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Spring-Summer 2000
Vol. 62, No. 3

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Review welcomes letters from readers and will print as many of them as space permits. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity. Unsigned letters cannot be used, but names of the writers may be withheld on request.


Flying Round the Tower

The cover of the Winter 1999-2000 issue had special nostalgic significance for me.

A classmate and fraternity brother of mine and I were in the Civilian Pilot Training Program in the prewar '40s. Early one Sunday morning (the circumstances better left in limbo), we each rented a plane and proceeded to play tag around Rush Rhees tower.

Fortunately, we hightailed it out of the area before our planes' designations were picked up or reported. I assume the statute of limitations would apply, but I doubt that Brokaw would nominate us for membership in the "Greatest Generation."

Editor's Note

The University's current celebration of its Sesquicentennial has brought forth a flood of reflections on the University's past, many of which are presented in this Letters column.

Keep them coming! The celebration goes on through June of 2001, and we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Although I'm not sure it portrays any sense of budding Errol Flynn soaring eagles, I am enclosing a picture that ran in the Rochester Times-Union showing three of us with Professor Horace Leet, who inherited the job of shepherding the program.

The whole point of the Civilian Pilot Training Program was to prepare fodder for the various air forces. As it turned out, Charles Gleason was the only one who ended up flying. After a stint as an instructor, he became a member of the Air Transport Command and flew whatever needed flying to wherever in the world it was required. Alvin Keene became the exec officer on a submarine and I the skipper of an Air Sea Rescue boat.

If there's a moral to this story, I guess it's that you sometimes don't end up where you think you're going.

Bill Sandow '42
Columbia, South Carolina

We also heard from Eli Rudin '32, who remembers an even earlier instance of tower buzzing. According to his recollection, George Brown '32 (son of Charles S. Brown, Class of 1879, of Welles-Brown Room fame) used to "circumaviate" the tower during his undergraduate days. Rudin remembers Brown as a bit of an "early hippie," who when not flying around the campus used to tear through it on his motorcycle.

And we thought we had made it all up when we conceived of the plane circling the Rush Rhees tower. Should have known better --Editor.


Quips and Quarks

This is to tell you how much I'm enjoying the freebie Sesquicentennial calendar [sent as a Sesqui birthday present to all College undergraduate alums]. Who invented all those great puns, such as "A Dribble of Sports History" or "No Quibble or Quirk"--just quark?

Another question: As I copied the Fairbank House address from the coupon on the back page of the Winter 1999-2000 Rochester Review to order the pictorial history, a dim old memory was aroused. Could Fairbank House possibly be an old, gray stone mansion that looks like a castle?

Maybe not, but if it is (there was only one like it on Mt. Hope Avenue), then I had tea there with the residents in either late 1937 or early 1938.

I graduated from East High, the old original East High on Alexander Street, in 1937, the final year of the Great Depression. About Labor Day weekend of that year, I accepted a position as a private chauffeur for Charles A. Tucker, semi-retired assistant treasurer of the Rochester Gas and Electric Co.

I never wore a uniform, and Mr. and Mrs. Tucker took me everywhere with them. One day, either in the early fall of '37 before leaving with the Tuckers for six months in St. Petersburg, Florida, or in the late spring of '38 after our return, I drove them to "the Castle" on Mt. Hope Avenue, parked the car in the porte cochere, and escorted Mr. and Mrs. Tucker in to tea with our hosts, the people who lived in "The Castle." I cannot recall their name, but I'm sure they were socially prominent Rochesterians of that era.

If "The Castle" was not left to either the University or Rochester Institute of Technology, it certainly should have been.

Dick Hawes '49
Oxford, Pennsylvania

Although several of the great old houses on Mt. Hope Avenue are in University hands, either as residences or office buildings, "The Castle," for all its crenellated charm, is not one of them.

We're happy to know people are enjoying the calendar. The quips came from Jan LaMartina Waxman '81N, who researched and wrote the daily entries. Readers can look forward to more of her observations on the University's past in the forthcoming pictorial history, Beside the Genesee. There's an order form on the inside back cover of this magazine--Editor.


Chauvinist Pig?

Hello from one of the women who led the protest cited in the Sesqui calendar entry on the Boar's Head Dinner.

The protest [taking issue with the exclusion of women as guests at the all-male event] was because women served the meal. We wrote, "Enjoy your Male Chauvinist Pig!" and pamphleted before the event. I still remember giving Professor Russell Peck one!

Carol Adams '72
Richardson, Texas

Adams, who has continued her activist career, is the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat. She returned to campus this spring to present a lecture sponsored by, among other groups, the University of Rochester Women's Caucus that she founded as an undergraduate--Editor.


What '77 Left Undone

Regarding the quote in the Sesquicentennial calendar for August 1, 2000, attributed to the Class of 1877: "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."

The quote is taken from the "General Confession" used by churches in the Anglican Communion, including the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. This year, we celebrate the 450th anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer, prepared by Thomas Cranmer.

The Class of 1877 would have known the source of the quote and should have known enough to give it proper attribution. It's a great line, and not a throwaway line, still in everyday use both in this country and worldwide.

Jane Gouverneur Ten Eyck '53
Rochester


'Flour City' Explained

I read the Winter 1999-2000 issue of Rochester Review with great interest. I particularly enjoyed the article dealing with the history of the University, and I must confess that all these years I thought of Rochester as the Flower City because of the Lilac Festival. Now I know it was the Flour City.

On page 44, ("legacies" in the Class of 2003) were listed, along with a request that we let you know if any had been overlooked.

I'd like you to add Daniel H. Dube, Marcellus, New York. He is my grandson, and we are very pleased that he chose and was chosen by Rochester.

I might add that my daughter Susan Harter Connerty '78 and son-in-law Richard C. DiBlasi '78 are also graduates.

I was in the Navy V-12 program from 1943 to 1945, pre-med, and graduated from Indiana University Medical School in 1949. I am still in close contact with four other graduates from the same program (doctors Michael Esposito, James McMahon, James Ferguson, and Donald Saylor). Those were wonderful years, and since I spent my medical years in Syracuse, I was able to return periodically.

I hope we can get back for some of the 150th celebration, but since North Carolina is not Syracuse, we may have to settle for the April 8 get-together in Raleigh.

Arthur H. Dube '46
Pinehurst, North Carolina

We are happy to welcome Daniel Dube '03 as yet another "grand-legacy."

About the Flour City--Flower City matter: The confusion is justified. The city has been known as both. After the decline of the milling industry and the rise of a group of flourishing local nurseries, Rochester restyled itself "The Flower City." More recently, because of the confluence here of international institutions concerned with optics and photography, it has adopted the designation "The World's Image Centre"-- Editor.


Signs of a Good Story

I admired Scott Hauser's piece on "Signs of New Languages," where he covered a very complex field with succinct grace. My wife--who just last year finished a signed English course so that she could advise deaf students at the Academic Advising Center at the University of Iowa--enjoyed it, too.

There was a piece in The New York Times Magazine a couple of months ago about the Nicaraguan deaf schools, and the Review's story did a far better job than the Times reporter in offering a clear context for the importance of the phenomenon. I hadn't known of the Sign Language Research Center--another reason to be proud of my Rochester connections.

Ed Folsom '76 (PhD)
Iowa City


Deutsch of the Knicks

I thoroughly enjoyed the capsule history of Rochester basketball in the Spring- Summer 1998 issue of Rochester Review, but one name was conspicuously absent, that of Dave Deutsch '66. Deutsch is the only Rochester athlete I know of who went directly from the River Campus to a spot on a major league team in a major sport, namely the 1966-67 New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association.

By all accounts, Deutsch is publicity shy, and thus you won't find him in the UR Sports Hall of Fame. But that doesn't diminish his remarkable achievement.

Deutsch began his basketball career on a very capable 1962-63 freshman squad, which won many more games than it lost. Playing later for the varsity, Deutsch, a guard, was magnificent in his role as playmaker and ballhandler. His extraordinary quickness was a sight to behold.

Our senior year, Deutsch was as brilliant as ever even though he broke his nose and had to play a couple of games with a makeshift nose guard that made him look like a cross between a medieval knight and a character in a sci-fi movie. The injury had to affect his breathing and the nose guard his field of vision, but he continued his inspired play.

I--and a lot of other people I'm sure--were amazed when we learned that Dave had made the Knicks the following autumn. I imagine he showed up at camp and worked his butt off to become the 12th man on a 12-man team for just one season.

It proves that even at a school where the emphasis is exactly where it should be, on academics, outstanding athletes and outstanding teams will appear from time to time. And of that all of us Rochester graduates can be proud.

H. E. Crissey, Jr., '66
Elkins Park, Pennsylvania


'Adoptive' Parents

I was very distressed in reading about Susan Spafford '97E, the second runner-up in the Miss America pageant, that she was described as "a native of Korea who grew up with her adoptive parents."

As the adoptive mother of a Chinese daughter, I spend more time than I would like explaining to people that adoptive parents are "real" parents, and that my daughter is my "real" daughter. My daughter and I do not use the word "adoptive" in describing our relationship. I am sure that Ms. Spafford would agree that the people who took her into their home and raised her as their child are her parents, without qualification.

Rochelle Reben '76
Los Angeles


Homecoming Musicians Wanted

Attention, all alumni of the Yellowjacket Marching Band and the University Glee Clubs: We have been given permission by the athletic and alumni relations departments and the dean of students to play and sing "The Genesee" on the field at halftime of the homecoming game at Fauver Stadium on Sesquicentennial Weekend--Saturday, October 14, starting at 2 p.m.).

All Eastman alumni are welcome to take part, and so are River Campus instrumentalists who either didn't participate in the marching band or went through school after the band became defunct in the mid-1970s.

We will also perform several traditional Rochester songs in the stands both during and after the game. If you are interested in participating, please write to H. E. "Kit" Crissey, Jr., '66, 7439 Elizabeth Road, Elkins Park, Pa. 19027-3322, telephone him at home at 215-782-8213, or send him a fax at 215-473-3220, and you will be given more details.

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