Friday 27 January 2017

Prep for 50 year Oberlin College Reunion in May, 2017

My Upcoming 50 year Oberlin College Reunion for the Class of 1967

Two pages from my class directory entry:

Life at Oberlin:  I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend Oberlin College on a full-scholarship-loan-job combination, and those years have had a profound effect on my personal and professional success, as well as on my beliefs.  My most vivid memories from Oberlin include:  my waking up mornings in Barrows Hall to go to my job making doughnuts and coffee cake in the kitchens in Dascomb, and, in later years, South; attending a peace vigil with Prof. Barenbaum as the Vietnam War revved up; studying in the libe or Wilder Hall; attending an abbreviated chapel with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (he had laryngitis and couldn’t deliver the address); interviewing Isaac B. Singer on my Fine Arts radio show on W.O.B.C., thanks to Dick Lasko; summer jobs as a camp counselor in Michigan, thanks to Jim Reiter; visiting Marlin and Jeanne Butts with my good friend, Don Dryden; philosophizing and grieving with Prof. Capitan while traversing Tappan Square following the Kennedy Assassination; presenting my “Senior Perspective” on Conrad’s <i>Heart of Darkness<\i> at Wilder with the support of friends John Forsyth, Gail Gulbenkian, Jenni Horn, Steve Zuehlke, and Ken Schwartz, who came out to hear it, if my memory serves me correctly.  Professors Hoover and Bongiorno were particularly influential in my thinking and appreciation of literature.  There are many more memories, too numerous to mention, and I have no regrets, but I should include the libe prank during finals that we played with the help of some Saga foods co-conspirators.  Wearing Saga foods aprons, we announced, in the second-floor reading room and on the main floor, that hot cocoa and doughnuts were being served on the other floor.  Fake announcements had been posted to that effect earlier in the day, and the crowds from upstairs and downstairs, respectively, met on the stairs in disappointment and complaint.   
     
Life after Oberlin:  My first marriage was to Catherine Chilman (Class of 1968), the wedding having taken place in Wilder Hall.  The marriage lasted until 1998, and we had three children:  Matthew (b. 1972, wife Quyen, currently an educator and cartoonist), Stephen (b. 1974), and Judy (b. 1978, currently a veterinarian).  All three are married, and Judy and Neil have a son and daughter, Sasha and Evelyn, my grandchildren.  They all reside in Toronto, Canada, except for Stephen (currently a lawyer; formerly a guitarist, a Buddhist monk, and a banker) and his wife Anisha, who live in New Bedford, MA.  I was remarried in 2002 to Annette Rose Smith, who stems from Jamaica, and we currently reside (since 2005) in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.  Following Oberlin, I received my M.A. in English from The Ohio State University in 1969, and went on that year to do Ph.D. work (ABD) at the University of Toronto, where I had the good fortune to study with Professor Marshall McLuhan.  I also received my high-school teaching certification from there, and after a two-year stint teaching grades six to 13 at the Toronto French School (1975-77), went on to a 27-year teaching position at York Memorial Collegiate Institute with what is now the Toronto District School Board, where I served as Head of History and Contemporary Studies from 1988 to my retirement in June of 2003.  I taught many ages and subjects, including English, E.S.L., sociology, history, civics, and "The Canadian Family in Perspective."  I also coached cross-country running, supervised the student council, chaperoned proms and other dances, and undertook other responsibilities common to high-school teaching.  A volunteer achievement that I’m particularly proud of was in the school year 1991-1992, when on a secondment from teaching in Canada, my family spent the year in Costa Rica, where my then wife and I served as youth-group adult advisors for the Sinagoga B’nai Israel youth group, and participated in a project to rebuild a school, which had been destroyed by an earthquake in the village of Manzanillo, for which we had Canadian government consular assistance.  My Oberlin education stood me in good stead for my entire wonderfully enjoyable teaching career,  teaching having been a calling since my earliest days.  I’ve always been proud to have attended Oberlin College, since it was the first to admit women, the first to admit African-American students, and it played a key role in facilitating the Underground Railroad, assisting runaway slaves to freedom in Canada around the time of the Civil War.  Having graduated Oberlin has always been a source of confidence for me in my teaching career and personal life.
Richard Brown
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