1973

A recent letter from Caren Diefenderfer brought bonus news of Jan Seidler. Jan is assistant director of the Museum of the City of New York and is in the early stages of writing a book. She can frequently be found consulting on National Park Service projects at historic sites related to American painters and sculptors. Jan's husband, Carl Ramirez, is working on the Spain '92 Expo and Jan looks forward to visiting Seville with him at some point.

As promised in last month's notes, we have much news of Fred Haas, courtesy of wife Heidi, Vassar '79. After being laid off from down-sizing New England Digital Corp., Fred decided to step up his work as a free-lance jazz musician, teacher, and composer. He teaches one day a week at Dartmouth and one at Kimball Union Academy and, by this reading, will also be teaching jazz improvisation at Middlebury College. In addition, he performs 4-5 nights a week with various jazz groups. "The Ritz," a Boston-based group with whom he has played tenor sax for several years, has recently recorded a CD. Fred continues to compose music for including several NBC Movies of the Week.

Heidi assures us, however, that "The best news of all is the birth of our daughter, Samantha Marie, on April 16! She has already attended a number of jam sessions and concerts, and responds wonderfully to music." Fred's dad, F. Lowell Haas '35, also a tenor sax, is counting on Samantha to take up the bass and round out the family ensemble.

Given his penmanship, Tom Helfrich was lucky I could decipher his letter. Nonetheless, despite the small liberties I was forced to take in transcribing, I think you will agree it was a great one:

"There are lots of '73s I'd like to see news on, e.g., Steve Perry, Dale Pope, FrankWalker, Dick Gamper, Paul Nichol, MitchWhitely, Arnold Henson, Karen Fagin, and Kelvin Chin. I've had semi-regular contact with Todd Keiller (most recently with Peter Bent Brigham in Boston, promoting and marketing new medical inventions, living in a museum-sized home in Hopkinton with two daughters and wife Diane of Mary Hitchcock '72 fame) and with Reid Moran (a.k.a. 'Crazy Uncle Reid' who at last count had three daughters and was living with lawyer wife Cathy 'Swede' Carlson, Holyoke '72, and writing sleazy scripts for TV movies and series such as 'Simon & Simon' and 'MacGyver' in 'LALA Land,' a.k.a. Hollywood).

"Jane (Mary Hitchcock 72) and I continue to live in Augsburg, FRG, where we have been since December '84. (Maybe moving to Heidelberg or Wurnberg, however.) I'm a civilian clinical psychologist (Ph.D.) and Jane's a civilian psychiatric nurse (M.S.N.). We earned our degrees at UVA between '74 and '81 and are currently working for the U.S. Army, Europe, an ever-shrinking entity. We're still having enough fun here to maintain the "strategy" of staying in FRG until the 'powers that be' won't have us anymore.

"Caitlin 10 is fluent in German and will start French in the fifth grade at an all-girls 'gymnasium.' She swims on the local American team and plays soccer and baseball. Christian 4 is Dennis the Menace personifiedterrorizes the American Day Care Center and us at home—but we hope to have him in German kindergarten in the fall.

"It's an exciting time to be on this side of the Atlantic, with die Iron Curtain crumbling and the 'United States of Europe' emerging. I'm catching my first breath since Desert Storm at an Army-sponsored conference. Still running semi-competitively with a German club (having difficulty getting under 40 minutes for a 10K race) and playing over-30 basketball as a player/coach."

Tom extends an open invitation to all '73s passing through Bavaria, asking only that you call in advance to warn the Helfrich's of your visit and to be sure they're still there.

10 Lantern Lane, Easton, MA 02375