that records the advent of computers and computation on the campus. Some of us will even remember punching a paper tape program in Rand Hall for the Burroughs 220 computer (which had an uptime of about 50 percent!). All of Dave's recollections predate the following 33 years I spent in the industry with IBM. Larry Wheeler, our valued webmaster, writes, "My wife, Margaret, and I took our granddaughter Kira, 8, to Cornell's Adult University (CAU) this summer. She learned about Outer Space while Margaret and I took classes in, respectively, Drawing and History of U.S. Policy Toward the Middle East. Kira had so much fun she wanted to stay another week or at least come back next year. We highly recommend CAU to other classmates who are grandparents. I've had some time left over from petrochemical consulting, golf, and maintaining websites, so I have embarked on another career as a volunteer mediator at the Dispute Resolution Center and the Justice of the Peace Courts here in Houston. One does not have to be an attorney to do this and it does stimulate the 'little grey cells,' as Hercule Poirot would say. All it requires is 40 hours of classroom training and a desire to help others resolve their differences. I do two or three mediations per week."
Many of us enjoy extensive travel following our working careers. Gary Busch has taken his globetrotting to a higher level. "I have been spending a lot of time in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Ivory Coast. My children were pleased when I brought them back a banknote saying 10 billion Zimbabwe dollars on the face, but disgruntled when I informed them that it wouldn't buy them lunch. Things are much better in Katanga now; much less killing and maiming. However, ebola and typhoid are still around so it pays to bring your own food and drink. There is peace, however, along with poverty, stagnation, and despair of positive change. All in all, life goes on as usual. Strangely enough, I haven't met any Cornell classmates in the bush."
Bill Onorato ( WTOnorato@aol.com) wrote a while ago—his travels certainly rival those of Gary Busch, as follows: "I've retired from the World Bank as an international energy consultant. Now I enjoy hiking, trekking, and adventure travel to Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Patagonia. I've been teaching an international petroleum development course twice yearly in London with additional sessions in Luanda, Angola, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia." According to Bill's note, he will by now have completed hiking the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal and moving to Santa Fe, NM, to be nearer his family.
By the time you read this column, it will almost be time to start enjoying pleasant spring weather. Please, interrupt your activities long enough to send us an e-mail or drop us a note. Your classmates want to hear from you. Doug Fuss, 5 Pineside Lane, Savannah, GA 31411; e-mail, dougout@attglobal.net ; Joanna McCully, 1607 Hilton Head Blvd., Lady Lake, FL 32159; e-mail, joannacelticlady@aol.com.