1961

Renovating old homes seems to be the latest fad for Chicago classmates.

I had a few minutes to work the phones during a recent weekend family visit to the Windy City, producing these notes:

Tom Whitmore says he's leading "such a dull life there's not much to write about," but fellow '61s Rick Taft and Alan Orschel raved about the "beautiful job" Tom's done in renovating an old Chicago house.

Tom's in real estate and probate law, on his own now after time in a big law firm and work for a bank, able to serve the little people. The big law firm, with 245 lawyers, was oriented to major cases, and had committees to decide on exceptions.

He says he's also had a bout with serious illness, but is feeling better now, and enjoying life with his two Alaskan malamutes. Tom says he talks regularly with Al and Rick, and calls to both of them produced the news of Tom's renovation project.

Rick's Logan Boulevard home already had been partly renovated when Rick and Corwyn moved in, but they've been hard, at work finishing the job - stripping paint, replastering, etc. "It's a lot of work," said Rick, "but it is mainly cosmetic." He said their home is in an older neighborhood now being taken over by young couples interested in preservation - a wave that's struck in Charlotte, too.

Rick is director of estate planning for Loyola University - trying to raise money through bequests and trusts - and Corwyn is director of personnel for Morton Salt. They just returned from a ski trip to Colorado.

Alan and Nora are in the process of renovating a 55-year-old house in Wilmette, a North Chicago suburb. He says it's a "fairly good deal." Though he finds time for daily jogging, and they attend a number of concerts and cultural programs, much of the Orschels' life revolves around 22-month-old Bradley and the house.

Not far from Alan, in Evanston, is Paul Fee, now a vice president of Cotter and Co., the wholesale distributors for Tru-Value Hardware. He's been with them for six years, after stints with Proctor & Gamble and with an advertising firm.

He's busy with wife and family (John, 12, and Kathy, ten) and playing golf (12 handicap) and tennis for the fun of it. Paul says SteveElson is working for a Chicago advertising agency. Couldn't get an answer at Steve's Highland Park home.

Arthur Bloom was away when I called, but wife Rena said he was chairman of the Theater Department at Loyola University, and that they have two children - Sarah, four, and Jessica, two.

Frank Ginn was at his Winnetka home that Sunday with wife Madge (Wellesley '63 - "I was dating her when we finished school.") and three children - Peter, nine, Tony, seven, and Sarah, six.

He's working for Booz, Allan & Hamilton, the big management consulting firm, which involves lots of travel and, most important to Frank, lots of challenge - and "it's fun."

For recreation, it's skiing, racketball, and running.

There were a dozen more Chicago-area alumni we tried that Sunday afternoon in April, but long, unanswered rings were all we heard.

Medical Beat: Ken DeHaven, an assistant professor of orthopedics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and head of the athletic medicine section, was one of the key participants in a symposium on sports injuries to the knee, explaining that differences between adolescent and adult revolve around still incomplete bone in the adolescent's knee. Those of you with access to a medical library can read the discussion beginning on page 42 of February's Contemporary Surgery.

Passages, cont.: John White, one of the seminar leaders during reunion, writes, "If anyone is still feeling hungry and unsatisfied after the reunion - because it exposed some wounds but didn't offer many bandages - I recommend Life's Second Half: The Pleasuresof Aging as a first-aid kit without equal." White's a member of the Phenix Society, a 400-member group that includes persons who have "collectively experienced the full spectrum of human crises and perplexities and have resolved to offer their distilled wisdom to others, without charge, on the basis of simple friendliness ..."

His long letter said the book, by Phenix founder Jerome Ellison, is a "comprehensive handbook of tested guidelines drawn from many sources, including, of course. The Phenix Society," which he says is a no-dues, no-charge organization. You can write John at 80 Pound Ridge Road, Cheshire, Conn. 06410.

The final word: Remember Paradise Lost? English Professor Henry L. Terrie Jr. was at the Dartmouth Club of Charlotte the other day talking about how this "greatest single poem in the English language" was still going strong as the central pillar of the freshmen English program at the College. The experiences began to return to John Edwards, Ed Holscher, and me as Terrie ticked through some of the lessons we learned 20 - yes, it's really 20 - years ago ... the roots of the words disastrous and awful

... how Milton meant exactly what he said when he used a word ... how the department used (and still uses) the poem as a lever to force students to learn to write. John's eldest son is off to Duke next year - John said he simply wanted to remain in the state. Perhaps Duke, too, will see the wisdom of exposing freshmen to an in-depth look at Paradise Lost.