Touring Sterling Memorial Library’s Linonia & Brothers Reading Room — in which many of us both studied and napped — were, left to right, Steve Stack ’67, Fred Berg ’66, and Dave Richards ’67. L&B is undergoing a $10 million renovation (requiring hard hats), and all shown here are members of the Librarian’s Development Council, through which these funds are being raised. Fred Berg’s family has made a major gift for the restoration of the entry to L&B, which will now be renamed in his family’s honor. A gift to restore one of the alcoves has been made by the Rossi Foundation, headed by John Raben ’67. When L& B is restored to its former glory (although now with wireless connections and air conditioning hidden behind old bookcases), this ugly green carpet will be replaced by hardwood floors decorated with specially designed area carpets. Let’s see if future generations of Yalies can stay awake in that ever more beautiful Reading Room.

More on the L&B renovation from Yale News: Sterling Library’s L&B Room, a campus gem, slated for renovation.

(Posted April 2023)

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“Dave Wenner’s Retirement Hobby”

When Dave retired in 2003 from a 30-year career in management consulting with McKinsey & Company, the first item on his bucket list was to learn about “the mysteries of the universe, from the largest scales (astrophysics and cosmology) to the smallest (quantum theory).” This was the delayed fulfillment of a childhood dream Dave had as a boy growing up near Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Dave started by consuming dozens of nontechnical books on the history of physics, astrophysics and cosmology, but soon decided to hire a post-doc to tutor him in physics, while collecting and reading first editions… READ MORE

(Posted November 2019)

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Doug Melamed, Mike Siris, and Marshall Pomer (left to right) had a mini-reunion last month at Stanford, where Doug is on the law school faculty. “By happenstance. it happened to be Doug’s birthday,” says Mike. “Marshall is down in Santa Cruz, and I was out there accompanying my wife, who was competing in a national duplicate bridge tourney in San Francisco.” (P.S. Karen didn’t do too badly, either, earning six more gold points on her way to becoming a Life Master.) (Posted January 2020)

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Speaking of mini-reunions, Bob Lehrer and Adrian Misarti held one a couple of weeks ago in Chicago, where Bob lives and Adrian was visiting his son.

“The first photo is in front of the traditional Christmas Tree at Union Station, one of Chicago’s commuter rail stations, where we met up in the first instance,” says Bob. “The second is at an eatery in Ogilvie Station, an adjoining commuter rail station. Not shown: a post lunch walk from the west end of the Loop east almost to the Lake. (Primer on finding your way around Chicago: The Lake is always east.) Taking in, among other cites, the Hall (City Hall).

“This was a Discussion Group-inspired meet up because we did not know each other at Yale, and have had no contact since – except, recently, via the DG. We had no difficulty recognizing each other, because, really, how many other ambulatory old white guys (one with thinning gray hair, the other with thinning white hair) would be hanging around the Union Station Christmas tree at midday on a Friday? Adrian and I hope to make this an annual event, limited only by the condition that we both are ambulatory.”

(Posted January 2020)