Class of 1954

Walter Wales

At the end of the 2001-2002 academic year I reluctantly decided that I should retire, primarily to make way for younger faculty. Since I didn't have anything better to do, and since the department here is short of teachers, I have arranged to teach part-time for the next few years. This fall I am actually teaching full-time, which would have worked quite well except that I was recalled to active duty in the administration in mid-September when the Associate Provost died. Fortunately my tour of duty will be just for this academic year, and I will try my hand at retirement again next fall.

Class of 1956

Rodger Baggenstoss

Email: arbaggynetzero.net

Address: 4062 La Canada Road, Falbrook, CA 92028

Phone: (760) 728-3078

After a five-year lapse, Alice and I are back to teaching kids in the K-12 grades. We're tutoring kids, mostly Hispanic living in a trailer park, after school from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. and loving it. It is truly rewarding to see the look of comprehension suddenly appear on a young child's face. The tutoring school is actually a trailer donated by the Christian owner of the park and headed up by another Christian, a retired building contractor. Alice concentrates on teaching the Hispanic kids English and I help them with their math. To my fellow retirees--try it; you'll like it!

Robert Hill

Address: 355 Laurel Avenue

Saint Paul, MN 55102

Phone: (651) 292-0813

I have been retired from the University of Delaware where I taught for 33 years for five and a half years now. My health is good--I still run on a treadmill, cycle, lift weights, and play basketball at the YMCA. I renewed my NSF research grant for three years just before I retired, and did the work in an office in my house in St. Paul, Minnesota, in collaboration with a former student. An 85-page comprehensive paper on a robust, numerically stable basis set method for circumventing the "variational collapse problem" and solving the one particle Dirac equation which came out of that research appeared a few months ago in the March 2002 issue of the Canadian Journal of Physics. I did not try to renew my NSF grant after it expired because I wanted the freedom to work on problems which interested me without being concerned about whether or not they could attract funding and/or were suitable for students. When not working on math and/or physics problems I volunteer at a local model railroad museum, or work on finishing off my basement for my own toy train museum (AKA "Bobby's playroom").

Class of 1957

Bob Hall

Email: rwall1maine.rr.com

Hi all, still enjoying retirement and have entirely bowed out of things professional, though I do continue to follow the U. of Maine hockey team. It, as you all know, lost the NCAA championship game to Minnesota 4-3 in overtime last spring. The most amazing thing to happen to me this year (or any) was running into Paul Nachman (70) on the portage between Kingfisher Lake and Ogishkemuncie off the Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness. He was travelling with a lady friend from California and I was on Old Geezer canoe trip #9 with a high school buddy. It took each of us awhile to realize whom the other one was since we had never met before. But, after the Physics Dept. newsletter 2 years ago, we'd corresponded about canoe tripping in the BWCAW and how long we older folk could continue to do it. It's a small world! (Paul&endash;thanks for the photo of the two of us at the portage. I'm going to frame and hang it cause it's a great story.) Cheers to all.