From April 6 to 10, 2016, the Class of ’72 ventured into new territory with a Class Trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Classmates, spouses, and guests, altogether numbering 72 strong, convened from as far as Switzerland, San Francisco, and New York City. Our base was the comfortable and convenient Inn on the Alameda, just on the edge of Santa Fe’s picturesque downtown.

Our first adventure, on Wednesday afternoon, was a group visit to SAR, the School of Advanced Research, a century-old anthropological / archaeological / cultural think-tank presided over by our classmate Michael Brown, who recently took charge there after more than thirty years teaching anthropology at Williams College. We had an inside look at the School’s impressive facilities, including a spectacular collection of Southwestern ceramics and other objects made by indigenous peoples. Commentary by Michael and some of his colleagues was a welcome introduction to the subject and setting for many of us. That evening, we dined at the La Fonda Hotel right at center of Santa Fe, overlooking the imposing 19^th-century cathedral’s façade. There we were joined by Michael Brown and Jamie Clements ’80, the CEO of the New Mexico Museum foundation, an umbrella organization for several of the city’s most iconic museums.

Next day, Thursday the 7^th, we took off, on foot, in small groups for walking tours of some of the historical and cultural offerings of downtown Santa Fe, led by knowledgeable and engaging local guides. We gathered for lunch at Coyote Cantina, and then spent the afternoon at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture and the Museum of International Folk Art. We were welcomed for dinner at the spectacular home of Michael Pettit ’72 and his wife Cindi, where we dined on delicious barbecue and savored stunning views of Santa Fe’s surrounding landscape.

On Friday the 8^th we boarded buses for an hour-long drive to Los Alamos, birthplace of the Atomic Bomb and subsequent center of nuclear and related scientific research. At the Bradbury Museum of Science we enjoyed a fascinating series of talks about the research laboratory’s mission and history, from the Manhattan Project and Cold War to the present day (e.g. analyzing data from the Mars Rover), followed by a bus tour of the extensive facility, as big as a university campus. We ate box lunches at scenic White Rock, overlooking the Rio Grande River far below, then motored through hairpin turns to Bandelier National Monument, where we explored ancient, enigmatic cliff dwellings. Once again our guides provided engaging commentary, both onboard the buses and along the walking trails. That evening we split into two culinary contingents and dined at a pair of Santa Fe’s most highly regarded restaurants: the contemporary-French-bistro Bouche (welcomed by proprietor/chef Charles Dale ’78) and Sazon, where Chef Fernando Orlean draws from Santa Fe’s multicultural heritage to blend the flavors of Old Mexico with flavors from around the world, all impeccably presented and served.

Next day, Saturday the 9^th, we divided into two hiking sub-groups and one contingent of Canyon Road art-gallery-goers. The hikers bused for an hour to Kasha –Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, site of a phalanx of spectacular conical-tower rock formations unique in the Western Hemisphere. Some of us scrambled up 630 feet of cliffside trail – often through slit canyons only wide enough for one hiker – to a fabulous mesa-top overlook. We returned to Santa Fe to lunch at the renowned Compound restaurant, then had an afternoon to either explore the city on our own or to enjoy a tour of the spectacular Santa Fe Opera House. That evening we enjoyed a concluding dinner at La Sena, where we toasted the success of this latest Class of ’72 adventure. All of us added Santa Fe and New Mexico to our lists of places to which we hope to return.

Shenandoah and Monticello, October 2015

We gathered on Wednesday evening October 14, at the Skyland Resort perched high (3680 ft.) atop Virginia’s Blue Ridge, at the center of Shenandoah National Park. Participants came from California, Idaho, Texas, Minnesota, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, as well as the immediate VA-DC area. All enjoyed a congenial welcoming dinner presided over by our organizers, Andy and Ellie Dayton. Andy gave us a preview of the next day’s adventures and itineraries, commented on by local millennial dining-room staff who thought we oldsters might find the trail "excruciating.”

On a chilly Thursday morning, after a fortifying breakfast, in two contingents based on capability and ambition– the Hard Core (leaving at 7 a.m.) and the Casuals (at 9:30 a.m.)– we set out on our respective day hikes, under a bright blue sky amidst stunning autumn colors.

"Merc” Morris reports on The Hard Core’s accomplishments that day:

After final gear adjustments the seventeen Hard Core hikers stepped upstream from the Whiteoak Canyon parking lot along the north bank of Cedar Run. The group included Bill "Rock” Brockman, Andy Dayton, Diana Foster, Tom Hoster, Tom Jones, Steve Massad, "Merc” Morris, Eric and Mara Mellum, Helena Novakova, Cameron Smith, Anne Strauss, Chris Van Horne, Bob Wright, Joan Zwiep and guests Mike Camp ‘70 and Barclay Foord.

We warmed in the chilly morning with the uphill grade, chattering like jays as we huffed higher, pausing at lower Cedar Run Falls for a group photograph. We crossed the stream and the trail steepened ascending to upper Cedar Run Falls, a natural slide where the waters rushed 40 feet down a sloping granite face to a pool wallowed in the bedrock. Another pause to watch as Andy Dayton proved that real men don’t need wet suits in 40 degree water—he took the plunge on principle—ShhhhhSplooosh! "Re-re-re-freshing” he stuttered. Andy leads by example, but our hearts followed our minds….

An awkward creek crossing (one wet boot!) led us past looming formations of ancient folded rock before we eased up gentle switchbacks to arrive within earshot of the Skyline Drive. It was nearly noon but all downhill from there.

A trail and fire road descended gradually to a small waterfall with a bridge spanning Whiteoak Creek. We took seats in the sun and enjoyed our box lunches amid the sounds of the forest and stream. Five miles or so in; maybe three to go.

The downside of sitting for lunch after a steep hike is standing when it is over. We rallied and moved out following a steep, root-marred track—heavily traveled but very rough. We descended slinky-like-—hikers pausing at breathtaking waterfall overlooks to be overlapped by following hikers. Down we went, pausing and passing at Upper Whiteoak and Lower Whiteoak Falls until at last the trail flattened to a meandering creekside return to our starting point.

Ed Strauss recounts the more leisurely day enjoyed by The Casuals:

Melanie Brockman, Ellie Dayton, Rick and Christine Hammitt, Nikos Monoyios and Valerie Brackett, Ed Strauss, John Van Horne, Randall Turk and Farah Farhoumand.

We caravaned our cars for about an hour to the trailhead at the foot of Whiteoak Canyon, and hiked north through the woods for about 1.5 miles of steady climb until we reached Lower Whiteoak Falls, just as the trail turned sharply upward, signaling that this would be a worthwhile turnaround point for The Casuals. There we enjoyed picturesque photo ops and our well-earned box lunches. We were back to our cars by 3 p.m. and at Skyland by 4:30.

At 6 p.m. our reunited full-strength contingent drove down off the Blue Ridge to the nearby valley floor for a tour of the truly spectacular Luray Caverns: chamber after magnificent chamber of subterranean splendors, countless columns, stalactites, and stalagmites. Then we savored an excellent, elegant dinner at the Mimslyn Inn in Luray.

Friday the 16^th we again separated into two groups.

Merc Morris:…

Our group included Bill "Rock” Brockman, Andy Dayton, Daryl English, Diana Foster, Tom Hoster, Tom Jones, Steve Massad, "Merc” Morris, Eric and Mara Mellum, Helena Novakova, Cameron Smith, Bob Wright, Joan Zwiep and guest Mike Camp’70.

We previously heard that Old Rag was the most popular hike in Shenandoah National Park—the nearly full parking lot, a staffed ranger station and multiple comfort stations confirmed the assessment. A lot of people had the same idea. We signed in and moved along a residential road until ascending to the trailhead with its obvious entry into the hardwood forest. Modest switchbacks carried us up through a towering canopy with little understory all brightened by leaves just turning fall color. We gained elevation inside the woods oblivious to the height attained but feeling the demand of grade and elevation. We regrouped beside some immense boulders with a peek at forest floor beyond far below. It was a hint of the height, but no clue to the climb ahead.

We then rounded a bend and the trail ended at big rocks—BIG ROCKS! with no noticeable path and only fading six inch long blazes of blue paint indicating the route. One good blaze led to another until—-Whoa! We had to slide right around a bulging rock on our left that pushed us outward with little more than air on our right. Okay! We got that one and then—Whoa! Up onto a ledge to squeeze under a pack-slapping overhang to scramble up a boot-polished rock. Immediately we were chasing the blazes and our trepidation upwards.

This wasn’t hiking. This was "Chutes and Ladders” in granite.

Down we went into a 10-foot deep slot, out and up through a tunnel formed by a cap rock wedged between two semi-trailer sized boulders; around a rock bend and down again. We squeezed, dropped, slipped and slid, perched and pushed, gulped, gasped and scrambled onwards until we popped out onto a massive downward sloping slab of rock. There below us and as far as we could see was Piedmont Virginia.

"Are we there, yet?”-a choral query.

Gulp. No.

"Look up there,” came the answer as eyes strained to see faint figures a quarter mile distant and at least 300 feet higher.

Off we charged, emboldened by our earlier victories only to be repeatedly challenged by Old Rag’s rock labyrinth. It was playschool and we were learning the scraped knee truths of rock scrambling: you can do things you don’t think you can; yes, you can squeeze through that crack; yes, you can step up on a hope and stride forward on a shadow. Besides, if these twelve year olds darting past you can do it, you can too…

But you gotta follow the blazes….

We scrambled our way to the top without incident save for one scraped knee and a brief "rockabout”, when enthusiasm for "up” missed a left turn blaze. (For the record, directions were sought and received).

A brisk wind whipped the summit and four climbers posed atop the apex with a picture of our late classmate, Rick Lang, memorialized the same day at a service in New Jersey.

Our mood was jubilant. This hike was the first of its type for many of us and the universal response was "Wow, that was fun.”

Lunch on the mountain and then the hike down a rocky trail that delivered us on a wonderful, wooded fire road. We strolled back to our cars, tired but on a rocky mountain high, Shenandoah style.

Ed Strauss:

The Casuals, Melanie Brockman, Ellie Dayton, Barclay Foord, Rick and Christine Hammitt, Nikos Monoyios and Valerie Brackett, Anne Strauss, Ed Strauss, John Van Horne, Randall Turk and Farah Farhoumand, stayed on the mountaintop for the day’s explorations. One morning hike, led by Matt, a National Parks Service Ranger, was on a fairly level path about 1.5 miles to and from a celebrated overlook point, Stony Man, with panoramas east over the Luray Valley, Massanutten Mountain, and the distant Alleghenies in West Virginia. In the afternoon, starting and ending at Milam Gap, a few miles south of Skyland, a Casuals group hiked for several miles along the fabled Appalachian Trail, entertained with prolific AT lore by a ranger appropriately named Woody.

That evening we again gathered for dinner and exchanged tales of our adventures atop the stunningly beautiful Blue Ridge.

Saturday the 17^th we drove south to Monticello, just outside Charlottesville. There we enjoyed a full day of immersion in the life, genius, and varied fortunes of Thomas Jefferson, in a program thoughtfully constructed by our classmates John and Christine Van Horne. After viewing a film and exhibits at the Visitor Center, we first visited the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, where we enjoyed a sandwich lunch and a talk by J. Jefferson Looney (Princeton PhD *83), editor of the The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series (including every letter written and received by Jefferson, from the time he left the White House in 1809 to his death in 1826; the pre-1809 papers are being edited at Princeton’s Firestone Library). Jeff engagingly described the challenges and delights of this monumental, decades-long undertaking. We also toured Kenwood, the adjacent 1941 home that served as a wartime retreat for FDR.

We then spent the afternoon in and around Monticello itself, beginning with a tour of the trees, flowers, and vegetable gardens led by the charming Gabrielle Rausse, Monticello’s Director of Gardens and Grounds, including an alfresco tasting of wines that he has been able to cultivate more successfully than Jefferson was ever able to. We then toured virtually every room of the fascinating, legendary house, including the recently opened and furnished second floor, the unfurnished third floor (inside the dome), and the cellar.

After Monticello ("little mountain”) we proceeded to the top of adjacent Montalto ("high mountain”), recently acquired by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, where a stately early-1900’s house now serves as an elegant conference center, and there we enjoyed delicious dinner of local barbecue dishes. We were welcomed by Leslie Greene Bowman, President of the Foundation, and enjoyed a stimulating and engaging talk by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (Oxon.), professor of history at UVA and director of the Smith Center, about why Jefferson deserves ongoing study and top rank among the Founding Fathers.

Sunday morning we departed in every direction, already savoring the memories of fall colors, rocky scrambles, historical insights, and the good fellowship which has become the hallmark of our Class Trips going back fifteen years.

Additional information:

Casual climbers

Melanie Brockman, Ellie Dayton, Barclay Foord (Friday), Rick and Christine Hammitt, Nikos Monoyios and Valerie Brackett, Anne Strauss (Friday), Ed Strauss, John Van Horne, Randall Turk and Farah Farhoumand, Sallie Wright, and of course, Ginny.

Cedar Run Hike participants:

Bill "Rock” Brockman, Andy Dayton, Diana Foster, Tom Hoster, Tom Jones, Steve Massad, "Merc” Morris, Eric and Mara Mellum, Helena Novakova, Cameron Smith, Anne Strauss, Chris Van Horne, Bob Wright, Joan Zwiep and guests Mike Camp ‘70 and Barclay Foord.

Old Rag Climbers

Bill "Rock” Brockman, Andy Dayton, Daryl English, Diana Foster, Tom Hoster, Tom Jones, Steve Massad, "Merc” Morris, Eric and Mara Mellum, Helena Novakova, Cameron Smith, Bob Wright, Joan Zwiep and guest Mike Camp’70.

Photos can be found here.

While GPS and navigation devices reduced the anxiousness of trying to read house numerals in twilight at 45 miles per hour, there are two numerals that remove all doubt—our supersized and significant illuminated class numbers. We tip our PU1972 ball caps to Fritz Cammerzell who seems to find at least one class scholar or reunion crew member who owns a truck and can at least dead lift "72.” Thanks be to the signmasters!

When you gather forty or so classmates, spouses and friends in one location, they herd, gravitating at first to the bar, then coalescing around the hors d’oeuvres before swirling about in a murmuration of natty pin-striped reunion jackets. So it was beneath the bigtop in the Ayers' lawn—a gaggle at the bar and pods of conversants engaged in the rite of recognition and remembrance with recall prompted by nametags.

Still, no one stepped forward to identify all the "silver maned” (ahem, gray haired) visitors, our several census takers tallied classmates: Bjorklund, R. Brown, Cammerzell, Dayton, deGolian, B. English,D. English, Foster, Hammitt, Hewitt, Hughes, Harris, Fair, G.Johnson,T. Jones, Kent, Kireker, Le Vine, Lloyd-Coulter, Loomis, Markiewicz, E. Marshall, J.Marshall, J.McPherson (H), P. McPherson (H), Monoyios, Morris, Rankin, C. Robinson (H), J. Robinson, Sanford, Schneider, Smart, E. Strauss, Stuart, Tichenor. Walter and Wright, under the tent and around the tables.

Following dinner, Bob Wright stood and offered a welcome to our several guests including BJ and Lisa Kelley, parents of Connor Kelley, recognized our class scholars, Deion King ’18 and Delaney Johnson ’17 and our reunion crew members, John Clarke ’18 and Jarryd Osborne. He offered some kinds words of commendation for our several class officers and committee chairs who volunteer their time on behalf of the class and executive commendations for class Treasurer Chris Loomis; Reunion Chairs Fritz Cammerzell and Robby Robinson; Class Secretary Merc Morris Daryl English, who assists with the minutes; Class Associates co-chairs Mike Schneider and Rob Smart; Class Scholarship Chair Ron Brown; Class Archivist Ed Strauss; Memorial Fund Chair Randy Harris; Community Service Co-Chairs Griff Johnson and Barbara Julius; Webmaster Doug Harrison and our super Class Agent Tom Hoster.

In a fitting and much deserved recognition of character and camaraderie Bob Wright then "read in” our new honorary classmates, the Connors Three: Conner Clegg ’14; Conner Kelley ’15 and Conner Michelsen ’15). As far as our class is concerned, this trio may be the zenith of their shared name.

And where this would be a natural stopping point in proceedings, our assembly was then respectfully crashed by a group of younger well-known graduates who had quietly been gathering courage on the Ayers front lawn. They shuffled in bearing a cake and at their prompting we joined Sean Edwards '92 h’72, Cameron Hamilton ’99 h’72, Paul Javier ’00 h’72 , Mike Ott ’07 h’72, Kelly Shannon ’12 h’72, and Tommy Wornham ’12 h’72 in a birthday serenade for our evergreen and ageless VSOP Fritz Cammerzell. They let us eat cake and we extended the party.

Saturday was hot and bright. We drifted to our tented station at the Class of 1972 Memorial Plaza adjacent McCosh Hall for our pre-P-rade luncheon. Our numbers increased with attendees Beha (his first return in 30 years wearing his newly obtained 25th reunion jacket), Bulle, Caton, Farnum, Flitt, Huttner, Glossbrenner, Hackell, B. Johnson, Kimball, Kurz, Luchak, Maguire, McNealy, Moore, Murley, R. Scully, Wen and Wood. Following lunch we assembled on Cannon Green taking station at a shaded corner adjacent West College. We gathered, we cheered and then we marched.

We welcomed the Connors Three (pictured l-r), Kelley ’15, Clegg ’14, and Michelsen ’15) as honorary members. 

’72 Visits More Civil War Battlefields in Virginia

April 29 – May 3, 2015

From the four points of the compass – Washington and Oregon, Mill Valley and Palo Alto, Nevada, Phoenix, Idaho, Denver, Houston, St. Louis, Madison WI, Peoria, Ohio, Georgia, the Carolinas, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, State College PA, upstate New York, the NYC and Washington DC metro areas, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and Vermont – a record number of ’72 classmates spouses and guests, 108 strong, mustered at the Boar’s Head Inn, just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, on April 29 for our seventh Civil War battlefield discovery tour with Princeton Prof. Emeritus Jim McPherson and his wife Pat, both honorary classmates of 1972.

After we enjoyed a welcoming reception and kickoff dinner, we rallied at 8 the next morning and boarded our two buses. Our destination that first day was the fortifications around Petersburg, due south of the Confederate capital Richmond, where the entrenched armies of Grant and Lee confronted each other for nearly ten months, from mid-June 1864 to early April 1865, the longest siege in the Civil War (or any American war). Petersburg was a key rail junction, and as long as it held out Richmond could be provisioned sufficiently to repulse any Yankee attackers and continue waging the War of Secession. At numerous points along the line of formidable entrenchments, one side or the other repeatedly attempted to achieve breakthroughs during those months of siege. Most dramatic and infamous was the Battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864, where Pennsylvania coalminers in the Union Army tunneled right underneath the entrenched enemy’s front lines, undetected, and literally blew the Confederates sky-high, but then failed to exploit the shock and awe that 8,000 pounds of exploding gunpowder delivered. The confused and ineptly led Federal infantrymen poured into the Crater but couldn’t fight their way out, resulting in one of the worst military disasters of any war. As he has in all the battlefields we’ve visited, Prof. McPherson gave us a brilliant, insightful commentary about the opposing leaders, the decisions they made, and the horrendous losses that resulted. (And on this trip, we finally succeeded in transmitting the Professor’s commentary from one bus to the other, by walkie-talkie!)

That evening, after a quick change of clothes at the Boar’s Head, we bused north and east to Montpelier, the home of our country’s fourth President, James Madison (Princeton 1771), where he and wife Dolley lived for almost twenty years after his two-term presidency (1809-1817). The house belonged to the duPont family for most of the last century and is now being meticulously and thoughtfully restored to how it looked when the Madisons lived there. We enjoyed an elegant dinner in the handsome dining room in which the duPonts had entertained, adjacent to the main house.

Friday morning, May 1st, we repeated our timely muster and rode north to the Manassas battlefield, a.k.a. Bull Run, scene of two key battles thirteen months apart. We started at the Stone Bridge and proceeded to key landmarks of First Manassas (July 21, 1861, the war’s first battle) – Matthews Hill and Henry Hill, where Stonewall Jackson earned his nickname – then shifted attention to the bigger and even bloodier, but less well-known, Second Manassas (August 28-29-30, 1862). We surveyed the battle starting from Brawner’s Farm, then to the Unfinished Railroad Cut, then to the spot where two New York regiments made their valiant stand against an onrushing Confederate tide, at great cost. Both battles were victories for the secessionist South, driving Union forces from the field. We were impressed by how well the battlefield, and much of the land around it, has been preserved from encroaching suburban sprawl, so close to Washington DC. That evening we dined festively at Swift Run Farm, property of Steve and Caroline McLean’s family in Stanardsville, with a delicious pig-roast and ample libations, to the accompaniment of Gallatin Canyon, an excellent Charlottesville bluegrass band.

Saturday we drove to a sparkling new branch of the Museum of the Confederacy, full of fascinating historical artifacts, just outside Appomattox, then visited that peaceful village itself and saw where Ulysses S. Grant received Robert E. Lee’s surrender, on April 9, 1865, bringing the war in Virginia to a close. We were all moved by the tranquil atmosphere and spirit of reconciliation so palpable there. We learned about one of the war’s very last engagements, vestiges of which are even now being discovered, excavated, and preserved, just outside town, 150 years after it occurred. We then returned to the Boar’s Head Inn and a gala celebratory and valedictory dinner, just across the street, at the elegant Farmington Country Club, again thanks to Steve McLean. We presented Jim and Pat McPherson a custom-made, coffee-table book chronicling, in words and photos, all the Civil War trips on which he and Pat had led us, going back to Gettysburg in October 2004, enlightening us all. These journeys have brought many classmates and spouses into active engagement, friendship, and fellowship with ’72 and each other. Sunday we departed in every direction, savoring the manifold happy memories which we will all continue to cherish.

Photos of the trip are collected here.