CLASS NOTES | SUMMER 2025 | 41 American Basketball Association, me—Los Alamos County, NM, “over 30” league, not quite the ABA!), still play golf. Hedy and I are fortunate to have good health. I did have a monthlong bout with COVID-19 in early 2021, but I was not hospitalized and have no longterm effects, with the possible exception of major mental lapses periodically on the golf course! Although a completely severed right Achilles tendon rebuild, a completely severed left quad tendon rebuild and a right knee replacement pretty much curtailed the competitive basketball, fast-pitch softball and tennis, I still stay active with golf and pickleball, trout fishing and some travel, as long as I can keep getting periodic epidural injections in my lower back and steroid shots in my left knee. In essence, I’m more-or-less medically sound, but orthopedically a wreck. Hedy, on the other hand, has minimal orthopedic and medical issues and is a really strong, competitive tennis and pickleball player. She sure would love to drag her husband on a lot more foreign and domestic travel than I let her. So, in October, she, our oldest daughter, and two girlfriends took a 2.5-week trip—without their husbands—in Spain and Portugal hiking about 120 miles of the Camino de Santiago. “We still spend our summers at a cabin in Northern New Mexico and our winters in Tucson, Ariz., and we invite any travelers in either area to contact us. Much as we loved horseback riding in the backcountry of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, we gave up our horses two years ago and now get as deep into the forest as we can on OHVs (off-highway vehicles), with an annual multi-night stay OHV-riding in some of Colorado’s most beautiful areas.” Did hear recently from Rein Mannik, who reported: “We did move out of our condo in pricey Naples and moved 20 miles north to Estero. Estero is a small village located between Bonita Springs and Fort Myers. We have a single home on a small lake and love it here. I am nearing the completion of a book I have been writing. It was a project I started about six years ago, when I found my father’s old briefcase containing old documents when we fled Estonia in September of 1944. The book is called ‘Gift of Freedom’ and is dedicated to my parents, who gave me that gift. It chronicles our escape from Estonia, making our way through Germany while being bombed by Allied planes, and finally to Austria in February 1945. The book contains stories and photos and is historically accurate. In 1949, we were able to come to America under the Truman Doctrine, which had a special provision for displaced Baltic people. The book continues through our lives to the present day, with photos and stories, and is more than 800 pages. My final chapter, which I am working on, is ‘Finding My Roots.’ Hopefully, I will be able to publish it one day, Lord willing.” ’66 James A. Tiefenbrunn, 1210 Kirkland Village Circle, Bethlehem, Pa. 18017. (484) 695-4692 (C), jat1@lehigh.edu It is with a heavy heart that I report the passing of Harry Brown, our class president. Harry served enthusiastically since 2006, planning reunions and attending numerous alumni activities, football games and wrestling matches. He dedicated many efforts to class communications and will be forever remembered for his email “blasts” to the class. Harry loved to send greeting cards, and I looked forward to receiving mine on such occasions as birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Paddy’s Day, Halloween and a few more. Thank you, Harry. Our condolences to Susan and family. I received two letters for this issue. First up is Saul “Sandy” Miller. We were section mates in Dravo B-3 freshman year. Sandy writes, “As one would expect, I’ve been many years retired. Putting aside my underused law degree, I had mostly worked in the publishing world; about halftime as a writer of adult nonfiction (five published books) and half-time as the owner of a small children’s book publishing company. “In retirement, now that my granddaughter is 12 and my grandparenting responsibilities are greatly reduced, in addition to attending to quotidian chores, I continue to play a ton of tennis and do pottery in a fairly serious way. And like many retirees, I spend some part of the year traveling. In recent years, my partner, Lisa Pines—a retired teacher and photographer—and I have spent substantial time in Italy, South Africa and Namibia. “Also, I should say that many trips abroad throughout the years have entailed visiting classmate Michael Paris. Michael expatriated to the Netherlands in 1969, where he has lived a quite interesting life. After a long career as an educator in higher education, Michael lives in a beautiful village an hour plus southeast of Amsterdam. He lives with his Dutch partner, Laura Van Loosbroek, in an old renovated farmhouse, whose upkeep occupies much of Michael’s time and effort. “I should end by saying that I live in Brooklyn and have basically spent my entire adult life here in New York City, almost all of that time in various Brooklyn neighborhoods, currently Ditmas Park. That’s it in a nutshell.” Peter Miller reports that “Patti and I have lived in Omaha for the past 34 years, but moved around quite a bit prior to landing here. I started in Connecticut, where I worked for Electric Boat building and overhauling submarines. In the mid-1970s I moved on to Morrison Knudsen and then in the early ’90s to Peter Kiewit Sons in Omaha. After submarines, I moved on to power plant design/build and servicing, telecommunications system design/build, and environmental services and construction management at various Department of Energy sites. Along the way we lived in eight states, raised two great daughters, and I received an MBA from Pepperdine. “After all of that moving, we found a home in Omaha. I retired in 2002, and Patti and I spent a number of years motorhome traveling. Next, we began more international travel with trips to Australia, Europe and the Mediterranean. In 2010, we began traveling to the Phoenix area (North Scottsdale and Peoria) during the winter to enjoy the warmer weather and golf. We took this year off from travel to Arizona to deal with some health issues. We built a new home in Omaha during the pandemic to keep ourselves occupied, downsize a bit and get most of our living space on one floor. These days we play a lot of golf and enjoy the challenges of moving into our 80s. We communicate with Tricia and Hal Yeich frequently.” ’67 Eric Hamilton, journeyman618@ gmail.com After my most recent email requesting news, a record 17 of you responded! That’s nearly a year’s worth of column inches. Thank you all! Gordon Arkin, with one of his high school classmates, “just finished four glorious days of skiing in Whitefish, Mont. Not bad for two almost 80-year-olds.” Tom Baumgartner: “Twenty years retired and living in Ontario, Canada. Became a Canadian citizen. Playing golf and tennis in the summer and curling in the winter. Also like to write computer programs and getting more into duplicate
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