Class of 1961

Sig Jaastad
Email: sjaastad@wildblue.net
We did some traveling his year. Sandee joined a two-week textile study tour in Norway and Sweden and I joined her for an additional 3 weeks of touring that included a visit to some of my relatives. My last trip to Norway was in the summer between sophomore and junior years at Carleton. We spent 3 weeks in France in September the first week of which was a bicycle tour in Provence. Sandee continues her recovery from the auto accident of April 2005, having just undergone her 14th round of surgery since that awful day. She continues with her textile interests having just added tapestries. I finally retired my 1939 Brambach baby grand after torturing it for 22 years and replaced it with a 1980 74" Kawai. It has great sound but we’ll have to see how well it stands up to massive abuse. I completed my term as chair of a county political party but continue my interest in politics. I’m still on the county planning commission and still working to preserve ranching in the upper Arkansas River valley. Good health and happiness to all.

Class of 1962

Stephen Johnson
Email: Prairie3@peoplepc.com
Phone: 281-395-5068
Address: 1802 Blue Sage Dr
Katy, TX 77494
I am still performing seismic depth imaging with a service contractor - high demand and the pay is good, but most of all, the activity keeps my brain active. It's all computer work but it is stimulating to figure out how to solve different problems with each project.

I have been traveling quite a bit, some by necessity. I flew to Brazil and Vermont for a funeral and near-funeral of family members. We vacationed with my daughter at the Grand Canyon and vicinity- it was beastly hot (116 degrees) and smoky from fires. Three months later, we had a mini-family reunion in LA a week before the giant brush fires that came 1/4 mile from taking the stable where my daughter's horse is kept.

Finally, 3 weekends were spent replacing fascia boards at the front of the house suffering from dry rot (hot and humid Houston weather). At least the job justified my buying a compound miter saw (toys for boys)! I learned home carpentry over the 15 years of volunteering for Home Repair for the Elderly, which I am still doing. My major project for the holidays is to organize books and professional journals that have piled up over the past 3 years. And because I have been refused permission to build more bookshelves, this will be challenging!

Bruce Murdoch
Busier that ever as Luter Safety Officer (LSO) and consultant on non-ionizing radiation (r-f, uv, ir) safety at Argonne. Organized an advanced LSO training workshop this year, attended by 120 people from the US and Canada. Active in Toastmasters, giving speeches and organizing events. The wife and I are finally going on a Caribbean cruise this winter!

Class of 1963

Timothy Barnum
Email: Timothy_barnum@yahoo.com
Phone: 410-421-9522
Address: 806 Creek View Road
Severna Park, MD 21146
I wasn't inclined to report any news again this year as I've complete 7 years in retirement and it seems just like yesterday. But I realized that those years of physics and engineering just won't go away and seem to crop up. I've been playing the oboe for less than 3 years and play in a community band with lots of working and retired folks, many of them technical. The oboe is fascinating because the little tiny reed has so much impact on even being able to play all the notes let alone sound good. After looking in my own physics and vibrations books, I have been finding books on the acoustics of musical instruments. It’s been interesting trying to understand how the shape of the reed changes the sound. There are some speculations about sound waves traveling along the surface, which seems plausible, but I haven't found any theory to back it up. I'd love to hear from anyone with a reference or ideas.

Class of 1964

Craig Anderson
Email: Mar.cra@comcast.net
As of 8/21/2007 I took the plunge and retired from full-time law practice at the MN Attorney Generlal's Office. Since then I've been trying to get used to self-starting on a daily basis, being my own boss (I love that ), and helping my spouse with upkeep of our home and high-maintenance Golden Retriever. In addition, Marj and I have and will travel a little -- to Maine for nine days last September, Florida and the Caribbean for a couple of weeks next March and France in June 2008 for our 25th anniversary. Professionally, we'll see what the future holds.

Happy holidays to everyone. May the coming year bring peace, greater prosperity and more harmony to this country and all of its inhabitants.

Diane (Wallingford) McCarthy
Email: Dennis_mccart57@hotmail.com
Phone: 703-938-4096
Address: 2432 Riviera Drive
Vienna, VA 22181-3121
Since June 2001, when Dennis fell from our ladder and broke his right heel on our cement patio, he has improved steadily by doing special exercises daily. He retired from the U. S. Naval Observatory in January 2005 after almost 40 years. Under a new program he has been rehired on a part time basis and works 2 or 3 days a week.

Duncan (39) is in his fourteenth year with NGA ((National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency). He develops technology for the government. He continues to date, but remains unmarried. Deidre (35) will soon complete eleven years at the National Park Service. Her multiple sclerosis, diagnosed in May 2000, was quiet except for a 3-week attack this summer that was somewhat resistant to steroids. She continues to take Rebif and just started one IV dose of steroids per month hoping to ward off problems. She still enjoys her Friesian horse and is improving as a dressage rider. She and Martin Mikhail, her boyfriend of 15 years, moved across the street from us to a rambler style home with better accommodations for wheelchairs should she need that. Unfortunately, on Memorial Day Martin fell from a ladder making a roof repair to their former home. He broke his left tibia and fibula right under the knee. He had four surgeries and now has lots of hardware in his leg. Nerve damage is preventing him from flexing his left foot much, but there is slow improvement. He now walks with a cane and does extensive physical therapy. So, he was the first to use a wheelchair in their new home.

I continue to maintain the home front and teach ballroom dancing for the county park authority. I also do church and volunteer work. We found a bit more time to sail this summer on our 31 ft Cal boat. In July we attended the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics meeting in Perugia, Italy. We have really enjoyed our new roof, siding, windows, kitchen and added master bedroom and bath plus powder room. Everything was completed in less than 5 months. We, with Duncan, will take our first Carleton sponsored travel beginning November 23 to the Galapagos Islands.

Paul Zitzewitz
Email: pwz@umich.edu
Phone: 734-420-2746
Address: 16229 Country Knoll Drive
Northville, MI 48168
This is my final year of teaching, and next year I'll be on a retirement furlough. Between now and next June I'll continue to teach electronics, advanced lab., and two different courses in physics and physical science for pre-service elementary teachers, all of which I enjoy very much. This past summer we spent four weeks with our three grandchildren as our son and daughter-in-law were moving from Stanford to Dartmouth. The twins are now 3 1/2 and the baby 18 months, and it was a great time. We expect that within a few days our daughter and son-in-law, both teaching at the University of Chicago, will have a baby girl. Barbara is moving much better now after a hip replacement, and we're both enjoying life here in Northville and in Traverse City during at least part of the summer. Best wishes for the holidays to everyone!

Class of 1965

Betty Hessel
Email: ebhessel@cox.net
Phone: 480-483-7735
Address: 8355 E Cactus Wren Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
For the last four years I have been teaching part-time at Scottsdale Community College. I'm also using the resulting tuition credit to enroll in the fitness center and yoga courses. I am teaching evening astronomy labs and introductory algebra in the daytime. I started out teaching computer science instead of math, but the computer science department has vanished with full employment. Even though there are plenty of jobs, students are reluctant to go into a field known for layoffs and outsourcing. I am teaching Introductory Algebra, which is 9th-grade algebra for students who couldn't pass the placement test. We've converted to teaching using a lab approach. The students do activities in class to help them discover what the concepts are, why they turn up in everyday problems, and how to remember them. Since these students have often had several years of high school math, they want to learn just enough to pass the test and forget it, as they did in high school. We have some success, but the drop-out rate is high. I have the same population in the astronomy labs. These are students who need a lab science and want one with no math requirement. But here they are interested in astronomy and they aren't expected to remember the math we use from class to class, so they aren't nearly as afraid of it. Our biggest problem with the lab class is the lack of clear skies. Even in the few years I've been teaching the sky has been getting hazier and hazier at our location. We are on the new flight path for the airport, so most of the haze is due to airplanes. We are out on the Indian reservation at the edge of Scottsdale, but the college believes in massive lighting for the campus. But we can still see well if the skies are clear. We have several types of small telescopes, and had a good time with Comet Holmes which is in perfect position for viewing during the evening labs.

Sam and I still have a bookstore, By The Book LC, though more and more of the business is coming from online sales and book fairs. I am the computer consultant and have gotten very good at packing books for mailing. We are also spending more and more time in Minnesota with our wonderful grandchildren (and children). Both of our daughters are married and live in the Minneapolis area. Mara is the finance person for a software company. She has two daughters, Frieda aged seven and Molly aged three. Karen is an OB/GYN and has a son, Zeke, who is almost two. Charles is a real estate investment banker. He is working for an investment group in Princeton but lives in Manhattan. So we also travel east to visit.

Richard Karon
Email: Karon2@cox.net
Address: 140 American Way
Jamestown, RI 02835
My responsibilities as Manager of Technology Investments for Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems [IDS] business continued to evolve in 2007. I moved into the Strategic Architecture Directorate to join our new Technical Director, along with the Business Tech Directors and the Technology Area leaders. Always good to have your job responsibilities align with those of your direct boss! In addition to my other duties, I led development of a web-based Technology Needs/management database tool to assure alignment of the inputs and reports for all of our stakeholders.

2007 also saw significant milestones in my Toastmasters activities. I completed all of the communications and leadership certificate levels and requirements and earned the Distinguished Toastmaster [DTM] award. One of the many requirements is to sponsor a new Toastmasters club. I sponsored the 5th club in IDS. This helped IDS receive one of the first Toastmasters International Corporate Sponsorship Awards, presented by the International President to our Division President. The timing was excellent: I received my DTM from the International President, who attended our District spring conference for these 2 milestones.

Paul Norton
Email: p.norton@verizon.net
It's been a good year again. I attended three conferences—the Indian Science Congress south of Chennai in January. Then an infrared detector conference in Orlando in April, followed by a crystal growth conference in Zakopane, Poland in May. At the Indian and Polish meetings I gave a talk on infrared sensors used in NASA's mission to planet Earth. At the Orlando I am a conference co-chair, so I only gave a few humorous remarks and showed a video of an infrared detection of flatulence--some in the audience were amused. While in India I saw the Taj Mahal, and bought some carpets for my bedroom. My host took me to a wild-life refuge in eastern Poland after the May conference.

Fishing went well. In June my boys and I went to my secret lake for large small-mouth bass and northern pike. In August my oldest son and I went to Wyoming, Montana, and California fly fishing for trout. All the fish were released except four bass that were eaten after my brother-in-law worked his culinary magic on them.

My kids are alive and doing well in spite of suspected genetic defects. Wynne is getting her PhD in social psychology at U. Connecticut in a about 18 months. Andrew is a senior at U. Santa Cruz and has a job with the National Center for Adaptive Optics testing hysteresis in the latest hardware. Erik is going to Santa Barbara City College studying Economics and playing Junior A hockey. I enjoy watching the games.

Finally, I am still working part time as a consultant for the Army's Night Vision Laboratory in Virginia. I enjoy keeping busy part time, while still having time for chores around the house.

Class of 1966

Eric Lasley
Email: elasley@san.rr.com
It has been a couple of years since I have written. One of the Carleton-related highlights since then was a visit I had with Bruce Thomas during my class reunion in June of 2006. Bruce arrived at Carleton the fall after I graduated, so it took me until now to discover that we had a lot in common. Among other things, we both got our Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University, had Peter Carruthers as our thesis advisor and wanted to teach physics at a liberal arts college. It was interesting to hear how many physics faculty positions were open among Carleton's sister mid-western liberal arts schools in 1966 -- a situation that was soon to change.

I continue to enjoy retirement here in San Diego in spite of wildfires, traffic congestion and the like. San Diego is beginning to mature as a city with a vibrant downtown life and residential population that was totally absent ten or fifteen years ago. Besides my leisure activities involving classical music and reading, I have had the chance to take a number of interesting trips. The most recent one involved renting an apartment in Paris for a month and getting the chance to enjoy the many museums, musical venues, beautiful architecture and, rumors to the contrary, friendly people. It was my first non-business foreign travel in a long time and I loved it. My ability to understand and speak the French language suffered from a sadly deficient education during high school amplified by almost fifty years of neglect. Fortunately my traveling companion Judith was quite fluent and correspondingly popular with the Parisians.