new book, Optimal Spacecraft Trajec-
tories. It’s based on a graduate course
I developed and taught biennially for
30 years (I must be getting old!). I’m
hoping Steven Spielberg will pick up
the movie rights but, let’s be honest,
the plot is terrible—no sex or violence.
I’m enjoying retirement ( 11 years) and
teaching occasionally. My dear wife,
Laurel, retired after 12 years as mayor
of Urbana, IL, but now she’s running
for county treasurer. Talk about flunk-
ing retirement! She’s apparently fol-
lowing the Larry Pitts model. Has he
stayed retired this time?”
Your secretary (Hersch Clopper)
was in Long Island with son Jeffrey
and family for New Year’s. Daugh-
ter Staci and her family absconded to
Florida for a warmer clime. Want to
wish Hank McCarl good luck with
his knee replacement surgery and a
very speedy recovery and a nimble,
spry gait for the future. My arthritic
knee has just about disappeared as
I’ve been going to a gym twice a week;
exercising there has made the pains
go away (now replaced by other mus-
cular aches after the exercise regime).
Joan Gosink said that 2017 was
a busy year: “First, lots of traveling:
a Mediterranean cruise in February,
then Salt Lake City for granddaughter Elhom’s college graduation, then
back-to-back cruises (from Boston
to Bermuda to Boston, followed by
New England and the Canadian
Maritimes, followed by a paddle-wheel cruise down the lower Mississippi), then a Colorado wine train trip,
Thanksgiving with son John and wife
Terry in Seattle, and the pièce de résis-tance, a family reunion in Maui with
all four of our sons, daughters-in-law,
and six grandchildren. Beautiful! In
May, Golden, CO, was hit by a powerful hailstorm, with hailstones the
size of Ping-Pong balls. The roof of
a Golden shopping center collapsed,
putting hundreds of employees out
of work. We, as well as almost all our
neighbors, installed new roofs over
the summer. The shopping center is
just now reopening. Health-wise, various problems slow us down but don’t
stop us. In April we will do a Wind-star cruise to China, South Korea, and
Japan during cherry blossom season.
Hopefully Korea will still be there, if
our fearless leader hasn’t blown them
and us to bits. Our wonderful family
is keeping up the good fight: insist,
persist, and resist.”
Frederick Keith Glick died on
Nov. 12, 2017. He is survived by his
wife, Linda K. Glick. Keith lived in
Colorado Springs, CO, and was a
director of the MIT Club of Colorado
from 1997 to 1998 and again from
2000 to 2005. Some of his most nota-
ble adventures were cycling in China,
Nepal, France, and Italy; cycling the
entire Pacific Coast Highway for his
70th birthday; and, most recently,
completing a 4,304-mile cross-coun-
try ride with his son John.
James Draper comments: “Janë
and I are fortunate to live pretty close
to the Tech campus, giving us lots of
chances to enjoy what’s going on—
whether that’s the colorful, eclectic
student crowds, Kresge symphony
performances, or, sadly, Paul Gray’s
memorial service. Very special. While
composing a memoir of the student life of my father, Charles Stark
Draper, I have had many enjoyable
interviews with retired Tech people
and spent hours in the libraries, particularly the Institute Archives, with
their knowledgeable and resourceful
staff, while learning how our great
institution moves through time and
space. One is impressed by the long,
positive interaction between Tech
alumni and the school. Then there is
the ‘other side’: Kendall Square construction, which might remind a historian of the evisceration of Paris by
Napoleon III between 1850 and 1870,
is a moving curse systematically wiping out the rare, hidden parking lot
known only to old alums. It’s been
a year since I’ve had a glass of wine
in the Black Sheep with my Sloan
buddies. I enjoy my post in ‘durance
vile’ writing notes to those wonderful
classmates who contribute to one of
the hundreds of noble causes that run
through the Institute. In the last year
we lost Keith Glick and Bill Bloe-baum. Each MIT thank-you that I
scrawl reminds me of Bill and Keith
and our debt to our great classmates.”
David Bragdon posted the obituary for Dr. Peter Shirier on our class
website. Peter passed away on July 1,
2016. David also provided this news:
“We did not get the damage and fury
that struck the Massachusetts coast.
Gloucester had more than 70 cars
submerged in salt water and ice when
the ocean came ashore and flooded
the parking lot at Gloucester High
School. Keith Burgess fell a while ago
and broke his right leg (femoral shaft
fracture). After an operation in Portland, ME, Keith is now at Winship
Green Center (in Bath, ME) in rehab.
As Keith puts it, he has ‘rebar’ in his
right thigh and is stapled together. I
plan to visit him and also to see Jack
Walker in Topsham, ME. Dave Stare
lost all but one of his banjos in the
Santa Rosa, CA, firestorm when his
house burned down. He writes that
he is searching for a Bacon and Day
four-string Silver Bell no. 1 plectrum
banjo. I’ve been delayed assisting
Ollie Smoot with our class website:
my HP workstation got into a war
with Microsoft’s relentless update
attempts. Each assault required me
to restore the machine to the previous
Windows 10 build. I am almost done
transferring data and apps to a brand-
new workstation. My HP will have
a new life here as a Linux machine.”
–Hank McCarl, secretary, 28
Old Nugent Farm Rd., Gloucester,
MA 01930-3167; e-mail: hmccarl@
alum.mit.edu; Herschel Clopper, cosecretary, e-mail: herschc@
alum.mit.edu.
1963 55th Reunion
Classmates, our 55-year reunion is
June 7–10 in Cambridge. Make plans
to come. I hope to see many of you
there. Fifty-five years … amazing.
Woody Bowman’s widow,
Michele Thompson, wrote that
Woody’s last research paper was
recently published. Woody was tragically killed in an automobile collision
in July 2015. He was a prolific nonprofit researcher and author and a
longtime faculty member at DePaul
University’s School of Public Service
in Chicago. He had been the chief
financial officer of Cook County,
and before that was an Illinois state
assemblyman. I don’t often make
contributions to political races, but
I contributed to Woody’s campaign; I
knew he would do good things for Illinois. I wrote to Michele, “Woody was
amazing. Even after he’s been gone
for over two years, he’s still touching
us with his idealism and well-considered ideas.”
Steve Rudnick sent me a problem from a January 1957 calculus
final: “A densely packed crowd of
people is standing in a ring listening
to a fanatic on the Boston Common.
There is an explosion in the center,
and the people nearest the center
start pushing the others outward, so
the radius expands though the people
stay as densely packed as before. If the
radius of the inner circle expands at
a steady rate of one foot per second,
how fast is the outer radius increasing when it is twice the inner radius?
Will the two radii ever expand at the
same rate?” Steve said this problem
was scary because it presaged the real
2013 Boston Marathon bombing. He
was discouraged looking at the old
quizzes, realizing that with the exception of chemistry (his doctoral field),
he could not solve a single problem
on these MIT math and science tests.
Steve retired to Santa Fe, NM, some
years ago but keeps busy as president
of a Lifelong Learning Institute serving 900 older students each semester with short courses and lectures.
Steve gives talks on climate change
and works in the public schools on
science fairs. He says his spouse of 54
years does more interesting things;
this year she is the program director
for the presentation of Doctor Atomic
at the Santa Fe Opera.
MIT tracks “missing” alumni, but
class sleuth Rick Merrill diligently
hunts them down. Walter Cluett
(Course 4A), a member of Delta Psi
and the Number 6 Club, was on a
recent “missing” list. Rick reached out
to 4A architecture grad Bill Zoller for
info about Walter Cluett. Bill remembered that the 4A group could be
fairly rowdy in the drafting room, but
Walter was always quiet. One year
Walter’s drafting table was close to
Bill’s, and they had identical Brooks
Brothers overcoats. They joked that
one day one of them would grab the
wrong coat. Walter had a Mercedes
300 SL Gullwing and a 1920s-type
Rolls Royce that he got in London for
$1,500 (a year’s tuition at MIT!) and
shipped to Boston. The Rolls burned
more than a quart of oil driving from
Boston to New York, but it was a fabulous car. In those days the women
who cooked for fraternities were
treated like family by their “boys.”
Walter sometimes drove the Number
6 Club’s cook home to Roxbury. It
must have been quite a sight for her
neighbors, seeing an older woman
chauffeured home in a Rolls! Walter’s
family owned Cluett Peabody and
Company, whose predecessors started
about the time of the Civil War. They
made Arrow men’s shirts and developed the Sanforizing process for pre-shrinking fabric. If anyone has
current news of Walter Cluett, pass it
along to me or Rick (rickmerrill@
comcast.net).
I persuaded Bill Zoller to write
about himself too. Bill and his wife,
Janice, are still working at their firm,
Zoller Associates Architects and Interior Designers in Sarasota, FL, but are
