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CLASS NOTES
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
CLASS NOTES
On a sad note, John Leonardo
suffered a heart attack while skiing
on December 19, 2012, near his
home in Ketchum, Idaho, and died
en route to the hospital. We offer
our sincerest condolences to his
wife, Ann.
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John Freidin
654 E. Munger St.
Middlebury, VT 05753
jf@bicyclevt.com
Who can top this update from
Richie Hassan (richiehassan@
netzero.com) He writes, “It’s a
strange tale. I’m actually writing a
memoir about my adventures. But
it’s all true.
“Where to begin Well, I married
my eighth fiancée. That’s
correct. Before I married Cherryly
Serondo Llego, a Filipina, seven
ladies had agreed to become my
wife ... but did not.
“This started in 1998. The
American love of my life rejected
me. Twice. So with a broken heart I
headed to St. Petersburg, Russia. I
interviewed 32 women, all of whom
wanted to leave their broken nation
and marry me. Of course I chose
the prettiest, Elena, who for a year
extracted funds from me … then
married her Russian boyfriend.
“Slightly deterred, I traveled
to Ukraine in 2008 still seeking
tall blondes sans conscience. I’d
arranged to wed one of three
beautiful ladies, Anya, Svetlana
and Eckachinarina. I went with
the encouragement of my friends,
especially Lee Black. He wrote
a scintillating song, Oh! Svetlana,
to the tune of Oh! Susanna. This
trip took two months and a pile of
money, but all three decided not to
wed me, to my chagrin.
“So I abandoned tall blondes
and headed to the Philippines.
There I met two pretty ladies,
Juliet and Noemi, who said they
would marry me. I rejected Juliet,
but thought Noemi would come
through. I sent her money for a
year, during which she asked for
more for an array of tragic occurrences.
She’d say, ‘My father died,
and we can’t bury him. Can you
send me $100’ When I agreed,
she’d bump me: ‘Thank you. I love
you. Can you make it $150’ After
her father died, her mother died.
Next she was robbed. Then she
contracted dengue fever. And on
and on. Were her pleas real Had
she had the worst luck or could she
have been a scammer
“My friends advised me to
abandon my insane quest but I
was a football player on the 1961
championship Columbia team, and
I’d taken many shots to the head. So
I pressed on. After sending Noemi
airfare, I went to LAX twice to meet
her. She never made it. She married
an Italian.
“The only American I was engaged
to was attractive but lacked
sanity. We broke up when she
called me from jail for bail.
“How did Woody Allen put it
when he paraphrased Groucho
‘I wouldn’t date any woman who
would want to date me’ Well,
that old chestnut has finally been
disproved. I am blissful with my
30-year-old bride … so happy; my
immune system is flourishing.
“A year-and-a half-ago, Cherry
and I were married in Santa Monica,
Calif., in a park overlooking the
Pacific. In addition to the passing
crowd, some of my dearest Columbia
friends attended, including Bill
Campbell ’64 TC, Que Spaulding,
J.D. Ramsey ’68 and my brother,
Mike Hassan ’63, the best man.
“But the coup de grace was
Buzz Congram! He went online
in Massachusetts, became a pastor
in the Universal Church and flew
to Los Angeles to marry us. It was
perfect! I’m firmly ensconced on
cloud nine.”
Perseverance pays. Bravo!
Victor Cassidy (victorcassidy@
yahoo.com) continues to write
books, mostly about art. In 2011,
he published Sculptors at Work:
Interviews About the Creative Process.
Last year he organized a memorial
show for Steven Jay Uri (1939–93),
a forgotten Chicago sculptor. For
the show, Victor penned a booklength
catalog. Now he’s writing
about artistic collaboration based
on his interviews of artists in New
York, Boston, on the West Coast
and, he hopes, Europe. Ecology is
Victor’s second interest. In 2007 he
published Henry Chandler Cowles:
Pioneer Ecologist, a biography. Victor
has been married for nearly 30
years to Donna Hapac, a sculptor.
They live in Chicago.
From Texas, David Cohen
(davidcohen.robert@gmail.com)
writes that he recently had an unexpectedly
delightful experience: “A
former girlfriend from Barnard located
me via the Internet. Although
I am happily married and living
far from her, it’s been delightful to
relive our New York days. Perhaps
this is something we all should do.”
David found his way to Houston
via Boston to pursue a career as a
construction manager for landmark
office buildings. When economic
storms blew too hard, he changed
course and became a financial
planner. He and his wife have three
sons, all with degrees from the
University of Texas in Houston,
which “has been very good to us
and made urban living sane.”
Joe Nozzolio enjoys living in Augusta,
Ga. He and his wife settled
there because of “her family and
year-round golf.” Although they
live a mile from Augusta National,
getting tickets to the Masters isn’t
any easier. “This year we’ll attend
one practice round and have to
watch everything else on TV. We
see my brother, Mike, and his wife
when they come down from New
York. Somehow they get tickets for
the entire tournament! Mike is a
New York State Senator from the
Finger Lakes region. I’d like to hear
from Columbia football teammates.
Contact me at nozzolio@aol.com.”
Neilson Abeel, a first-rate sailor,
and his wife, Tori Bryer, confess
to being passengers on “the only
cruise we’ll ever take — 20 days
aboard the Holland America ms
Veendam.” They traveled from Valparaiso,
Chile, south through the
Chilean Archipelago, the Straits of
Magellan and the Beagle Channel;
past Cape Horn; across the Drake
Passage; along the western shore of
the Antarctic; then north via the Atlantic
to Montevideo, Uruguay and
Buenos Aires. They went ashore
often but missed the Falklands due
to summer winds of 60 mph. “In
winter,” Neilson says, “they can
blow 100 mph. Spectacular light,
icebergs, glaciers, whales, seals and
birds.”
The International Tribunal for the
Law of the Sea, in consultation with
representatives of Argentina and
Ghana, recently appointed Bernie
Oxman ’65L (bhoxman@law.miami.
edu) to the arbitral tribunal in a
dispute between the two nations
over the detention of the Argentine
naval training ship ARA Libertad.
The Libertad was visiting Ghana
when a Ghanaian court ordered it
detained pursuant to a U.S. Federal
Court judgment against Argentina
for defaulting on bonds.
Peter Berman ’69 Arch. (pber
manarchitect@gmail.com) left the
College in 1960 for the School of
Architecture. In his second year
there, two professors invited him
to join them in a competition for
the new Boston City Hall. They
won, and the building was built.
Peter then felt that to return to
Columbia would be unfulfilling.
After extraordinary efforts, he
gained admission to King’s College,
Cambridge. There he studied
architecture for two years, married
an American, got two degrees and
loved every minute.
Peter recalls, “Were it not for the
fact that my wife was miserable in
England and the economy was in
disarray, I might still be there. At
any rate, I returned to the School
of Architecture, got the American
degree I needed for architectural
registration and began my apprenticeship:
first with Marcel
Breuer (the youngest member of
the Bauhaus) and ultimately with
Paul Rudolph, arguably America’s
most talented architect of the 20th
century. In 1971, I established my
own practice in New York.”
But in 1995 Peter discovered
Montana. “It was the first place
I’d been where you could build
something without tearing
something else down! So I moved
to Bozeman, becoming one of the
state’s few Modernists. In 2004,
[architect] Lee Pomeroy asked me
to return to New York to design the
Fulton Street Transit Center. I accepted,
with the proviso that he try
to find me a commission in China,
where the world’s largest projects
were being built. He was unsuccessful
but in 2005 I found myself
in Chongqing — population
33,000,000 — as chief consultant of
CTDI, Third Design Institute, with
a staff of 600. We did mixed-use
projects for the government and
new towns, all enormous and very
rewarding. I loved everything
about my life there, save the fact
that I could rarely see the sun
through the pollution. I returned
to New York but had not lost my
wanderlust.
“In 2007 I flew to Dubai to
work with an Egyptian architect
for the CEO of Al Rajhi Developments,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He
persuaded me to become Sulamein
Al Rajhi’s chief consultant. I spent
half my time working in Cairo
designing projects even larger than
those in China, and the other half
in Riyadh designing similar stuff
in-house. All that ended in 2010. So
with mixed feelings I returned to
California, this time to San Diego.
I’m still practicing with no thought
of retiring. Robert Berne ’60, my exroommate
and the Columbia Lion,
is one of my best friends. And I’m
still in awe of Jerry Speyer; we
chat occasionally.”
Peter had raised his daughter,
Amanda, as a single parent since
she was a young girl. Amanda now
lives in Dallas with Peter’s two
grandchildren.
“Wishing my classmates a wonderful
summer,” begins Anthony
Valerio (anthony@anthonyvalerio.
com). “I’ll be golfing in the afternoons
after a winter of physical
therapy ostensibly for my legs. In
the mornings I’ll write — love the
heat — and promote the new print
edition of Bart, a Life of A. Bartlett
Giamatti. Giamatti, you might
recall, left the presidency of Yale to
become president of the National
League, then commissioner of
baseball. He was famous for his
essay, Green Fields of the Mind, a
little of which goes like this: ‘It
breaks your heart. It is designed to
break your heart. The game begins
in the spring, when everything else
begins again, and it blossoms in
the summer, filling the afternoons
and evenings, and then as soon as
the chill rains come, it stops and
leaves you to face the fall alone.’
Starting this fall I will be in Italy
until spring, and so on. Would love
to hear from you.”
After 44 years as a litigator in
Indianapolis, Larry Gaston (lwgas
ton@att.net) retired two years ago.
“Now,” he writes, “I’m reading
for pleasure and trying to stay out
of my wife’s way. September will
be our 50th anniversary. I spend
a lot of time volunteering at the
Crossroads of America Council of
the Boy Scouts of America. Never
thought I’d buy a Scout uniform
at 72!”
Chris Haakon (cphaakon@aol.
com) has enjoyed our Class Notes
during the past 50 years but never
submitted anything about himself.
Here’s his summary: “I was a
charter member of the team that
brought varsity soccer to Columbia,
and I played in a men’s league for
20 years more. After graduation I
joined the Navy, served 33 years,
had four commanding officer assignments
in Naval Intelligence and
then retired as a captain. Around
the same time I started working for
a small subsidiary of Paramount
Pictures, spun the company off, saw
it become employee-owned and in
the 1990s became its CEO with 600
employees. When Boeing bought
the company, I ran it for two years
then retired.
“Currently I consult and sit on
eight boards of mid-sized companies.
My wife and I will celebrate
our 50th this September. We are
in excellent health and enjoy having
our three children and seven
grandchildren near our home in
Northern Virginia. It has been a
great 50 years.”
Gerry Sorin (gerald.sorin70@
gmail.com), retired Distinguished
Professor of American and Jewish
Studies at SUNY, New Paltz, missed
our 50th reunion to celebrate his
50th wedding anniversary in Paris
with his wife, Myra. Last November,
Gerry published his eighth
book, Howard Fast: Life and Literature
in the Left Lane, which received the
National Jewish Book Award in
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
for 2012. It is the only biography of
Fast and was described in Publishers
Weekly as “an excellent prism
through which to review ... Leftist
activity ... and the anticommunist
hysteria of the 1940s and ’50s.” In
2003 Gerry won the National Jewish
Book Award in History for his
previous book, Irving Howe: A Life of
Passionate Dissent.
“After a dozen years out of the
classroom,” Gerry writes, “I was
asked by senior students at New
Paltz to return last spring [2013] to
teach the Honors Seminar. Despite
having to face grading papers
again, I said ‘yes.’”
Since 1993 Gerry has also been a
Richie Hassan ’62 married Cherryly Serondo Llego in Santa Monica, Calif., on October 2, 2011. Columbians
on hand to celebrate included (left to right) Que Spaulding ’62, ’63 Business; the groom; the
groom’s brother, Mike Hassan ’63; Buzz Congram ’62, ’65 Business; and William V. Campbell ’62, ’64 TC.
PHOTO: JOSEPH PADILLA
literary critic, mostly for The Jewish
Daily Forward and Haaretz (Israel’s
left-wing newspaper), and teaching
as a volunteer in the Lifetime
Learning Institute.
63
Paul Neshamkin
1015 Washington St.,
Apt. 50
Hoboken, NJ 07030
pauln@helpauthors.com
You should be reading this column
soon after our terrific 50th Alumni
Reunion Weekend. Granted, I am
writing it months before but I know
it will be terrific because I already
heard from many of you who planned
to be there. The Fall column
will have a full report on the
weekend. If you attended, please
send me your notes now, and I will
include them.
In the meantime, this issue has a
follow-up feature with photos, plus
you can see our class photo in the
online version of that article at col
lege.columbia.edu/cct.
I also heard from some of you
who couldn’t attend but sent greetings
to classmates.
Roland Droitsch writes, “Alas, I
am one of those who was not able
to come to reunion. Even though I
am getting older, I clearly remember
those wonderful days at Columbia.
I do not even know where to start,
but I will let you know how I came
to that wonderful college. I lived
way up on the Hudson River and a
great friend of the family was professor
F.W. Dupee, who had a house
there on the river where there was
a slight bend in it. From his porch
you could see miles and miles
down the Hudson. Well, as many
of you may know, Professor Dupee
was the chairman of the English
department and a renowned expert
on Henry James. It was Professor
Dupee who introduced me to going
to Columbia. While there I met and
had so many wonderful professors.
There was Andrew Chiappe ’33, ’39
GSAS, who taught Shakespeare in
a way I still remember. Professor
Joseph Rothschild ’52, ’52 GSAS
taught me about East Central
Europe. Professor James Zito ’48
taught an English class in which
every book we read was ‘the best
book ever written.’ And who can
ever forget Professor Dwight Miner
’26, ’40 GSAS, who when teaching
Contemporary Civilization had us
all mesmerized”
Mel Gurtov writes, “Fiftieth
reunion Impossible. Warm greetings
to classmates from my farm in
Deadwood, Ore. Duty called in our
apple orchard; so sorry I was not
able to be with you.”
Barry Austern writes, “I was not
able to make it, but I do say hi to
everyone. I guess the only exciting
news for me was that in November
I took a ‘MacMania’ cruise that was
two weeks of instruction on Mac
computers. It left from Sydney,
Australia, went up the coast of
Queensland, then through three
ports in New Caledonia. In between
we woke up bright and early to see
the total eclipse of the sun.”
Charles Bremer did not attend
reunion; he matriculated in 1957
and therefore considers himself a
member of the Class of 1961. “All
my college friends were members
of ’61. However, between my junior
and senior years, I took a one-year
sabbatical and worked at the largest
mental hospital in New Jersey (my
major was abnormal psychology).
After the year was up, I enrolled
in the fall semester, but two weeks
before classes began I contracted
whooping cough. Contracting
whooping cough at 21 ain’t no walk
in the park. I would rather have
had a root canal. So I enrolled in the
spring semester and thought ‘What
the hell I’ll enroll for three semesters
and take some graduate school
courses so I can graduate in May.’”
After retiring as v.p., international
trade, from a national association
in Washington, D.C., Charles now
resides in Secaucus, N.J. “I received
an outstanding education at
Columbia,” he said. “I was a poor
student, a goof-off, but I had the
privilege of studying under Fred
Keller, the great Sidney Morgen-
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ONLINE by clicking
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Class Notes Editor,
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SUMMER 2013
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SUMMER 2013
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