Jeff Daum

Richard Winter (Winter)

I had just moved to Boston and had the month of July off between jobs.   Had rented an apartment but had nothing much in it besides a mattress, a window air conditioner and some moving boxes.  It was the first place of my own that was not already furnished.  Did not have a television and had not read a newspaper since arriving in Boston on July 1.  Had no idea that we had actually launched a mission to the moon.  

Drove down to Falmouth to have my first day on the beaches on Cape Cod.   Got thirsty, walked into a bar and saw that everyone was intently watching the TV.   Glanced up at the screen and there was a guy in a spacesuit walking on the moon!   My first thought was how truly amazing this was.   Then I thought of JFK and had a moment of sadness that he didn't live to see it.    

Philip Spiess

Paul -- I can't stand hearing myself speak as recorded; I think I sound like a bad parody of myself.

Richard -- just curious:  what took you to Boston, and what happened after "between jobs"?

Bruce Fette

I will be happy to vote in November. I will be looking for someone who is both honest and intelligent enough to have an intelligent plan. I had hoped for Kasick. Now I am hoping for Kaine.

How about the rest of us?

PS. My first mail on Windows 10. Seems to be working OK.

Gene Stern

Let's not get into ANY political discussions or we will ruin a great place for interesting dialogue. The Class of 63 got into that spiral and has not been the same ever since. We all have our personal beliefs and I would hope we keep them to ourselves.

Richard Winter (Winter)

Phil,

By the time I graduated from college, I was deeply interested in computer software development.   And, I wanted to work on leading edge, challenging software problems.   There were two outstanding centers in the US for this in 1969: one in the Boston area (fed primarily by MIT) and one in the San Francisco area (fed primarily by Stanford and Berkeley).   

I did a job search in both areas and decided to join a tiny software company in Kendall Square, Cambridge, located across a courtyard from the MIT AI (artificial intelligence) lab.  The tiny company I joined, Computer Corporation of America, grew into a world famous research lab in advanced database technology and created a product that was used to manage large databases in a thousand companies around the world.  I loved working there and stayed with the company for 22 years.

Richard

PS - About two years into my tenure at CCA, I was assigned to work on a research project funded by ARPA (now known as DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), where I contributed in a minor way to the development of the ARPAnet.   The ARPAnet later grew into something we all know: the Internet.   

Dale Gieringer

Gene -  I heartily second your warning about getting into political discussions.   Traveling in Botswana now, it's a relief to be away from the din of the conventions.   Could you tell us more though about what befell the Class of 63?

Gene Stern

Dale: I keep in touch with a.number of the class of 63 and as we compared notes I was told that the political passions must of us hold dear became the leading discussions on their website and as those discussions took center stage, my friends stopped participating in the message forums. I think we will all agree that our political beliefs are difficult to change and as our country is roughly 50-50 on most issues, having dialogues on our beliefs will surely anger and disappoint about half of the readers and for that reason I made the request to leave those discussions and continue on the threads that are not polarizing. Tell us about the most interesting sights on your current treks.

Jerry Ochs

In my opinion, we members of the class of 1964 are mature enough (we are certainly OLD enough) to discuss politics without rancor.  It should come as no surprise that the class of 1963 failed: the majority belong to the less intelligent party.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

While Bruce was was working for Motorola, my late husband, Ed, was also working for a government contactor producing radios for the armed forces.  He began as a young electrical engineer, working for Crosley, which became Avco, then later became Cincinnati Electronics.  He was quite proud of his contribution on secure satellite communications with the Singars project. 

I'm with Gene, there is enough political discussion on other social media.  I much prefer to discover our shared interests and memories on this wonderful site. Share the love. 

Paul Simons

Thanks for your validation of my cringing at my own recorded audio/video Phil. I've heard famous people say the same thing. Gene and jerry about politics - I'll keep it to myself. It just confirms the statement we've all heard - various people can be presented with exactly the same physical evidenve and reach widely different conclusions or judgements. And it does become heated. In fact heat is what it's all about this time - whether burning 1 trillion tons of hydrocarbons a year generates heat, or not. I'm not a physicist but I can't help concluding that it does. But obviously opinions differ, and I will respect the right of every person to hold fast to their opinions. But the fact is, we burn stuff, humanity as a species burns a lot of stuff.

Philip Spiess

Richard:  Wow!  What a career development!  Thanks for specifying what you did.

Jerry Ochs

I would like to ask a question that is political but does not concern the election.   Why is a state in the United States or a province in some other country not allowed to secede?

Mary Vore (Iwamoto)

In an effort to stimulate the real photographers to post more of their photographs, here are some from our recent trip to Alaska.  The first one is from the plane on the flight from Anchorage to Seattle, and shows two of the hundreds of glaciers.  One of the glaciers we hiked to (the Exit Glacier in the Kenai National Park) had receded 131 feet in the last year... The second is of Mt. Rainier, taken from the plane window on the flight from Seattle to Detroit - it was in clouds while we were in Seattle.  The last is taken in Whittier, Alaska while we waited for the one-lane two mile tunnel to drive back to Anchorage.  The traffic goes one way on the hour and the reverse on the half-hour.  If a train needs to use the tunnel (the tracks run down the middle of the one lane), it waits for the cars to clear, then the train uses the tunnel.  The best part - a sign that reads "Do not change lanes"! 

Steven Levinson

You raise an interesting subject, Jerry.  The United States Constitution is silent on the subject of secession.  I believe that it is what the courts call a "political question" (no offense to Gene or anyone else), that is, a question that, by its very nature, is not justiciable.  As a matter of policy, we fought a tragic, and largely useless, war over it.  The Civil War, in itself, freed not a single slave, ushered in Jim Crow, exposed the extent of racisim in the North, and killed a record high percentage of the American population.  I don't know what would happen if, say, Texas undertook to seceed from the Union.  Personally, it wouldn't hurt my feelings any.

Jonathan Marks

I'm crushed.

Jonathan Marks

Yes, Phil, Mary Costa was a particularly glamorous (as well as talented) soprano with whom I appeared in Massenet's Manon at the Zoo.  (She was Manon, I was the guy standing there with the silly costume.)  We all had heard her, though, as the voice of Disney's Cinderella.  She's 88 now.

Larry, it may be correct to speak of Al Smith's wife, ut incomplete; she was Captain Windy.

My dad and I watched the moon landing late at night in the lobby of a hotel in Belgium.  People congratulated us wherever we went.

Jerry Ochs

If Texas seceded and Mexico invaded Texas, would the 49 states intervene?  By the way, we should all be able to remember when there were 48 states.  When Hawaii and Alaska became states, did someone in their government promise never to secede?  If Fort Sumner hadn't been attacked, would the war have been averted?

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

Terrific photos, Mary. Especially the mountain in the clouds.

I will stay away from the secession issue.

Steven Levinson

Jon, I'm willing to make a Lubbock Exception.  On the other hand, you moved to the Lone Star Republic with your eyes open.  I must say that I love the explanatory monologue on the various regions of Texas that was inserted into Richard Linklater's delightful Bernie.  "Put another tire on the fahr, Bubba!"  

Sally Hastie (Dessner)

Hi Steve and everyone,   I was so sorry to miss the great 70th weekend.  I have been following the posts and it certainly sounds that you all had a wonderful time.   I was visiting my daughter and her family in Northern Italy where she has moved to a beautiful little town of Alba.  One of my sons now lives in the Marais section of Paris and my other son will spend a few years in Denmark as his wife is Danish and raising children there is reportedly wonderful.  I think my future will see alot of international travel.    

 I am interested in your statement that the Civil War didn't free the slaves.   I understood that the Confederacy didn't recognize the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and it was only after the Northern victory in April of 1865 that the slaves were freed.   Can you clarify.  Was it the 13th amendment in December of 1865 that in fact freed the slaves?  I am now spending time in the Upper Hudson Valley and have been learning about the history of the area.   I was horrified to learn that many people owned slaves here in up state New York as well as in New York City.   The Underground Railroad was very active in this area. 

Steven Levinson

Hi, Sally.  Wonderful to hear from you.  I was feeling some writer's remorse about my Civil War comments, so thank you for calling me out as to them.  I meant pretty much exactly what you said.  The Emancipation Proclamation was an important symbolic and shrewd potitical ploy by Lincoln; by executive order, he expressed revulsion over the institution of slavery, expressly left it legal in non-seceeding states, (including the border states of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri), and knew damned well that the purported freeing of the slaves in the Confederacy was unenforceable.  As you say, the thirteenth amendment -- not ratified until December 1865 -- was the instrument by which abolition was legally accomplished.

What wonderful parts of the world your kids live in!  Cathy was an Army Brat growing up and lived in Salzburg (second and third grade) for two years and Copenhagen (sixth through eighth grade) for three.  She showed me Copenhagen in July 2013 (including a lot of time with childhood friends, now old like us) and Salzburg last November.

Laura Reid (Pease)

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

John Osher, Laura Reid Pease and Randy Greenwald in Michigan. What a treat!!

Sandy Steele (Bauman)

Looks like I was in Michigan too early this year😊