IN THIS ISSUE
Photography Around the World
Scaling the World’s Highest Peaks
Spain’s Athletic Architecture
Poole Fellows
Bulletin Staff
Editor
Julie Reiff
Director of Development
Jerry Romano
Alumni Notes
Karen Dost
Design
Good Design
Proofreaders
Nina Maynard
Karen Taylor
CONT
Mail letters to:
Julie Reiff, Editor
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
[email protected]
Send alumni news to:
Karen Dost
Alumni Office
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
[email protected]
Deadlines for Alumni Notes:
Winter–November 15, 2000
Spring–February 15, 2001
Summer–May 30, 2001
Fall–August 30, 2001
Send address corrections to:
Sally Membrino
Alumni Records
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
[email protected]
1-860-945-7777
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This magazine is printed
on recycled paper.
BU L L E T I N
F A L L • 2 0 0 0
Volume 71 Number 1
SPOTLIGHT
From HDT to Bora-Bora .......................................... 14
ENTS
One Photographer’s View of the World
By Todd A. Gipstein ’70
On the Ascent ........................................................... 22
Taking On the Climb of His Life
By Chris Shaw ’80
Athletic Architecture in Cataluña .............................. 28
The Beauty of Defiance
By Peter Frew ’75
Tribute to Donald F. McCullough ’42 ......................... 5
DEPARTMENTS
Alumni in the News .................................................... 6
Presidential candidate, covers,
words to remember, film award, and more
Around the Pond ...................................................... 10
Page 12
Poole Fellows, new faculty, admissions,
Parents’ Fund heads, and more
From the Editor .......................................................... 4
Letters ......................................................................... 4
Endnote by Jon Willson ’82 ...................................... 32
On the Covers
Front: Todd Gipstein ’70 took this photograph of a fisherman in Wuhan, China.
“At dawn, I walk out of my hotel to get a ride to some tombs. With a few minutes
to kill, I round the corner and find this image before me. The fisherman mirrored
in the lake seemed a vision right out of an ancient watercolor. It was the best picture
I made that day, and one I just happened upon.” See page 12.
Back: Summer Poole Fellow Karen Kwok ’01 performs the ancient Buddhist ritual
of casting prayers into the air. Karen spent her summer in the Tibetan region of
China, where she served as an English-Mandarin interpreter. See page 8.
Page 20
The Taft Bulletin is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by
The Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 and is distributed
free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of the school.
E-Mail Us! Now you can send your latest news, address change, birth announcement,
or letter to the editor to us via e-mail. Our address is Taft [email protected].
Of course we’ll continue to accept your communiqués by such “low -tech”
methods as the fax machine (860-945-7756), telephone (860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail
(110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100). So let’s hear from you!
Visit Taft on the Web to find the latest news, sports schedules, or to locate a classmate’s
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access alumni or faculty e-mail addresses—or to add your own—is
Page 26
L
E
T
T
E
R
S
From the Editor
Letters
By now you’ve received the letter announcing
Lance Odden’s retirement in June after 29 years as
headmaster and 40 years at the school. He and
Patsy have left their marks at Taft in innumerable
ways, and yet, in the spring issue of the Bulletin we
will attempt to describe what their leadership has
meant to our community. I welcome your thoughts
and recollections for this special tribute.
Meanwhile, I would like to draw your attention to some of the highlights of the current issue.
One of the benefits of printing the Bulletin
completely in color now is that it finally allows us
to portray the work of artists and photographers,
such as Todd Gipstein ’70. I have long been
familiar with his work as a student in early Taft
Bulletins and was thrilled earlier this year when
Todd agreed to write about his work with the
National Geographic Society and to share some
of his favorite images. What a wonderful treat it
is to be able to share them with you.
Of course all of the features in this issue are well
served by printing them in color, from Peter
Frew’s sabbatical photos in Spain to Chris Shaw’s
breathtaking images on K2.
I’ll admit that a great deal of serendipity goes
into finding interesting articles for the Bulletin,
but this summer saw one of the more unusual
turns of events. Chris Shaw, who returned to
campus in May for his 20th Reunion, left only a
few days later for Pakistan. As a classmate of my
husband’s, he was at our house for a while after
the barbecue, but not a whisper about the upcoming climb. (He says he was so excited he
thought he was only keeping it to a dull roar.)
Two months later, faculty member Ted
Heavenrich tells me he’s been getting e-mails from
Chris at Base Camp and asks if I think they’d make
a good article. Little did I know my husband had
been getting the same e-mails the whole time!
The experiences of these alumni are unusual; not
many of us climb 8,000-meter peaks, shoot photographs from the mast of a racing sailboat, or pack up
our families and move to Spain for a year, but I think
you’ll agree the chance to live vicariously for a few
minutes is well worth the time. Enjoy!
Older Than They Look
—Julie Reiff
We welcome Letters to the Editor relating to the
content of the magazine.
Letters may be edited for length, clarity, and
content, and are published at the editor’s
discretion. Send correspondence to:
Julie Reiff, Editor • Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-210
or to [email protected]
The football team being looked over by Al Fusonie
on page 35 [of the summer issue] is way ahead of
your estimate of the late ’40s. It is the undefeated,
untied team of 1935. The second guy in the front
line is Bob Clarke, and the third guy is Phil
Weston. Phil was in the Class of ’36 with me. Sadly
he was killed as a pilot cadet in the U.S. Army Air
Corps. I was a cadet, too, at the time he was killed,
but I was at a different school. My bet is that others
of the nine pictured can be identified.
—John A. Vanderpoel ’36
Almost Famous
The “Before They Were Famous” photo of my
classmate Peter Berg on page 22 [summer]
caught my attention. I’m 99 percent certain
the blond boy behind him is John Connolly
’79 and the boy behind him is Andrew Plant
’80. Just passing it along.
—Jim Ramsey ’80
A Teacher, Too
On Alumni Day, Charles A. Coit—who was
listed only as a member of the Class of ’35 in the
program at the Memorial Service—was mourned
not just by his classmates but by all who knew
him as coach and French teacher from 1939 until
he was called into military service.
With his infectious smile and informal manner, he made the intricacies of French grammar
something I actually looked forward to and his
classroom one I entered without the fear of cold
disapproval or scathing remarks.
I remember once coming to class without
having read the latest episode in Phileas Fogg’s
80-day trip and being asked, along with the
others, to write an account of what the intrepid
traveler had done. Knowing only that he was
somewhere in the wild West, I placed him aboard
John Ford’s Stagecoach and had him shooting
Apaches with the best of them. Charlie, on seeing
my effort, roared with laughter and read it aloud
to the class. They joined in the laughter and,
inexplicably, so did I, for he had the ability to
criticize a student’s work without humiliating
him. This was a gift not shared by all my masters.
—Ted Mason ’43
Faculty Friend or Foe
I read with much interest Barclay Johnson’s comments in the summer issue. I came to Taft as a mid
in the summer (that’s right) of 1963, and I remember the school much differently. I had all the
interaction with masters that I wanted, or could
stand. They were everywhere you looked—on your
corridor, at your meal table morning, noon, and
night, in your classes, on the sports fields, even on
the squash courts. About the only refuge was when
you got away to Watertown. Even there, I was
always running into masters or their wives. You
were almost forced into conversation, and I realized
sometime later that it was this constant proximity
that forced you to get to know masters as people.
I never had the feeling that masters were aloof
or not available. I even remember once when I was
a resident on Barclay’s floor, that he came into my
room at about 5 a.m. I was reading Browning for
class, and he smiled with a wink as he noticed me
sipping coffee from my very illegal percolator and
listening to tunes on my equally illegal transistor
radio. He said something like: “I think we need a
little discretion in our enforcement of some of the
corridor rules” and that was that. And I’ll never
forget that Tom Cherry and I were permitted to
pack shotguns around the countryside during
grouse season instead of doing “real” sports each
afternoon. Can you imagine that happening today? Are kids less trustworthy today than we were,
or are we just more politically correct?
I do agree with one thing Barc said. Those
forced mixers with St. Margaret’s and other girls’
schools were awful for everyone. More than any
other thing, I’m sure that life at Taft has been
enriched by the presence of girls.
—Bob Bloch ’65
Revisionist History
All of us see things differently, but Barclay Johnson’s
memories in his “Spirit of Learning” remarks to the
Class of 2000 are so unlike mine, I must respond.
The Taft of the Cruikshank years was formal as
were all other boys’ schools. Contrasting it with
the informality of today in schools—as well as in
the rest of our society—is not fair. Times change.
In relating his memories over decades at Taft, he
almost totally skips and actually distorts one of the
most tumultuous and yet productive decades in
Taft’s history. John Esty, a friend whom I admire
and respect, was headmaster from 1963–72. While
Johnson suggests that Cruikshank took the first risk
of his life by hiring him, I would say that was no risk
at all compared to the one he took when he turned
over the reins to Esty. John was attuned to greater
informality and to giving the student more freedom
thereby better preparing him for college days ahead.
Cruikshank recognized those needs and, importantly and to his credit, understood that Esty was
going to manage quite differently.
Taft has prospered and matured since the
Cruikshank/Esty eras. The Odden era boasts yet
continued on page 50
4
Fall 2000
M
E
M
O
R
I
A
M
In Memoriam
Camille Vickers
Donald F. McCullough ’42
It is an honor to be asked to
speak about Don and to
share our love and sympathy with Lulu, Greg, Nina,
Sally, Tracey, and the great
McCullough family.
Simply put, it is impossible to believe that Don
McCullough is no longer
here. It is as if a force of
nature has been extinguished.
His energy, his enthusiasm
for life, and his convictions
about everything surpassed
those of any man I have every
known. Where once there
was a personal whirlwind, a
tornado, now there is only
silence; but we have our
memories, our own stories Former Chairman of the Board Don McCullough ’42 with his
that we will cherish forever, Patsy and Lance Odden
and Don’s legacies are the making of legends.
lacrosse and was undefeated in his years as a member
I saw Don two weeks ago just before he was of the varsity wrestling team. He made the Sheffield
struck down for the last time. His physical frailty Honor Society in his senior year, much to the delight
was undeniable, but his mind and spirit were as of his old headmaster. By nineteen, he was an honors
if he had a common cold. Typically, we were not graduate of Yale University and proudly called to
allowed to dwell on him but on Taft, the future, duty as an officer in the United States Navy, serving
and our plans to play golf together in Lyford Cay. his country in World War II. After the war, Don
To the very end, his energy and spirit radiated.
barely had time to adjust to civilian life before he was
For a moment, let us go back to Don’s youth. In called back to the bridge in the Korean War, where
the words of his headmaster at Brunswick, written he served for two and a half years as an officer on
to the headmaster of Taft in 1936, “Don is healthy destroyer duty. His years at Taft, Yale, and as a naval
and very, very, active. He has good marks and has officer forged the man we would know so well.
Whether he was balancing the budget or bringdisplayed evidence of leadership. He is extremely
fond of his brother, Bob, and patterns himself after ing the Wildcat into the pier, Don was precise
him as much as possible. Since Bob is determined and always in command.
Whether he was facing perilous conditions on
to enter the Naval Academy, Don wishes to do the
same thing. However, their parents hope that Bob the seas, his own mortality, or the early fears of war,
and Don will ultimately decide to enter a civilian he was a man of certain courage. He did not blink.
Whatever the venue, whether it was a wrescollege, for example, Yale, Princeton, Brown, or
Amherst.” That same application tells us that Don tling match, the high seas, arguing about which
McCullough loves sports, particularly football and club was better, or shamelessly negotiating on the
sailing in junior yacht club races, and that he is golf course to make up for his lack of practice,
fascinated by ships of all kinds and how they work. competition coursed through Don’s veins. He
His curiosity was endless. The boy of twelve would rarely lost and never admitted it.
Whether it was Stoneleigh-Burnham, the Girls’
become the man we knew, and quite quickly.
Five years later, Paul Cruikshank, Taft’s headmas- and Boys’ Clubs of America, Yale University, or
ter, wrote to Don’s parents commenting on their Taft, Don McCullough believed in assuring that
sixteen-year-old graduate. “This has been Don’s youth get the future they deserved. In fact, he was so
finest year at Taft. Scholastically, he has excelled. He proud of his school, so certain of his cause, and such
has done a splendid job as a monitor. His leadership an able fundraiser, that Lulu told me that crowds
is of the right kind, and he has done a good job for the would part like the Red Sea at a cocktail party when
school and for himself. Yale will not be easy, but if he they saw Don coming, fearing he was going to put
the “arm on them” for Taft yet one more time. No
devotes himself to it, he will do well.”
And so he did. He played varsity football and one was a better fund raiser.
While he was a demanding
boss, he was loved by his employees at Collins and Aikman,
where for years after his retirement they would say, “If only
Mr. Mac would come back, he
would straighten this out.” To
the boys on the Wildcat or the
team in Lyford, to the group
in Greenwich, to the great
Nantucket Gang, Don
McCullough was loved by all
who worked for him, in large
part because he so respected
and loved them. They all knew
what it meant when they
heard that Mr. Mac was coming to “kick the tires;” they
also knew what it meant to be
wife, Lulu, and there at the end of a party
when so often there would be
one last round and the best stories would be told.
Don would be unhappy if I didn’t highlight his way
with women. They loved his tall, handsome looks, his
style, and he lifted their spirits with a genuine interest
in them and more than a little flirtation. He was a great
ladies man, but he was also absolutely devoted to his
beloved Lulu, his best friend, and the one person able
to command his complete attention.
I want to end by talking about the visionary leader,
which he was whether leading C&A or Taft. He
created successes beyond anyone’s greatest hopes. He
was never afraid to make a decision and was contemptuous of discursive discussion by people afraid to
move ahead. Enough said, he would utter. Let’s get
it done. Action was his watchword. And so, Don built
C&A into a billion dollar corporation and raised
Taft’s endowment from $30 to $130 million, while
entirely rebuilding our campus. He returned our
school to a place of pride equal to Horace Taft’s days.
James McGregor Burns, one of the most insightful
scholars of presidential leadership, wrote, “Most leaders
manage, but great ones transform their organizations.”
Don McCullough was such a leader. He transformed
his company, his school, and in one way or another, each
of us here. Perhaps this was destined to be, for in his
senior yearbook it was written, “Great has been his
popularity, great has been his activity, and you can be
sure he will so continue at Yale and throughout life.” And
so he did by transforming organizations, by touching the
lives of each of us here, and by making the world a better
place for us all. The tornado is still, but his successes and
our memories endure forever.
—Eulogy delivered on October 3, 2000, by Lance
Odden at Donald F. McCullough’s memorial service.
Taft Bulletin
5
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
Alumni
IN THE NEWS
Hagelin Favored by Perot
While Republicans and Democrats convened over the summer to rubber-stamp
their candidates in the presidential election,
the Reform Party split into two camps—
one supporting Pat Buchanan and the other
hoping to nominate Third Party Coalition
candidate John Hagelin ’72.
Despite a walkout at the convention by
a number of delegates who felt Buchanan’s
tactics were less than ethical, Buchanan won
out, making it onto most state ballots on
the Reform Party ticket. The Federal Election Commission eventually recognized
Buchanan as the party’s official candidate,
awarding him the $12.6 million in campaign
funds to which the Reform Party is entitled
because of Ross Perot’s 8 percent share of
the electorate in the last presidential election.
Hagelin pointed out that the FEC decision went against the wishes of party
John Hagelin ’72
founder Ross Perot, who filed an affidavit
siding with Mr. Hagelin as “the only proper
candidate to receive public funding based
on the votes I received in the 1996 election.’’
Still, Hagelin received much more
media attention this year than in both of
his previous campaigns combined. He
ran on the Natural Law Party ticket in
1992 and 1996. Hagelin was still on the
ballot in 42 states this year as the Natural Law Party candidate.
“Government should be what
works,” Hagelin told the Seattle Times,
“not what is bought and paid for by
political interests.” Prior to his campaign, Hagelin headed the Physics
Department and a public policy program at Maharishi University of
Management in Fairfield, Iowa. He received his doctorate in physics from
Harvard University. With the election
over, he is considering creating a public policy think tank in Washington.
Phish Phrenzy
“The Biggest Cult Band in America!” bragged the August 4 cover of Entertainment Weekly, sporting
the likeness of Trey Anastasio ’83. Anastasio and his fellow band members have been called Generation X’s answer to the Grateful Dead. Like Jerry Garcia, they, too, even have a flavor of Ben and Jerry’s
ice cream named after them: Phish Food.
Best-known for their live performances, this band from Vermont has yet to release a hit single,
despite grossing over $93 million in concert sales between 1996 and 1999. That may be in no small
part because of the openly accepted practice of recording and trading tapes of live concerts. Anastasio
doesn’t know how the band got so popular. “It started off with the four of us playing in bars for, like,
two people,” he told EW. “People would tell their friends, and it’s somehow grown into this.”
Not long after the release its eleventh album, Farmhouse, the band announced it would take
a much-needed break. Manager John Paluska told the New York Times that not only was the
band exhausted, but they also want time to re-envision their careers in a way that’s consistent
with being family men.” Anastasio lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters.
6
Fall 2000
Trey Anastasio ’83, one of the
new Phab Four covers featuring
Phish. Photo by Joseph Cultice.
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
Alan Klingenstein ’72 gave up a career in
finance to enter the movie business, and the
gamble paid off as his company’s first feature film beat out 1,600 other submissions
to make it to the Sundance Film Festival this
year and came away with the festival’s prestigious Audience Award for best drama.
The film, Two Family House, was directed by Oscar-nominated Raymond
DeFelitta. Michael Rispoli (Summer of
Sam) stars as Buddy Visalo, a failed singerturned-factory worker who lives on New
York’s Staten Island. In his latest moneymaking scheme, Visalo buys a duplex so
he can convert the ground floor into a bar
where he can perform. But he also inherits a pregnant woman and her abusive,
alcoholic husband who live upstairs.
“I can’t tell you what it feels like to
have 500 people stand up and applaud
your work,” Al says. The film received
another coveted prize for independent
film producers: distribution. Lions Gate
paid Al’s production company, Filbert
Steps, an undisclosed sum for the
drama in exchange for worldwide
rights. Filbert Steps also received an
offer from USA Films.
“As long as people keep letting me
do this,” Al says of his new career, “it
sure beats being a lawyer or a banker.”
Trained as both—he has a law degree
and an MBA from Cornell—Al traded
in 12 years of number crunching “to do
something more fulfilling.”
His film career began in 1996, when
he produced the half-hour
documentary “The Church
of Saint Coltrane” with
friend and former NBC
Dateline producer Jeff
Swimmer. The short film
won awards at seven film
festivals and was ultimately
picked up and aired on
Bravo and cable outlets in
Europe and Asia.
In the meantime, to pay
the rent, Al moonlighted on
a project-by-project basis at
the investment firm
Kohlberg & Company with
longtime friend Jim
Kohlberg. It was here that Al
and Jim decided to form a
production company, and
named it after the Filbert
Steps on the eastern end of
Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, where each of them
had previously lived.
Filbert Steps Productions was formed in 1998 to
Kathy Klingenstein
Audiences Love It
Former financier Al Klingenstein ’72 now
happily produces movies.
produce low-budget independent feature
films. “Unlike most companies who call
themselves ‘independent,’ our company is
in a rare position when it comes to financing: We bring our own sources of capital
and private equity, through long-standing
connections on Wall Street and in the financial community, to our projects. Our
focus is on well-told stories of any genre
with heart, wit, and style,” Al says. “We
simply want to make films with good stories that we’d like to see.”
Two Family House, a 104-minute
drama, also screened at the Boston Film Festival in August, the Toronto International
Film Festival in September, and the Floating Film Festival. Al hopes to hold a special
screening in Bingham Auditorium this winter. For more information on the film, or
Al’s company, visit www.filbertsteps.com.
Winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award, Two Family
House is a drama about a 1950s factory worker and his latest dream.
Taft Bulletin
7
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
Timely Editing
The Virginia Quarterly Review celebrated
three-quarters of a century this spring
with the release of an anthology, We Write
for Our Own Time: Selected Essays From
75 Years of the Virginia Quarterly Review,
edited by Alexander Burnham ’45.
Longtime VQR editor Staige D.
Blackford says he had long thought of putting together a collection but lacked the
time to do so. When Burnham—who had
published essays in the VQR—approached
him with the same idea, he pounced.
The VQR has published pieces by
the 20th-century’s leading lights—
D. H. Lawrence, Andre Gidé, Aldous
Huxley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Katherine
Anne Porter, and C. Vann Woodward,
to name just a few. Its selections appear frequently in the annual Best
American Short Stories, Best American
Poetry, and Best American Essays series.
Considered by some to be The New
Yorker’s quieter country cousin, the VQR
published articles supporting civil rights
for black people as early as 1925. It was
also one of the first national journals with
a woman at the helm: Charlotte Kohler,
who edited it from 1942 to 1975, and
published many of the writers now known
for leading the Southern Renaissance.
In the anthology’s introduction,
Burnham takes a swipe at certain unnamed contemporary publications for
“their slavish attention to the notorious”
and lauds the VQR’s refusal to be impressed by “mere celebrity.”
The title comes from a VQR essay
by Sartre reflecting on art and immortality. “It’s the perfect title,” says
Burnham, because all the authors—
from Thomas Mann writing about the
rise of Nazism to Frances Mayes remembering her years as a student—
“were writing for their time.”
That’s not to say their essays were
ephemeral. In fact, Burnham decided to
omit pieces by Dean Acheson and Adlai
Stevenson that he thought were too
much “of the moment.”
A former New York Times reporter,
Burnham lives in Sharon, Connecticut,
with his wife, Joan.
Source: Geoffrey Maslen and Jennifer K.
Ruark, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Kerney Helping Kids
Atlanta Falcons defensive end Patrick
Kerney ’95 [see summer ’99] has established two endowment funds for
dependent children of slain law enforcement officers. The funds are in memory
of his only brother, Lt. Thomas L.
Kerney, who was killed in the line of
duty on December 15, 1988, in
Leesville, South Carolina.
Speaking to an audience of several
hundred children who had lost parents
in the line of duty, at the opening of
National Police Week in Washington,
DC, Kerney described the special relationship he had with his brother even
though there was a 14-year age difference between them. He told how his
late brother inspired him to succeed in
8
Fall 2000
the classroom and on the playing field,
as well as his desire to be involved with
community children.
Like his audience, Kerney is a member of Concerns of Police Survivors
(COPS), and spent the day touring the
FBI Academy with the children. One
of the two funds he is creating will go
toward college scholarships for COPS
children. The other will help defray
transportation costs to COPS Kids summer camp in the Ozarks for children
who need professional counseling to
help adjust to the loss of a law enforcement parent or sibling. In addition to a
discretionary amount, Kerney will donate $500 per sack of an opposing
quarterback during his professional ca-
Patrick Kerney ’95 visits with COPS Kids
at the opening of National Police Week
in Washington, DC.
reer, plus $5,000 for any year he has 10
or more sacks and will match up to
$5,000 in scholarship donations. To
learn more about COPS, visit their
Website at www.nationalcops.org or
e-mail [email protected].
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
Charitable Contributions
Sevanne on Stage
Sevanne Kassarjian ’87, known professionally as Sevanne Martin, spent
the summer performing with the
Peterborough Players in Peterborough,
NH. What was special about this summer, her fifth with the company, is that
they performed Thorton Wilder’s Our
Town, written about the town of
Peterborough while Wilder was at the
nearby renowned MacDowell Artists
Colony. Vanni, as “Emily,” played
alongside Emmy-Award-winner James
Whitmore and Mary Beth Hurt.
After five years teaching and acting in New York, Vanni moved to Los
Angeles this fall “to pursue her career
there even in the extra-dubious environment of the actors’ union strikes.”
Her husband, Paul Griffin, runs a
nonprofit organization called City at
Peace. The subject of a recent HBO
documentary, the group works with
teenagers using the performing arts
to teach conflict resolution, violence
prevention, and leadership skills.
Vanni’s classmate Garrett Wyman ’87
is now on the group’s national board
of directors.
Deb Porter-Hayes
Planned Parenthood Association of the Mercer area in Trenton, New
Jersey, recently presented Edgar M. Buttenheim ’40 with its distinguished Sanger Circle Award. The award is presented to individuals
who have made significant contributions to the advancement of Planned
Parenthood’s mission and acknowledges outstanding loyalty and generous support. Geg Buttenheim is a long-standing member of the
organization’s Board of Trustees, having served as both board president
and chairman of the agency’s enormously successful $3.2 million Campaign for the Future. Geg and his wife, Elizabeth, also a longtime
supporter of Planned Parenthood, live in Princeton.
Sevanne Martin ’87, center, with James Whitmore and Kraig Swartz in Thornton
Wilder’s Our Town.
Taft Bulletin
9
AROUND THE POND
pond
Poole
Fellowships
One of the most prestigious
awards at Taft isn’t given out at
graduation; it isn’t even limited
to seniors. A Poole Fellowship
is travel grant money awarded
each spring to help students
fund service projects around the
globe over their summer vacations. The fellowships are
named for Bob Poole ’50, who
returned to Taft to teach history
and make a name for himself
coaching football before embarking on a lifelong career of
service, first with the Peace
Corps and later with the African Wildlife Federation. His
legacy of serving others lives on.
ters, painted schools, refurbished a community center, and
cleaned beaches. “I was there for
a month,” says Kirk, “and the
best part was the remodeling of
a community center in the capital city, Castries, where we also
got to work with kids our age.”
Karen Kwok ’01 went to Tibetan regions of China, where
she served as an EnglishMandarin interpreter for
Americans doing charity work
there. As an interpreter, she
spent four weeks visiting a Tibetan hospital, a boarding
school, a monastery, a factory
for processing yak wool, an
elderly home, a few nomads’
Dennis Liu ’02, second from left, travels with his group up into the tents, and sat in on meetings
mountains of Costa Rica.
with town officials. (See photo
on back cover.)
Dennis Liu ’02 spent a month
“My best moment,” Karen says,
in Palmares, Costa Rica. “We did all sorts camera along and presented a movie of
“was probably at the elderly home.
of community service,” he says, “painting his trip at School Meeting this fall.
They were incredibly friendly and
classrooms and houses.” Work was also
done individually; Dennis took an intern- Kirk Kozel ’01 went to St. Lucia, in the happy to see visitors. One of the
ship at a local day-care center with 4- to southern Caribbean. While there he helped women extended the warmest welcome
7-year-olds. Dennis brought his video build a house, worked with day-care cen- by simply looking at me and holding
10
Fall 2000
AROUND THE POND
Admissions at a Glance
Leigh Fisher ’01 and new friends in La
Sabila, Dominican Republic.
my hands. We didn’t understand each
other because she spoke only Tibetan.
She just looked at me, held my hands,
and started to chant prayers while the
others surrounding us did the same. It
made me feel special and appreciated
because although they didn’t know me,
they still treasured my company.”
Leigh Fisher ’01 was in a small town called
La Sabila in the Dominican Republic for
two months. Although her group did
bring in resources to do a home improvement project, they focused on
“strengthening the community so that the
people there could improve their situation
without being dependent on Americans.”
They formed a youth group and worked
with a mothers’ group as well. “Most importantly,” says Leigh, “we taught the
community about basic health issues.”
“The people of La Sabila are incredible!” she says. “They are the most
generous, caring, and loving people I have
ever met. They were certainly the most
important part of my trip and what I miss
more than anything else.”
Dubois Thomas ’02 spent six weeks in
Costa Rica, where he volunteered in a
youth hostel with the park service. “Making lasting relationships with people in
another country and in another language” is what he’ll remember most of
his time there.
The school opened this fall with 189 new students who were chosen from the largest
applicant pool in Taft history. Also noteworthy is this year’s record yield of 50.4
percent. These numbers represent a steady upward climb. Applications are up 20
percent in fifteen years. Campus visits have increased 116 percent since 1975.
In the past year, 4,443 prospective students requested information. Admissions officers conducted 1,700 interviews on campus, and with the help of the
Alumni-Parent Network, gave another 200 interviews off campus. This year’s 1,290
applications represent a 6 percent rise over the previous admissions season.
The clear message that Taft is a school with the highest of personal and academic standards as well as tremendous heart and tremendous soul accounts for the
school’s consistent success in a highly competitive market, says Admissions Director
Ferdie Wandelt ’66. “At the end of the day, students choose Taft for the faculty and
their unwavering belief in the potential of young people.”
Classes of 2001–04
• 552 students: 279 boys, 273 girls; 446 boarding, 106 day
• 189 new: 96 boys, 93 girls
• Representing 37 states, 25 countries
• 19 percent are students of color
• 31 percent of students receive a combined $3.1 million in aid
Worldwide Network
Admissions Director Ferdie Wandelt
’66, center, and Mr. and Mrs. Darrell
Zander P’86, longtime parent representatives in Caracas, pictured with
Daniella Gellini ’00, Maria Garci ’99
and her sister Anna ’01, Eduardo Perez
’00, and Pedro Mendoza ’01 at a reception in June. Ferdie interviewed
candidates and hosted a dinner for Taft
families in Venezuela.
Taft students upheld a tradition in
Hong Kong over the summer as they
welcomed new Tafties at a dinner
hosted annually by longtime parent
representative Pat Chow P’93,’95,’00.
Seated from left, Annabelle Razack ’02,
Hilary Hung ’03, Iris Chow ’02,
Natalie Ie ’02, Florence Ng ’01. Back
row, Cyrus Wen ’04, Arthur Lam ’03,
Nick Kotewall ’01, Vincent Ng ’01,
Jason Chen ’02, and Brian Cheng ’01.
Addition:
The Alumni Offspring list published in the summer issue neglected to include
Henry Ludeke 1900 as the great-grandfather of Ilan S. McKenna ’02 in addition
to her grandfather, Benjamin E. Cole ’36.
Taft Bulletin
11
AROUND THE POND
New Faculty 2000–01
Erik V. Berg, Physics, University of Notre Dame, BA
Claudia J. Black, Art, Parsons School of Design/
Bank Street, MA
Sheila M. Boyd, History, UPenn, BA
Brett M. Carroll, Assistant Business Manager,
UConn, BS
Loueta K. Chickadaunce, Art, Yale, MFA
Thibault De Chazal, Teaching Fellow–French/
Economics, University of Virginia, BA
Katherine B. Fritz, College Counseling, Boston
College, MA
Thomas J. Fritz, Upper Middler Dean/History,
University of Virginia, M.Ed
Pauline E. Goolkasian, Learning Center, Loyola
College of Maryland, MEd
Tyler Hardy, Teaching Fellow–History, Duke, BA
Gregory B. Hawes ’85, History, The American
Film Institute, MFA
Paul J. Henley, Teaching Fellow–Technology Support/Math, University of Chicago, BS
William H. Hinrichs, Spanish, Princeton, AB
David H. Kim, Chemistry, Johns Hopkins
University, BS
Christine Lalande, French, York University
(Canada), BA*
Anthony P. Lambert, Spanish, Middlebury, MA
Lauren G. Lambert, English, Middlebury, MA
Jim J. Lehner, Physics, University of New Haven, MS
Jessica Matzkin ’90, Spanish, University of
Wyoming, MA*
Camilla Moore, Carpenter Teaching Fellow–
Mathematics, Bates, BA
Mark R. Novom, English, Yale, MFA
Timothy Palombo, Mailliard Teaching Fellow–
Physics/Math, Wesleyan University, BA
Peter L. Press, Library Director, University of
Wisconsin, MLS
Rachael Hawes Ryan, History, Georgetown, BA
Jo-Ann E. Schieffelin, Art, Southern CT State
University, BA
Thomas J. Thompson, Music, University of
Illinois, MM
Russell F. Wasden, Japanese, University of
Washington, MA
*Fall term only
Laura Harrington
A record number of new faculty took their
posts this fall, among them a few familiar
faces. Brett Carroll and Jo-Ann Schieffelin,
who have worked at Taft for a while, were
promoted to faculty positions. Loueta
Chickadaunce returns (see below), and
Greg Hawes ’85 came back to experience
Taft from the other side of the desk.
A Familiar Face
Campus Projects
There’s continuity in Potter’s art room this
year. Loueta Chickadaunce returned to Taft
this fall, having served on the faculty for
three years in the early ’80s. She was hired
then to cover Gail Wynne’s sabbatical after
receiving an MFA from Yale in 1979 and
“stayed on for a bit.” While here, she not
only worked with the late Mark Potter ’48,
but she also taught outgoing art instructor
Jenny Glenn Wuerker ’83, who’d been
holding down the easels since Mark’s death.
This time, Lou reigns over the painting studio (the old study hall) instead of the
art room. Claudia Black was hired to replace Gail Wynne, who retired in June.
Before returning to Taft, Lou spent 12 years as the Visual Art Department
chair at the Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California, and four years as
the Art Department chair at Forsyth Country Day School in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina.
The school completed an ambitious wiring project over the summer, installing
state-of-the-art fire alarms, phones, and
data connections in every student room,
as well as a new school-wide database. Students were thrilled to have phones in their
dorm rooms for the first time, and slightly
less thrilled to discover that all but 911
service is turned off at 10:30 p.m.
More visible are the new Mark Potter
’48 Gallery, the new dance studio located
in the old Black squash courts, and the
still-to-be-completed ice hockey rink.
The construction of the rink also called
for extensive renovations to the
Cruikshank Athletic Center, to which it
is attached. The new rink should be ready
early in the hockey season.
12
Fall 2000
AROUND THE POND
Character Training
New Chairs
Dr. Eli Newberger of Boston Children’s
Hospital, author of The Men They Will Become: The Nature and Nurture of Male
Character, addressed the faculty at the opening meetings this fall. He highlighted what
he calls the “five essential elements” for developing character in boys.
Each boy, he said, needs at least one adult
in his life who is crazy about him; boys need
a vocabulary to express a full range of emotions; they should learn through inductive
discipline—which starts with the assumption
of a loving, caring relationship between adult
and child; boys need protection from exposure to violence, and finally boys need to have
“opportunities to give back.”
Dr. Newberger applauded Horace
Taft in his selection of a motto for his
school, noting its “transformation power”
that can “change one’s sense of self.”
Last year, the 1999–2000 Current Parents’ Fund, led by Joan
and John Goodwin P’00, lifted
the levels of parent giving at Taft
to extraordinary new heights.
Ninety-four percent of the
school’s current parent body
participated, raising a recordbreaking $1,010,447 for the
Annual Fund!
The success of last year’s ParNew Parents’ Fund Chairmen Carol and Will Browne
ents’ Fund could not have P’98,’01
happened without the dedicated
efforts of the Goodwins, the Parents’ Committee, and the hundreds of parents who have given so much, in so many
ways, to this great school.
Joan and John Goodwin have handed over the reins to Carol and Will
Browne, members of the Parents’ Committee for the past five years and parents
of Alex ’98 and David ’01.
Excelling at APs
Taft students had another record-breaking
year on the College Board’s Advanced Placement exams. Three-quarters of the Class of
2000 took one or more exams, for a record
total of 422 exams taken. Ninety-three percent scored 3 or above (traditionally the
standard grade to receive advanced placement
in that subject in college). Despite the heavy
number of students writing exams, the average increased to 4.1 on a 5-point scale.
Mind-Body
Connection
Lowermid biology students are involved
this fall in a study with the Mind/Body
Institute at Harvard University as part of
the Lowermid Biology curriculum. “The
study will give our students a unique opportunity to learn the techniques of the
scientific method,” says Science Department Head Laura Erickson, “while actually
participating as subjects of a real study.” The
project, directed by Dr. Gloria Deckro looks
at the effect of relaxation techniques on
memory and learning.
The Alumni Office extends sincere apologies to the following alumni/ae and their spouses
who were inadvertently excluded from the 1999-2000 Current Parent Donor Report:
Robin and Michael Aleksinas ’72, P’02, ’02
Joyce and Bruce Alspach ’71, P’01,’03
Melanie and Bob Barry ’59, P’96
Claudia and Richard Bell ’71, P’03
Annie and Chad Bessette ’74, P’02
Jody and Art Blake ’67, P’02
Ellen and Kirk Blanchard ’68, P’97,’00
Mimi and George Boggs ’65, P’02
Donna and Gordon Calder, Jr. ’65, P’03
Mary Alice and Hank Candler ’54, P’00
Joan and Ed Cavazuti ’70, P’02
Lisa and David Gillespie ’60, P’02
Ann and Clark Griffith ’68, P’01
Harriette and John Gussenhoven ’65, P’02
Megan and Ti Hack, Jr. ’65, P’96,’03
Penny and Rob Jennings ’67, P’02
Laura Gieg Kell ’73, P’02
David Killam ’70, P’98
Robby and Jeff Levy ’65, P’01
Sue and Bill Morris, Jr. ’69, P’97,’99,’02
Susan and Fred Nagle ’62, P’00
Cassandra Pan ’77, P’01
Joni and Carlisle Peet III ’70, P’00
Neil Peterson III ’61, P’03
Carol and Joe Petrelli, Jr. ’56, P’91,’93,’00
John and Jean Strumolo Piacenza ’75, P’00,’01,’04
Christy and Grant Porter ’69, P’00
Mike Powers ’69, P’00
Jocelyn and Peter Rose ’74, P’02,’04
Polly Dammann and Michael Shaheen, Jr. ’58, P’00
Coco and Townsend Shean, Jr. ’66, P’00
Daisy and Jamie Smythe ’70, P’03
Ted and Laney Barroll Stark ’79, P’02
Ann Havemeyer and Tom Strumolo ’70, P’98,’01
Sioe and Mel Thompson, Jr. ’64, P’92,’00
Mary and Dean Tseretopoulos ’72, P’01,’03
Connie and Jim Volling ’72, P’02
Kirstin and Chuck Wardell III ’63, P’97,’01
Cindi and Chris Wardell ’69, P’03
Hildy and Jack Wold ’71, P’02
Sincere apologies also go to the following alumni/ae who have been loyal and generous
donors to Taft. The star representing five or more years of Annual Fund giving was
inadvertently left off their names in the 1999–2000 Donor Recognition Report:
Edward C. Armbrecht, Jr. ’50
Daniel B.C. Cote ’74
Sherrard Upham Cote ’73
John H. Denny ’51
Herbert S. Frisbee ’44
Robert D. Gries ’47
Taft Bulletin
13
From HDT
—By Todd A. Gipstein ’70
S
BORA-BORA: I’m in a helicopter swooping over the island of Bora-Bora in the
South Pacific. I peer through the
camera as we bank on a roller-coaster
trajectory. Below me the coral seas
are rendered in a spectrum of blues
and greens. Ahead, the mountain
peaks of the island loom against the
tropical sky. I try to keep the horizon straight as I frame my shots
to
P
O
T
L
I
G
H
T
It’s a typical day at the office for me. A long way from shooting
for The Papyrus back at Taft 30 years ago. And yet, not so very far
away at all. For I am still pursuing a passion I was lucky to discover
early—a passion that was nurtured and allowed to blossom at Taft.
It’s a passion for exploring the world around me, interpreting it
with camera and words, and sharing my viewpoint with others.
My photography for The Papyrus, The Annual, and for an
ISP project provided me with a miniature, self-contained world
to explore and experience and document. It taught me how to
work on deadline. In my four years at Taft, I nurtured a hobby
that would become a way of life. Eventually, it became a profession that would take me around the world and create a
richness of experiences impossible to describe.
Along with my photography, all those essays I wrote, especially in Mr. Lovelace’s English classes, proved to be invaluable
experience. I discovered I liked to write and had a knack for it.
And when I later evolved into a producer, I was able to write my
own scripts as well as take my own pictures. This is unique in my
business. It gives my work a strong personal viewpoint, and allows
me to manage a powerful harmony between words and images.
I create in a variety of media. Mostly large-scale audiovisual
presentations using multiple projectors synchronized to lavish sound
tracks. These slide shows use the extraordinary power of still images
to convey their messages. I also create videos and, nowadays, DVDs.
All of it involves writing, interviewing, selecting and editing music,
working with composers, directing the sound-track editing and con-
Bora-Bora
through the shake, rattle, and roll of
the copter. I’m concentrating on
taking my pictures, yet at the same
time stunned by the beauty of the
scene and the thrill of the moment.
struction, creating computer graphics, and the final work of editing
and coordinating the sound and the images. It’s a very interesting
blend of highly technical and very creative work.
What I have learned is that photographers are explorers and
the camera is our compass. It’s the tool we use to navigate toward
and through experiences. It is a magical machine that lets us capture
dramas of life—both large and small—in a little black box. Later,
(Opposite)
Kids (Suva, Fiji)
We didn’t speak each other’s language very well. But we didn’t have
to. Smiles, a hand on the shoulder, and sometimes a magic trick. I
have found I can interact with people almost anywhere. It’s my body
language, my facial expressions, the aura I project that will either
invite or stifle interactions. As a photographer, you learn that shooting is a kind of performance. Almost a dance. With a stranger.
Taft Bulletin
15
Oia Cubism (Santorini, Greece)
The architecture of the small town of Oia, on the Greek island of Santorini, is a color jumble of planes and angles. Walking
around, I feel as if I am in a cubist painting and take a picture that tries to capture this feeling.
Vendor (St. Lucia, Caribbean)
He rows out, hoping to sell us fruit. He waits
as we make our boat secure. I look at him
and wonder how many boats he’s greeted,
how hard he’s worked to gather his fruit,
how long his day will be hawking his wares
under the relentless searing sun. When you
take someone’s picture, you connect to
them. Even if it’s only for an instant. I wonder about the people I photograph.
Though I do not know their names, I will
never forget their faces.
16
Fall 2000
we share the images with others so they can
experience some of it for themselves.
Photography is not something you
do; it’s something you are—a way of looking at the world. For 35 years my work
has made me look closely at my world,
and at worlds I might otherwise never
have seen. It’s a gift, one I try to share.
And so, over the course of my career,
I’ve shot on the tops of mountains, in rain
forests, deserts, and the bottom of the sea.
What I have learned is
that photographers are
explorers and the
camera is our compass.
It’s the tool we use to
navigate toward and
through experiences. It
is a magical machine
that lets us capture
dramas of life—both
large and small—in a
little black box.
I’ve photographed from everything that can
possibly be airborne, from a hot-air balloon
to a glider, from helicopters to jets. I’ve photographed newborns and a 100-year-old
survivor of the Titanic. I’ve shot at the World
Series, the Boston Marathon, the Kentucky
Derby, and aboard an America’s Cup yacht
in New Zealand. I’ve shot fashion and fantasy, entire islands, and the world inside a
single flower. I’ve shot when it was 20 degrees below zero and a withering 110
above. I’ve photographed politicians campaigning, Greek villagers sacrificing a bull,
fire dancers, Chinese opera, Earth Day,
and Pilgrims cooking a goose.
Just a few years ago, within just nine
months, I took pictures on the Great Wall
of China, the Parthenon, and Machu
Shadow and Light (Taft School, Watertown)
I shot this portrait of my Taft classmate Richard Tietjen in
1968, and I still have a print of it at home. It taught me a lot
about minimalism and simplicity. About how just a few strokes
of light could make a picture and evoke a mood. I try to
make most of my pictures visual haiku.
Imitators (Venice, Italy)
One of the joys of being a photographer is that you notice the little dramas and
ironies of life. In Venice, in the shadow of so many picturesque places, I find a
common cat sitting by the statue of a lion and wonder: Is the statue imitating the
real cat, or does the cat have delusions of grandeur?
Taft Bulletin
17
S
P
O
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Picchu. To get the best viewpoint, I’ve
had myself hoisted up the masts of ships,
ridden on the back of subways and
horses, rappeled down hills, scuba dived
at night, and stood on a friend’s shoulders. I’ve been threatened by a gorilla,
charged by an angry bull, menaced by
barracudas, mugged, and pelted with
fruit. I’ve taken photos of famous people
and unknowns, shot in rat-infested back
alleys and aboard Air Force Two. I’ve sat
at Napoleon’s desk and on a Chinese
The deal is that we are
ambassadors, that we are
the eyes and ears and
minds and hearts of others,
and that we must share
what we have experienced
and absorbed.
Storm (Machu Picchu, Peru)
It was the end of the day at the legendary lost Inca city of Machu
Picchu. The sunny day had given way to a violent storm that
came ripping through the Andes, lightning and thunder cracking and echoing through the valleys and the ruins. It felt like
the ancient gods were returning to the mystical city, and I was
spellbound by the moment.
18
Fall 2000
emperor’s throne. I’ve photographed a
mummy being unwrapped, lambs being
born, and buildings being blown up.
My work as a documentary producer
has also taken me out from behind the
camera and put me across the table from
innumerable people to interview. I’ve been
privileged to meet some extraordinary explorers, adventurers, photographers,
athletes, artists, politicians, scientists and
entertainers. I have had the chance to
probe their minds and hearts.
S
Though I have been given privileged
access and opportunities, with them comes
the responsibility of sharing the experiences
with others. That is the role of a photographer or journalist. We don’t get paid to have
neat experiences just for the fun of it. The
deal is that we are ambassadors, that we are
the eyes and ears and minds and hearts of
others, and that we must share what we
have experienced and absorbed.
Over the years, I have evolved my
own style of photography and shows.
I’m not really a journalist. I don’t shoot
news. I think of myself, both behind the
camera and as a producer, as a poet. I
interpret what I experience on my travels, and often try to boil it down to a
symbolic abstraction. The idea of something—its essence.
I like my pictures simple and lyrical, with a strong graphic composition.
Often there is a sense of mystery to my
work. I hope it invites people to think.
To wonder. To smile. To see a piece of
P
O
T
L
I
G
H
T
life they might never have seen, or see it
in a new way. I want to make them feel
like they’ve been there.
It’s been a great career. It’s been a perfect life for a guy like me. For someone
who is curious, adventurous, artistic, and
loves travel, my work has been an open
ticket to the whole world. No two weeks
have been alike, and I’ve loved it all. I’ve
seen a lot. I hope I’ve gotten some of it on
film and shared it. I hope I’ve opened a
few eyes and touched a few hearts.
Survivor (Southampton, England)
I met Edith Haisman when she was 100 years old. She was a
survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. As he placed her in a
lifeboat, her father told her not to worry, that he’d see her
again. But he went down with the ship. Eighty-five years later,
salvagers found his pocket watch on the ocean floor and returned it to her. At long last, father and daughter were reunited,
as he’d promised. In shooting the picture, I decided to focus
on the essence of the moment: her aged hands clutching the
frame with the watch—her link to her lost father.
Friends (Shanghai, China)
This is a picture that means a lot to me,
even though it’s just a snapshot. Traveling
with my dad in China in 1979, we spent a
day in the company of a guide, a Mr. Lee.
As we toured Shanghai, my dad and
Mr. Lee hit it off. At day’s end, as I boarded
our bus, they asked me to snap their picture. The smiles and handshakes are
genuine. It’s a picture of hope. A reminder
that we can look at strangers not as potential enemies but as possible friends.
Taft Bulletin
19
Boy (Cuzco, Peru)
In the mountains outside of Cuzco, Peru,
I encounter a family. The little boy stares
at me. The picture captures the intensity
of his glare. It’s interesting how people
respond to the camera. Sometimes, they
seem to look at the lens as if it’s a mirror.
Sometimes for a second, their souls are
revealed and captured on film.
Nocturne (Peter Island, Caribbean)
I trek to a high point on Peter Island and watch as a distant sailboat makes its way toward shelter for the night. As a sailor, I know how
it feels to find a quiet place to anchor after a day of sailing. I photograph a scene of suspended tranquillity. The clouds seem to imitate
the land in shape and hue as the day winds down and night slowly creeps across the Caribbean.
20
Fall 2000
T
Different Perspective (Mutianyu, China)
Over the years, I’d seen a lot of photographs of the
Great Wall of China. Most were similar, including mine
from my first visit. When I went there again, I was determined to find a different perspective. Something
that would give viewers a feel for actually being on
the wall. I crouched in one of the guard towers and
composed a picture through the archway. And waited.
Finally, someone walked by, and for just one frame,
the composition was there. I got that different shot I
was after. This picture ended up as a full page in National Geographic magazine.
odd Gipstein is the person responsible for introducing photography to the arts program at Taft.
As part of an Independent Study Project, he
worked with Gail Wynne, teaching photography
to her introductory art students.
While at Harvard, Todd studied English, writing, and
filmmaking, and first began to experiment in creating multiimage shows. After college, he worked for Time-Life Films
in New York, before starting Gipstein Multi-Media Productions. He began working for the National Geographic
Society in 1987 and two years later gave up his business to
work there full-time. His photographs have appeared in the
Society’s magazines, books, and educational products, and
his shows have been screened all over the world.
Todd has won more than 50 gold awards, more than a dozen
grand prizes, several lifetime achievement awards, and was inducted into the Association for Multi-Media International
Producers’ Hall of Fame. His photographs are represented by
the National Geographic’s Image Collection and by Corbis/
Bettman Archives. The photographs in this article were selected
from his work of over 300,000 images.
When not traveling for the NGS, Todd lives in Arlington, Virginia.
© Todd Gipstein
Todd on Top of the Mast (Tobago Cays, BWI)
Sometimes, you have to search for a different perspective. And sometimes, that
takes a little daring. In the Caribbean, I
had myself hoisted to the top of a ship’s
mast. I had an ultra-wide-angle lens on
my camera for a panoramic view. I held it
out at arms’ length and snapped this selfportrait of yet another day at the office.
My Popeye arms are from eating spinach— and carrying camera gear.
Taft Bulletin
21
On
the
Asc
ent
K
2 has been
a dream for Chris Shaw
since he started climbing in
1989, but he says “It’s been firmly on my sched-
ule (as much as these things ever are before your butt’s in
the seat and the plane’s in the air) since May 1998, when I climbed
Kanchenjunga in Nepal. Gary Pfisterer, who put that trip together, proposed
K2 for summer 2000, and I sent him a check as soon as I got back home.”
With a few ads in climbing magazines, and a lot of word-of-mouth, they wound up with
a team of ten. Everyone had scaled at least one 8000m peak (there are 14 mountains above 8000m in
the world), and five had climbed Everest. “All together, we had 23 8000m summits and 44 attempts,”
Chris says. “Most important, we had 100 fingers and toes among us—nobody had had any frostbite
injuries, despite all of the climbing we had done.”
S
P
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Chris Shaw’s expedition was unusual in that they only used
porters to get their equipment to Base Camp. After that, members
of the expedition hauled their own gear up the mountain without
guides, sherpas, or porters. This is no small accomplishment on
—
By
Ch
ri s
what climbing experts agree is the most formidable of the 8000m
Sh
aw
’8 0
peaks, more challenging than Everest itself.
Although commercial air travel and electronic communication have made the mountain somewhat more accessible,
(Left)
Billy Pierson, climbing on the lower
slopes of the mountain. The angle of
the slope is about average for the ABC
to C1 section of the climb. Billy found
an old backpack frozen into the ice and
exposed by the melting snow.
(Top right)
K2 as seen from Base Camp. Their
route, the Abruzzi Ridge, is the
righthand skyline. C2 is just above
where the ridge changes from rock to
mostly snow. C3 is at the next place
along the ridge where the angle eases
a bit, and C4 is on the flat shoulder,
below the final summit pyramid. The
summit is 3600m above BC.
weather and altitude still require patience on the part of the
climber. Chris left for Pakistan at the end of May and didn’t
return home to Colorado until mid-August. While away,
Chris sent regular e-mails to family and friends, recounting his
adventure, bringing the mountain that much closer to those of
us who will never see it in person.
—Editor
Taft Bulletin
23
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Message from BC
It’s another sunny, clear, windless day on
the glacier—a perfect summit day if ever
there was one. It’s even better than yesterday, when four members of a Korean team
on the SSE Spur route reached the summit, becoming the first of the season and
some of the earliest summitters of K2 ever.
We have been in Base Camp for 16 days
now, and we’ve had one three-day storm that
barely qualified as such. In other seasons, it
probably would have been climbing weather,
but nobody wanted to set up tents at 6700m
(Camp 2) in a storm if they didn’t have to.
Nasuh and I climbed up to C1 the
day after the storm, carrying heavy loads
of personal gear (a week’s worth of food, a
couple of gas cylinders for the stove, our
down suits, miscellaneous other stuff),
supplemented by a 200m coil of rope for
fixing the route above C2. The tent,
shovel, stoves, and climbing hardware had
already been left in a cache at the end of
the ropes about 30m below C2.
The Chimney
One of the tents in C2 (6700m) with a view
straight down to BC (5000m) on the glacial moraine below. The high peak on the
skyline is Masherbrum (K1), at 7821m, another Karakoram giant.
24
Fall 2000
Climbing from Advanced Base Camp to
C1 is primarily a steep snow climb, with
two short rock scrambles. From C1 to
C2, though, there’s a lot more rock, as
well as a bit of hard ice, to contend with,
ending with House’s Chimney, a 20m
high, 1m wide, more-or-less vertical slot
that leads to the top of the ridge. I’ve seen
pictures of House’s filled with snow, but
this year it’s bare rock and blue ice.
From the top of the chimney, it’s not
much more than walking up a broad snowcovered ridge to get to C2—uphill, of
course, but not too steep for a change. For
the first time, we could see down to BC—
6000 ft of air! C2 is a tent graveyard. There
are nylon tatters, broken poles, gas canisters, old socks—you name it. We found
two oxygen bottles from the 1977 Japanese
expedition that made the second ascent of
the mountain! All carved into a 45-degree
snow/ice slope. The old tents make the best
platforms for the new ones, and so, like
many before us, we pitched our tent on
top of the remnants of at least five others.
The Wait
We’ve had a weather-enforced seven-day
rest period for the whole team. We just sat
here in BC, looking at the gray cloud that
used to be K2, playing cards, and trying
not to guess when we could climb again.
Sentences that started with “It’s getting
lighter around Concordia...,” “If only it’s
like this tomorrow...,” “Look, there’s the
summit, through that hole in the clouds...,”
and the like got very old very quickly.
Even bad weather ends, and we got
back up the hill on 6 July, after letting
the route shed its new snow for a day.
We wanted to see what shape the route
and the camps were in after a week, and
hoped to get C3 set up on this push.
On the Hill
When I arrived at C1, it was cloudy and
a bit blustery with a few flurries, but still
pretty calm, and Nasuh agreed that we
should plan on going up to C2 the next
day, if the weather didn’t get any worse.
As it turned out, we didn’t get hammered nearly as badly getting to C2 as the
others had the day before. It just shows
how different each person’s experience can
be, even on the same mountain, in almost
the same place, at the same time.
Which is not to say that we got off
scot-free, either. By the time I reached the
Chimney it was snowing pretty steadily, and
by the time I got to the top of it, Nasuh’s
footprints were completely covered. I was
glad that there was a rope for the last 200m
to camp, because there wasn’t always
enough visibility to get there otherwise.
By the time Nasuh and I arrived, it
had been snowing for an hour or two,
and it didn’t stop until sometime that
night. It was the most new snow that
we’ve seen on the mountain, even including the long storm that kept us in BC.
By morning it had stopped snowing,
and there were quite a few clear spots in
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The Team
the cloud layer both above and below us
(we were at 6700m), so we decided to
give C3 a try. Nasuh and I brought along
our sleeping bags, mattresses, food, gas
and down suits, so that if we did get a
tent up, we could stay there.
This was the “real” Black Pyramid—
what little I’d seen on a push ten days
earlier had been just a taste. It’s mostly
steep rock, with many awkward steps,
and steep snow-covered scree between.
If the average angle of the whole route is
45 degrees (so “they” say), then this section must average at least 55. It took us
seven hours to climb 450m (vertical) with
the ropes already in place, and another
two to lead and fix another 150m to the
edge of the Shoulder.
Now You See It...
We were hoping to establish C3 at 7450m,
but for the night we would take whatever
we could get. We saw a serac a ways above
that looked like it might actually be sheltered. Even though it was farther away than
we were hoping for, it was the best place
around, and we headed for it. It turned out
to be perfect—sheltered from the prevailing wind, and at least 7350m high. We had
to find our headlamps to get the tent up,
but by 8:30 p.m. we were in our bags and
waiting for the water to get hot.
Camp 3 on K2 is usually quite exposed to wind—and destruction—and
many groups dig snow caves to try to
avoid losing their camps. Since we had
such a safe spot, Nasuh and I decided to
sacrifice 100m of height for safety, and
put up the second tent that Andy had
cached, and call it C3. It probably won’t
hold much more than our two tents, but
at least we can be pretty sure of finding
them there when we go back up. We then
headed back down toward BC.
Try, Try Again
On 16 July, I went up to C1 again. The
weather looked good in the morning, but four
of us spent the windiest night of the trip that
The 2000 International K2 Expedition was one of seven teams on the
mountain and the only one unsupported by high altitude porters or the
use of bottled oxygen.
Chris Shaw ’80
Andy Evans
Billy Pierson
Andy Collins
Nasuh Mahruki
Ivan Vallejo
Fabrizio Zangrilli
Tony Tonsing
Hamish Robertson
Gary Pfisterer
USA
Canada
USA
UK
Turkey
Ecuador
USA
USA
Australia
USA
night. It’s hard to sleep when it sounds—constantly—as if someone were beating on your
tent with bamboo wands. Andy E and I hung
on until 2 p.m., but it was useless.
Fast-forward—through a lot of
grumbling and weather watching—to 21
July, when the weather again looked
tempting. Four of us headed for C1, with
three more promising to jump all the way
to C2 and meet us the next day if the
weather held. Joining us were about 23
members and porters from the three other
teams. Also joining us that night were
wind and snow—lots of it.
After a third night of violently
shaking tents and drifting snow, only
four of us were left in camp. We spent
the next morning in somewhat improved conditions trying to decide
which way to go. An unfavorable
weather report finally sent us back to
BC in wind, rain, and snow.
Today, we awoke to an almost
cloudless sky. The morning winds up
high on the ridge were impressive, but
they died as the day wore on. By sunset, the whole mountain was practically
still. It probably won’t last more than a
day or two, but...
Andy E and I will leave at first light
tomorrow with Billy and head straight for
C2. I don’t know what to expect, but my
porters arrive on 3 August, so whatever
happens, this will be my last shot.
The Push
We had planned on making a big push
with seven of us from our team to plow
through the couple of weeks’ worth of
new snow high on the route, but now
there were just four of us anywhere on
the mountain. The wind had lessened
noticeably from the previous two days,
but was still strong enough to stagger
me with a gust when I made my daily
“walk behind a rock.”
Finally, at around 11 a.m., Nasuh announced that whatever Andy and I decided,
he at least was going down. The day might
be climbable from C2 to C3, he argued, but
unless the weather got a whole lot better the
next day, we would have done it for nothing. A forecast of high winds for the next
few days that we got over the radio finally
pushed him to make the decision. Andy and
I were unconvinced, but with only three
people now above BC, we felt that we had
little choice beyond following Nasuh down.
All the way to BC, Andy and I were
wondering if we hadn’t made an incredibly bad choice and worried that we may
have just thrown away the closest thing
to a chance at the top that we would
get. The lousy weather didn’t make us
feel any better, but it at least seemed to
justify our decision.
Regrets, I’ve Had
a Few
I woke the next morning to hear Peter,
our resident photographer, call out,
“Look at it!” It was about 5:30 and there
was nothing—no cloud, no snow, no
rain, no wind plumes—to look at but K2
in the morning light. It was a perfect
summit day, and I was in BC.
Andy and I tried to be civil to Nasuh
(and there really wasn’t anything to be
mad at him for—we’d each made our
own call), but all we could think was that
we should have been in C3 that morning, not BC. Nasuh, for his part, was as
impatient as we were, if not more so.
Taft Bulletin
25
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About K2
...Now You Don’t
Of course, any plan on a mountain like K2
is subject to change without notice, and
this time, the change turned out to be pretty
dramatic. When Nasuh, leaving a day ahead
of me, reached the serac where he and I
had put the C3 tents two weeks previously,
there was nothing to be found. Anywhere.
The only sign that anything had ever been
there was a hole in the ice where the ice
screw (which had been tied to both tents)
had apparently melted out. Either C3 had
blown away, or it had been buried.
The only solution was to start digging.
They dug a couple of trenches, and sank
one hole 2.5 meters deep and 1.5 meters
in diameter, without finding the slightest
trace of anything besides hard, wind-compacted snow. As it was getting late, the three
of them turned their attention to shelter
for the night, sleeping in a gear tent and
using another group’s C3 tent.
The loss of our camp meant even more
problems, though. Nasuh and I had left our
down suits there when we had established the
camp, and Ivan had left his there as well when
he carried up to C3 the following day. These
were gone, and the three of us would have to
find alternatives if we wanted to go much
higher. We lost 100m of ultralight 6mm rope
that was going to be used in and above the
Bottleneck on summit day, and a small, light
radio that we were going to take to the summit. The food and gas that was lost was
almost—but not quite—incidental.
The Eve of It All
That night the wind got a bit gusty, but 29
July was yet another clear day, with almost no
wind by the time the sun rose. It was a perfect
day for the four of us leaving C3. Those ahead
of us laid marker wands along the route—
sparsely, since we had lost about two-thirds
of our wands with the old C3—and some
Sherpas had made a carry the day before, so
the climbing was about as easy and straightforward as things get above 25,000 feet.
I got up to another group’s C4
around 2 p.m. As Andy E, then Andy C
26
Fall 2000
• The world’s second highest peak at
8,611 meters (28,251 feet).
• Part of the Karakoram Range in the
Himalayas, it lies on the border between Pakistan and China.
• First discovered and measured in
1856. It was given the name K2 because it was the second peak
measured in the Karakoram Range.
• First known summit attempt in 1902.
• First successful expedition on July
31, 1954. The next successful ascent was not until 1977.
and Billy arrived, we could see dots moving oh-so-slowly higher on the slopes
above us on their way to the summit. The
four of us decided to climb up to a spot
about 150m above to place our own C4;
it would make for a shorter summit day,
and we had plenty of daylight left. We
did the climbing, leveled the platform,
put the tent up and anchored it, got our
mattresses and bags set up inside, and had
both stoves going by about 5 p.m.
four of us camped at 7900m (and not really
sleeping) could just hear the shouts, and sometimes make out words, or a name. They were
sometimes calling for Nasuh, as well, because
they didn’t know where he was, either. It was
one of the eeriest experiences I’ve ever had in
the mountains, listening in the dark to those
cries getting increasingly desperate as the night
wore on. We would occasionally look out,
and see their headlights on the Traverse, or in
the Bottleneck, but the whole situation had
the feeling of a dream that couldn’t be real,
even though we knew it was.
Eventually, at about 2 a.m., the two
guides arrived at our tent on their way
down to theirs. One had lost his overmitts,
and they were both obviously trashed,
barely able to keep walking. They told us
that Waldemar was lost, and Nasuh as well,
and that maybe they had fallen into a crevasse—we should look, and help them if
we could find them. Then they stumbled
on down, leaving all four of us wondering
what we would find above, and if we were
off to the summit, or a rescue.
Passers in the Night
Summit Day
Nasuh told me later that he had had a
17-hour summit day—not including
the descent. He headed down pretty
soon after summitting, but it was already
fully dark and he had to move slowly
and carefully on really steep and treacherous terrain. By this time, he was pretty
exhausted and afraid of what he might
do if he didn’t pay close attention to every step. Nasuh made it down to the
60-degree slope next to the summit serac, across the Traverse beneath the
serac, and down the Bottleneck couloir,
all by headlamp. As the Bottleneck widened out to become a steep slope above
C4, at about 8200m, he decided that
he was too tired to continue safely,
planted his axe into the 45-degree slope,
and fell asleep on top of it.
Another climber, Waldemar, got separated from his group that night, and the others
called for him for hours as they made their
own descent. The night was so still that the
We had decided that Andy E and I would
set off first (four people trying to brew
up, get dressed and ready to go in a threeman tent at the same time would have
been—let’s be polite here—unworkable),
and Andy C and Billy would follow. I
left at about 3:20 with Andy right behind me, about an hour and a half before
dawn. It was a beautiful morning, still
and clear. As we climbed, the slope grew
steeper, the Bottleneck got closer, and the
world lit up.
As it grew lighter, I could see a figure,
descending. As I got closer, I recognized
Nasuh, and I got to him just as he started
down the long snow slope below the Bottleneck. He looked dazed, but in good shape,
and he was moving steadily, if slowly. He
told me that he had slept in the Bottleneck,
and that his rucksack was gone, he didn’t
know where. I guess it fell down the slope in
the night. He said he was all right (though
he was worried about his toes), and that he
S
would get down OK, now that he had gotten some sleep. I continued on up, and he
continued down. I saw Waldemar about an
hour later. He, too, spent the night out on a
ledge—at about 8400m. Both of them owe
their lives to the fact that the night was completely still and relatively warm.
The slope here steepened and narrowed
to become a rocky couloir, with deep, loose
powder on top of slanting rock slabs. We
climbed up the left side of this, sometimes
almost swimming through the snow, sometimes balancing on the rock with our
crampons. At the top, just three or four
meters below the serac, the entire couloir was
crossed by a rock band—a few more tricky
balancing moves, and it was into the Traverse.
The snow was still deep, but the rocks
weren’t as much of a problem, and the
now-frozen footsteps from the group the
day before were much more of a help. I
came around the left end of the serac.
Here, the snow thinned out, and the angle
increased to around 60 degrees. The surface was hard snow for most of the next
75m or so, but there were a few places
where even that thinned out, and I was
kicking into hard ice for a meter or three.
This wouldn’t normally be a big problem,
but since a) we had no rope, b) I had only
one ice axe, and c) there was about a
10,000 foot drop below me, it was one of
the more terrifying ice-climbs I’ve done.
Fortunately, Waldemar left a rope behind
that I later used to descend—unfortunately, it was far out of reach for the ascent.
I still had a crevasse to cross. It was
bridged by snow—not very secure, but
good enough. The only problem was
that the upper lip was about 10 feet of
hard ice at 65–70 degrees, and despite
all the wishing I had done below, I still
only had one ice axe. I spent about half
an hour chipping small steps in this before climbing it—there was no rope
here, and I did want to be able to get
back to the tent that night.
This turned out to be the last really
technical obstacle, and soon after I got
past it, I came to a ledge at 8400m—the
only flat area I saw between C4 and the
summit. I sat down, ate a snack, and
watched Andy C and Billy approaching
from below. Andy E was just starting out
above me. The sky was still clear, the air
still, and we had our borrowed down suits
rolled down to our waists. The only cloud
we could see was valley cloud—all
1000m or so below us.
We knew that all we had to do at this
point was to keep on—it was still early in
the day, and no weather anywhere in sight.
I got going before Andy got too far ahead,
and passed him at about 8500m. I got to
the top at 12:50, 9 1/2 hours after leaving
C4. Andy arrived just after 1 p.m., and
we spent an hour enjoying the view, and
trying to believe that we’d made it.
The Descent
Andy C and Billy turned up next, and we
all started down just after 2. Andy went first,
tired and anxious to get down, and I fol-
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lowed just behind. We reversed the whole
climb, except for two places where Waldemar
had left ropes for descent, and all arrived
safely back at C4 by 7. We did get the stoves
going, but I’m pretty sure that none of us
were still awake at, say, 8:30. The tent was
still crowded, and the altitude the same, but
somehow, it was easier to sleep.
The four of us didn’t get out of camp
until almost 10 the next morning, and
by that time we were engulfed by the rapidly rising valley clouds. We groped our
way down through what was by now a
complete whiteout. No doubt about it—
the weather had broken.
Off the Mountain
On 1 August, there were still a lot of
clouds around, and probably a lot of wind
up high, but C1 was peaceful. I took one
of the tents down (we wouldn’t need two
in C1 anymore, and this way I could help
clear the mountain), loaded it into my
pack, and left by 8:45. By 10:30, I was
in ABC, and off the mountain for good.
One more trip through the icefall, and I
was eating a late lunch in BC.
So, the 2000 International K2 Expedition put six out of ten members on top,
from six different nations. Nobody killed,
nobody injured, and all 100 fingers and
toes still intact. I’m the 179th to climb
K2, and the 13th American. It’s far and
away the hardest climb I’ve done, and it
was one of the most enjoyable trips. I’ve
only got one question now: What’s next?
Chris Shaw summitted K2 on 30 July, 49 days after his arrival in
Base Camp. He had flown to Pakistan in May, after returning from
his 20th Reunion at Taft. He says he spent a good part of that weekend trying to figure out what he was forgetting to pack for the
trip. If Chris makes the trip sound relatively easy, it’s important
to remember that 31 people died climbing K2 between 1978 and
1994, many of them on the descent, and 16 consecutive expeditions failed between 1987 and 1990 alone.
Taft Bulletin
27
Athletic
Architecture
in Cataluña
The Beauty of Defiance
—By Peter Frew ’75
As rebellious in art as in politics, the fiercely independent people of
Cataluña—Spain’s New England—have a love affair with towers. If the
spires of Catalan Gothic churches aren’t quite as grand as their sisters to
the north—Chartres, Cologne, and Canterbury spring to mind—Gaudí’s
moderniste Sagrada Familia is in a league of its own. Even the weariest
eight-year-old tourist, cool to his parents’ promise of another special rose
window, reliquary, or crucifix, springs ecstatically up the spiraling towers
of Barcelona’s centerpiece. Surely the world’s most unusual temple, La
Sagrada Familia does, however, have competition. Each weekend, in neighborhood plaças throughout Cataluña, teams of citizens erect human towers
or castells. These castellers (pronounced cast-eye-airs), clad in crisp white
pants, black belly sashes, and bright matching shirts, defy gravity and
human doubt in triumphant structures of sinew, bone, and muscle.
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Perhaps the castellers’ geologic and
architectural heritage makes their endeavor inevitable. Gazing north on a
rare clear day from Mount Tibidabo,
the highest point in Barcelona, one
sees the bizarre mountains of
Montserrat sprout from the plains like
a forest of petrified morels. Land of
legendary giants and supposed resting
place of the Holy Grail, Montserrat’s
weird karstic formations lure nearly as
many rock climbers as her black virgin, La Moreneta, draws Christian
pilgrims. From Romanesque altars to
Gothic tapestries to the canvases of
Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, these
mystical rock towers have been indelibly frescoed, sculpted, woven, and
brushed into the Catalan imagination.
Montserrat’s quest for the heavens is powerful, but Barcelona’s
castellers draw from another potent
source of inspiration. Still 50 years
from completion, and forged not by
God but by one of his disciples,
Antoni Gaudí’s fantastic, irrational
Sagrada Familia is the city’s lightning
rod. Only eight of the temple’s eventual 18 towers are finished, twisting
heavenward encrusted with Gaudí’s
signature cracked tile mosaics.
Today’s stonemasons, steelworkers,
sculptors, and ceramists labor 400
feet above Gaudí’s tomb in the crypt,
from which the pulse of the
moderniste movement courses, 80
years after its greatest practitioners—
Lluis Domnech i Muntaner, Josep
Puig i Cadafalch, and Gaudí—died.
Every day, teams of workers push the
towers higher and higher, a concrete
assertion of man’s ability, through
community and teamwork, to
achieve heights unattainable through
individual effort.
No Barcelona tourist skips the
Sagrada Familia, nor should miss the
13th-century Gothic towers of Santa
María del Mar. But only the lucky
find themselves witness to Cataluña’s
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most unique towers, or castells,
formed by humans. Blessed by Taft’s
sabbatical program, I became a devoted fan of Barcelona’s castellers,
and was thus plunged into the midst
of one of the most singular expressions of Catalan character.
My fascination stemmed from
the visceral combination of music,
costume, coordination, strength, balance, and risk. Castells, even more
than Barcelona’s beloved soccer, require teamwork and self-sacrifice.
They provide a perfect symbol for
society, with energetic cooperation
being paramount. Each member simultaneously contributes to and
depends upon the whole, and the joy
and sense of triumph over elements
more powerful than one man is as
palpable as the final drumbeat signaling a successful castell.
Finding the location of casteller
events was a challenge itself. Each
morning, Baba and I would drop our
children, Max and Amanda, off at
school and head for the café in our
local market. Flanked by geometric
displays of fresh figs and mangoes,
we negotiated busy cleavers, isles of
hanging rabbits, pheasants, goat
heads, and ubiquitous hind legs of
Iberian jamón to which I became an
ardent devotee. Every neighborhood
café has its regulars’ orders memorized, and as the espresso machine
oozed its staple into glass, we would
be greeted with “zumo de naranja y
café con leche para los Americanos!”
and a kind grin. One of the great
luxuries of our sabbatical was reading the newspaper cover to cover. We
volleyed stories back and forth, I
from the International Herald Tribune
and Baba from La Vanguardia. A
typical Monday morning casteller
review might headline “ELS
XIQUETS DE VALLS CARGAN
UN QUATRE DE NOU AMB
FOLRE” (Valls Boys Load Nine StoTaft Bulletin
29
Suppressed during Franco’s dictatorship (1936–75) along with Catalan language, music, poetry, and dance, castellers have rebounded
enthusiastically. Since the 1980s this athletic architecture has enjoyed a renaissance, and new colles or teams are being formed to
accommodate the popularity of the movement.
ries of Four with Peak). Wednesday’s
Vanguardia carried the “Setmana
Casteller” with details of which
castellers would be performing over
the weekend and where. Armed with
map and cameras, I grew to know the
city far better than I know
Watertown, tracking down castellers
in all neighborhoods, from the tony
to the tarnished.
Equal parts art, sport, right of passage, and club social, the appeal of castells
is irresistible. Mimicking the natural and
architectural spires of their culture, groups
of 50 to 75 neighbors, friends, and relatives challenge the heavens by elevating
their children 50 feet above the ground.
A multigenerational event, grandparents
and middle-aged men and women join
arms with pierced, neon-haired teens and
young parents, whose little ones climb
their way to the crest. There is a peculiar
beauty, watching villages raise a child, a
glimpse of a culture fulfilling its essential
obligation. It is also a dangerous venture,
undertaken only after meticulous planning and practice, and an ambulance
always ready in the wings.
30
Fall 2000
At the bottom level are the barrel-chested 40- and 50-year-old
men wrapped in 20-foot-long
weight lifters’ sashes to support
backs and bellies. Surrounding
them like a rugby scrum, men and
women from 20 to 70 years old bolster the foundation and form a
30-foot diameter apron to cushion,
when needed, the fall of a child.
Standing on their shoulders are
lighter, yet powerful 20- and 30year-olds, while the succeeding
levels are built of descending ages
and weights all the way up to the
very top element, a tiny but intrepid boy or girl of 6 or 7 who
scrambles up the outside of the
castell, finding hand- and toe-holds
in belly sashes, and raises a hand in
a hurried wave of triumph before
quickly shinnying down.
The window of opportunity is
very narrow, and each level must be
completed like clockwork. Imagine
supporting a stack of eight humans
on your shoulders for close to three
minutes. Veins bulge, brows bead
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with sweat, while the captain shouts directions, anxiously monitoring the
stability and confidence of each layer.
Getting the agulla to the top is only half
the battle; everyone must get down
safely as well, and the dismantling is as
tense and as carefully orchestrated as
the assembly. Part of the magic is musical. The whole event is metered by a
band called the cobla, featuring the
nasal, oboe-like flaviol, and snare and
bass drums. Eyes glued, they play as the
castell evolves, part inspiration part
accompaniment, carefully timing their
crescendo with the little hand wave,
then pick up their beat as gravity speeds
the dismantling of the tower.
Of course, if you’ve ever seen a castell
buckle and crash—if you’ve ever seen the
tiniest children from the uppermost levels floating leaf-like down upon the older
generations below—you not only worry
about the little fellows, but you also sense
the metaphor, the truth, of the way our
parents and grandparents provide the
foundation, the base, upon which we
erect our dreams, our castles in the air.
Peter and Baba Frew spent 1999–
2000 on sabbatical in Barcelona,
Spain. While Baba took courses at the
University of Barcelona, stuyding
Spanish history, post-civil war literature, and contemporary Spanish
society, Peter took 5,000 photographs of Catalan festivals and
popular culture. Peter is working on a
book of his work featuring castellers,
gegants, cap grossos, and corre focs. Peter
is Taft’s associate director of admissions,
director of communications, and
varsity squash and tennis coach. A
former teacher of English, he dreams
of castells in Centennial Quadrangle.
Taft Bulletin
31
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Embracing Seeming Difference
—By Jon Willson ’82
I grew up in Easton, PA, in the late ’60s
and early ’70s. Both my mother and her
sister had moved there when their marriages ended in messy divorces.
Easton—where my maternal grandfather
was a history professor at Lafayette College—was a mostly working class, smallish
city right on the Delaware River, which
separates Pennsylvania from New Jersey.
It was also segregated; white folks lived on
the north side of town, while black folks
lived on the south side. In Easton, if you
were a boy, you were an athlete first—and
anything else about fourth—even on College Hill, where all the Lafayette professors
and their families lived.
About the only thing I remember
doing in Easton is playing sports. By the
time I was 11, I had been competing
against black kids from the south side for
four years, but had not been particularly
friendly with any of them. It was an economically depressed and racially charged
era, and race relations were pretty strained
in Easton. I was 11, so I didn’t think
much about all that; I just wanted to play
ball. I was also white, and a member of
the majority, so like most members of the
majority, I hadn’t done much thinking
about members of the minority. But then
something happened.
Several weeks after a basketball game
in which I had made the winning shot
just as time expired—against a team from
the south side—a kid named Sporty and
about six of his friends showed up at “my”
playground when I was shooting baskets
all by myself. I saw them coming from a
full block away and thought that if I ran
for it, I could probably make it to some
sanctuary or other, but decided against
that option since A) it went against my
11-year-old’s notion of what a man is
supposed to do in these situations, B)
32
Fall 2000
because to run as fast as I would have
had to, to outrun them, I would have
had to drop my new basketball, and C)
because I couldn’t really believe that they
were coming to beat me up just because
I had made a shot in a basketball game.
So, I just kept on shooting, and they
just kept on coming—and then I was faceto-face with Sporty. He didn’t say much,
but we both knew why he was there. Instead, I suppose in an effort to get me to
throw the first punch, he tried to spit on
me. And I, ball tucked under one arm, refused to let myself be spit on. He kept
spitting; I kept ducking. Finally, his boys
still behind him, Sporty, probably realizing
that he’d better not hang around too long
lest my older brother and HIS boys show
up, decided to let me go with just a few
choice words. I went back to shooting. But
as I shot, I kept thinking, why was he so
mad at me? And I knew, even at 11, that
this wasn’t just about basketball, it was
about race—and there began my interest
in trying to understand discrimination, and
prejudice, and racial misunderstanding—
where all these things come from, and how
they can be dealt with.
Now, why I had that puzzled reaction
brings me to my father, who had been a
brilliant student, a stellar athlete, a handsome and rich graduate of Harvard and
Harvard Law. “Great catch, great match,”
thought my mother’s family. She was a
smart, attractive, well-educated society girl.
Perfect. But there was one hitch. My father
was schizophrenic. My mother didn’t learn
of his early breakdowns until after their
marriage; she knew that there was something strange about him, but he was so
charming and everything that she married
him anyway. And remember, this was the
1950s, when even well-educated women
like my mother were expected to find them-
selves a nice husband, not to question anything too much, and to hold on tight. My
mother did hold tight, for eight years, but
finally let go when my father was in the
hospital through her entire third pregnancy.
Six weeks after I was born, she ended the
marriage and moved home.
My father, after his release from the
hospital, moved to New Jersey to be near
us—but had no visitation rights owing to
his condition. So, about once a year or so,
he would show up unannounced with
some bizarre assortment of foods, spend a
few uncomfortable minutes in our house,
then convince my mom to let him take us
three kids bowling in whatever jalopy he
was driving that year. To me, he was my
tall, strong, handsome dad, and he clearly
loved us. I was too young to understand
much of anything other than what I was
told to say when anyone asked about my
father: “My parents are divorced.”
As the years went by, and I became a
teenager and then a man, I would try to
visit him more frequently. But by then he
had let his hair and beard grow, wore torn
up, second-hand clothes, and lived in a
shack with no heat or shower. He continued to read and study his whole life, mostly
history and ancient languages, and would
always ramble on, out of nowhere, about
the Hebrew word for this, or how in 17th
century Russia they did that. He appeared
to lead a hermetic existence, with no
friends or acquaintances outside the library
and his church. So whenever I visited, usually with my brother or sister, we would
drive away crying—and cursing the illness
that had stolen my father’s career, family,
and any semblance of a meaningful life.
Meanwhile, little sports-crazed me
was raised entirely by women—my older
sister, my aunt, my mother, and my grandmother. And all of them were responsible
E
for how I reacted when Sporty tried to
spit on me. In a neighborhood where the
use of racial epithets was commonplace,
my mother and grandmother let us know
early on that if they EVER heard any of
us use those words, our mouths would be
washed out with soap, and we’d be
grounded indefinitely. They were both
lenient, loving women, but the use of racial epithets of any kind was one thing they
would not tolerate. I don’t remember their
ever giving me a lecture on the equality of
all peoples or races; they didn’t have to.
After my mother remarried, we
moved to an all-white suburb of Rochester, NY. There I had few chances to
become friendly with students of color.
Then I came to Taft, and the same was
true—Taft was a much whiter place in
1980 than it is today. After college, when
I knew that I wanted to teach, a multiethnic, inner-city public school was the
only place I could imagine myself. And I
taught at just such a place for nine years
in Brooklyn. (When my wife and I decided in 1996 to move out of New York
with our—then, two—small children,
one of the things that attracted me to Taft
was how much more diverse it had become since I was a student.)
Teaching and advising kids at Brooklyn
Technical High School put me in touch with
African-American, Caribbean, Latino, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Russian, and many
other cultures to a degree I never would have
known otherwise. I loved, and in some ways
envied, those kids and maintain close contact
with many of them. And I learned both how
unique their cultures were, and also of the
humanity that was common to them all.
Would I have sought out this teaching experience had I not been raised by my
mother and grandmother to be accepting
of diversity and seeming otherness? If they
had not laid a foundation which allowed
me to question rather than condemn
Sporty’s actions? If my father had maintained his sanity and I had been raised
wealthy, insulated, and far away from my
grandmother in an all-white suburb, with
my father—not, despite his brilliance, a
particularly open or loving man—playing
a significant role in my upbringing?
When I was in my teens, I learned
that my one and only uncle, whom I
adored, was gay. Had the cards of my
youth been played differently, would I
have accepted him and his homosexuality and opened the door to another
culture somewhat foreign to my own—
and, while I lived in New York City in
my 20s, have had two best friends who
were gay? When my oldest son Sam was
four, his teacher, an African-American
woman, was doing an exercise with him
about identifying how things are different. When she held her hand next to
his and asked him to name the ways that
they were different, he said that her fingers were taller than his, and that all of
her fingers were thicker and wrinklier—
and that was it. I liked that. Would my
son have been unable to identify differences in skin tone if I had been raised
under other circumstances, and developed other sensibilities?
I got a classic middle-of-the-night
phone call in 1993. It was a police detective telling me that my father had been
killed. He had been walking on the shoulder of a stretch of highway that he walked
twice a day for 25 years, and had been hit
by a drunk driver. My uncle arranged for
the service to be held in my father’s hometown church in Tom’s River, and my sister,
brother, and I drove there expecting the
worst—a sermon, about what my father’s
life might have been, to a church, aside from
us, empty. But when we arrived…the
church was packed. There were local businessmen, little old ladies, families with small
children, even longhaired teenagers.
It turns out that my father, unknown to any of his family, had been a
most beloved person—quirky, but beloved. I was aware of people staring
curiously at us—we three “normal looking” grown-up children—as we must
have been at them. We were struck by
the tears in these strangers’ eyes.
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My father had been famous, we
learned, for his acts of kindness, usually
performed with no discussion at all. He
would carry groceries for overburdened
women, help local high school kids with
their research. And then he would stand
quietly in the back of the church during
services, with his long, unkempt hair and
noble, upright bearing, just like—according to the minister—some Old
Testament prophet. The biggest bouquet
of flowers at the service, donated anonymously, was accompanied by a note.
“He marched to the beat of his own
drum. It was a very gentle beat. In time
may we grow to accept his silence. The
keeper of the road is gone.”
I was unlucky not to have really
known my father. Even more, my father was unlucky to have been
debilitated by mental illness—and I
would never suggest otherwise. But
had he somehow been able to stay the
course of his intended track and become a high-powered lawyer, making
big money but logging 80-hour weeks,
would he ever have had the opportunities to touch an entire town the way
he did? To become the gentle and giving soul that he obviously did? Would
the people of Tom’s River ever have
had the chance to learn from him
about acceptance, about embracing
seeming difference, and about the basic humanity within us all?
Most of us are faced at some point
with what seem to be cruel or unfortunate developments in our lives. But with
a little luck—something all of you have
just by virtue of your being here— an
open mind, and even more important,
an open heart, those seemingly unfortunate twists and turns may, in the end, be
your greatest good fortune.
Jon Willson teaches history and co-chairs
the Diversity Committee with Lynette
Sumpter ’90. These remarks are excerpted
from his school meeting talk in October.
Taft Bulletin
33
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Winter Alumni Games and Dedication of The Odden Arena
in honor of Patsy and Lance Odden
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 14
11:00 a.m. ALUMNI versus GIRLS’ VARSITY HOCKEY
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11:00 a.m. ALUMNI SQUASH
12:15 p.m. ALUMNI versus GIRLS’ VARSITY BASKETBALL