JOYCE, Leonard Albert Died July 1, 2014, aged 68 in Oak Park, IL. Leonard was born October 31, 1945 in South Boston, MA., the son of the late Coleman V. Joyce and the late Eleanore Mary (nee Whelan) Joyce. Leonard was a 1963 graduate of Boston College H. S. where he played on the football team. He was a 1968 graduate of Notre Dame University where he was a student leader and political activist. He later earned a master’s degree and worked towards a PhD. After college, Leonard lived in San Francisco, Chicago and for the past thirty-three years in Oak Park, IL. Leonard leaves his wife of forty years Joyce Wesolowski and his sons Rory Coleman Joyce and daughter-in-law Jessica Leriger and Dylan Thomas Joyce, his brother Kevin Coleman Joyce and sister-in-law Kate Shore, brother and sister-in-law Joseph and Lydia Wesolowski and nephews and a niece. Leonard was a Marxist-Leninist, an active trade unionist and member of Local 308 Amalgamated Transit Workers Union AFL-CIO. Leonard was an early member of Students for a Democratic Society. He was a draft resister to the war in Viet Nam. He was active in the Civil Rights and Peace Movements and was active in Movements for a United, Socialist Ireland. Leonard was a lifelong internationalist and activist in the struggles for economic justice and equality for the poor, oppressed and the working class of the world. Leonard was a strong supporter of Cuba and a past officer of the Ernest Hemingway Society of Oak Park. He twice visited Cuba with the Hemingway Society. Seeing Cuban children play baseball without equipment, Leonard gathered baseball equipment and sent it to Cuba via Pastors for Peace. On his second trip to Cuba, Leonard was delighted to see Cuban children playing baseball wearing Oak Park tee-shirts with the equipment he helped send. He won the Hemingway Look A Like contest several times. At Leonard‘s request, he was cremated without ceremony. At his request his ashes were divided and were spread in Galway Bay and several other locations in Ireland. His remaining ashes will be spread in Lake Michigan and in the ocean off South Boston. Donations in Leonard‘s memory may be sent to: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 799 Broadway, Suite 341, NYC, NY 10003-6827. “Mo ghra tu, Leonard mo Dearthair, mo Chara agus mo Comradai. Codladh slan agus Siochain.” (“I love you, Leonard my Brother, my Friend and my comrade. Sleep well and Peace.”

I  spent a few days at Notre Dame recently as Louis MacKenzie's guest in
a freshmen creative arts and language seminar. Louis chose a few of
my poems for two classes of discussion and analysis. I probably
learned as much as the students about this curious author and his way
of seeing and writing about the world.


When I visit Notre Dame I am always changed. As Tom Figel said, who was so
kind to drive all the way from Chicago and then buy me lunch(!), ND
is like catholic microsoft. Everywhere you look the "statement"
is on message, on brand. The infrastructure is three times bigger
than our student days with almost a billion dollars more of new
construction underway. But beneath the veneer, the sales and
marketing, something alive and on mission continues, finding its way
past the leprecauns and preaching about "excellence."  
Whatever that "something" is, I found it echoing in me, calling me
to shift and adjust to a deeper vein. Louis is a teacher in the
O'Malley tradition, inspiring the students, challenging them to go
further, empowering their critical thinking. I was amazed at how
young the students are. If I could go back I'd remind my younger self
of that fact! 

I thought you might all enjoy this dispatch. It was a very good
experience, with Louis and his good wife JoAnn, with whatever lives
within the fabric of that campus that still touches and changes me.
They may be flocking to the business school, the football stadium
becoming a megalith, but I bought the tee shirt and hope I can visit
again soon and talk more poetry!

Here's one of the poems we discussed. 

Holy Dark 

Clear sky at dawn

with a waxing moon,

the stark branches

of winter emptying,

letting go of the green

for descent

into the holy dark,

releasing faith

and all its tribunals

for blessed peace

as seeds soften

in the wet ground

awaiting the fire

of our surrender.

You might ask yourself how you discuss "surrender" with
eighteen year olds. That's what I mean about Louis being a teacher.

And soon, The Grateful Dead

In early December, Jay Schwartz‘s modest, ever-encouraging father Joseph A. Schwartz, Jr. died in Maryland at the age of 93. As sad things often do, Mr. Schwartz’s funeral created a time to see and appreciate other friends while spending time with the children, grandchildren, cousins and friends of a man whose kindness and good advice flavored decades of Notre Dame experience. In fact, Jay’s eulogy centered on the impact of a Notre Dame football game played when Mr. Schwartz was 14. Losing to Ohio State as the end of the game loomed, Notre Dame came to life with a number of scores and finished as the victor. His father, Jay said, mentioned that game when Mr. Schwartz explained why Notre Dame should be Jay’s school. “Dad, it’s only a football game,” Jay said. “No, it’s not!” his father responded. “Those are people who don’t quit, don’t give up. Those are the kind of people you should be around.”
Our class is well-represented in the DC area with generous people. John McCoy, also present along with Pat Collins and Emily at Mr. Schwartz’s funeral, made me at home in the Annapolis waterfront condo across from the U.S. Naval Academy, all in strolling distance of as much history, coffee and ice cream as a body can absorb. Dennis Reeder and Elise, about to leave for granddaughter Kate’s music concert in Minneapolis, made their Alexandria, VA home the first stop. And on the way to Mr. Schwartz’s wake, the route led through Falls Church, VA, where John Schmelzer has his apartment.
John’s phone was out of order and, since the building’s directory is phone number-based, John was nearby but not reachable at first. However, like all ND 68 members, John is known to the ladies. Two in the lobby lit up at his name and soon delivered me to John, who lives in a large place that is still not able to encompass the expanse of his Notre Dame delight, his recall of class events, and his far-ranging interests. John is a very frequent correspondent but one whose letters always come marked “Private, not for public”. This means that we all have to wait for revelations that meanwhile remain confidential, whether they pertain to the mystery of Loch Ness, the disappearance of Judge Crater or the secret formula for Coke.

Another DC visit was with Mike Baroody and Muff, no doubt the liveliest great-grandparents (recently made) in our class. At an Alexandria, VA restaurant close to the parish school he once attended, Mike spoke of a time a restaurant proprietor made a black classmate leave. Within the span of our time, Mike observed, that boy’s color would be no barrier to the White House, just across the Potomac.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, December remained busy. Bryan Dunigan filled his Oak Park house with the annual Christmas party attended by Dave Kabat, Dennis Toolan and Mary Lou, Tom Moore and Kathy, Ted Nugent, Matt Walsh, (Chicago cuz) Tom McKenna and Mary Pat, and Tom Gibbs and Sheila. Class President Tom Weyer and Mary were away but in touch. During January, Tom sent news that Rocky Bleier‘s mother, who had managed the bookkeeping for her son-in-law’s multi-million construction company till age 85 in California, died at age 92.
John Walsh and Dia, whose Evanston home is always at the center of class news and gatherings, spent a December Saturday night with John Flemming, in Chicago for exhibition of his leather sculpture and designs at a show. John learned that Brien Murphy‘s brother Turk died recently. Several years ahead of us, always much admired by Brien, Turk Murphy was a solid, friendly rugby giant living some of the time near a campus lake in his station wagon. John and Dia are now at the center of plans that began to form while the Walshes and other friends reflected on the two-year anniversary of Eddie Kurtz‘s death: a July, 2015 meeting in Chicago for the reunion of the Grateful Dead.
Jim O’Rourke, another center of correspondence, wrote after hearing from these: Tom Scully is now “somewhat” retired from the dialysis medical equipment industry, though he continues to consult. He and wife Debbie spend their winters in Florida and summers in Chicago. Tom Warner, retired as CEO of Del Monte Foods International, still hopes to remain involved as an executive in the food business. He and wife Mary live in Shaver Lake, California, though life occasionally takes them to London; Phuket, Thailand; Australia; or an olive farm they own in Tuscany. Tom and Mary generously donated a week’s stay in their Italian Villa near Florence as an auction prize for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association at Notre Dame. (Pam O’Rourke is the Association’s Director of Education.) Pam and I are hoping to join them in Italy, perhaps later this year, The other stalwart I see around campus regularly is Rich Linting (of Linting Brown Ltd., Laguna Beach). He spends a week on campus every spring and again in the fall just before mid-semester break to teach an intensive, deep drive course on funding new ventures.
Please send news to: Tom Figel, 1054 West North Shore, Apt. 3-E, Chicago, IL 60626, tel. (office) 312-223-9536, tfigel@lake-effect.com.

WE’RE PUMPED!

Thank you to Jim Hutchinson, Larry “Monk” Forness, Tom McKenna (Indiana), Jim O’Rourke, John McCoy, Tom Fitzharris and Bob Smith for the contributions to “We’re Pumped!” and the four items following it.  The items report the death of classmate Tom Connolly, the existence of ND grads who found South Bend weather milder than the weather at home, some photos documenting how little we have changed since our 25th reunion, the attention Tom Fitzharris is receiving for his paintings, and the news of some Bob Smith friends.

And thank you to all of you for being good Notre Dame subjects, in all the senses of that.

Mike Helmer’s popular contribution from the West Coast last time around has no immediate successor: after a night of revelry following his San Francisco Giants’ World Series success, Mike is recuperating from the strain of tipping over his neighbors’ cars. Since Mike and Elizabeth live in the Napa region, the cars are no easy matter: mostly Bentleys and Teslas, unlike the compacts known to most of us practical liberal arts majors. Fortunately, Forrest Hainline and John O’Connor had their fleets secured during the time of Mike’s joyous rampage.

Maybe southern California’s mound of muscle, Crossfit trainer Mike Burgener, can help Mike get in shape for any repeat of the Giants’ season. Larry “Monk” Forness, far along in his recovery from a heart repair, wrote from Granger, IN that Mike Burgener was one of the Father Bernard Lange‘s Gym group assembled for the Michigan weekend: “We had a great time at the Fr. Lange Weight Room in the Rockne Memorial Bldg. Big Steve Quinn was one of the better lifters. I couldn’t participate because of my recent surgery. Mad Dog (Burgener) looked so buffed that he didn’t lift, but instead was the judge. After the lifting, we went out into the parking lot and Kent “Iron Man” Durso (’67) had brought up an arm wrestling table stand, driven all the way from his farm, outside Nashville, TN. Big Steve Quinn got into a match with Dr. Jed Ervin, MD (’70) and tore Jed’s biceps tendon. Thankfully, it won’t require surgery. Iron Man got into it and dislocated his right shoulder. The only saving grace was that there were two bottles of booze — a 150-dollar bottle of Irish Whiskey (which we drained in toasts to Fr. Lange) and a 120-dollar bottle of scotch (that we drained to our own stupidity).”

During the Stanford weekend, Monk and Florida’s Jim Smithberger turned to heavy intellectual lifting when they sat in on a class in Classical and Scientific Genetics, an interest of Jim’s grandson Clayton, who is a Notre Dame prospect.

Also around for Michigan was Jim Hutchinson, who filed this mysterious report: “Jerry Murray, Bob Kubiak and I were part of the Rochester, NY crew that rented a house in Mishawaka. The weekend even included some non-pc insight from Mike Ryan re: the football player scandal. Only rough patch was a misunderstanding (now known as Towelgate) which resulted in Jerry M. shouting at everyone, ‘We are not supposed to use the towels, stand out on the lawn naked, and drip dry’.”

Here come the Irish. . . to the Purdue tailgate hosted by Tom McKenna and Mike Browning.

Feeling the prick of conscience after decades of presence at the tailgates of Class President Tom Weyer and his family, Carmel, IN’s Tom McKenna and Mike Browning organized their own party for the Purdue weekend. Tom reported, with attitude and a photo posted on the blog www.ndclass1968.com: “Beautiful weather, great food, uniforms looked good, rare sighting of Maggie Kernan and Mary Ann O’Toole, two former Governors, our own Joe Kernan and Evan Bayh, kicked Purdue’s ass, sneered at former Governor and current unqualified and incompetent Purdue President, Mitchell Daniels, wasn’t wearing his baseball cap nor riding in his RV. ’68’ attendees: Joe Kernan, Mike Ryan, Tom Gibbs, Gene Cavanaugh brought our class flag, Denny Toolin, Wally Moxham, Michael Browning, Class President Tom Weyer, Mike Wolf and Skip Strzelecki, generous provider of the tee shirts especially made for the game.”

Jim O’Rourke sent word of Thomas M. Connolly‘s death August 26, 2014. After serving as a U.S. Navy pilot, Tom came back to South Bend, where he married Bonnie McHugh, made his career in automotive and aviation industries, and enjoyed a wide circle of friends. Suffering from cancer at the end, Tom was the father of two sons and grandfather of four. Please keep him and Bonnie in your prayers.

Pals of John Schmelzer can write him at 200 North Maple Avenue, Apt. 611, Falls Church, VA 22046-4328. Though suffering from some health issues, John is sure to reply with interesting comments. Also, keep Bill Knapp and his wife Mary Clare in your thoughts as Mary Clare deals with some health matters. (In an early November phone call, Bill said that 2013 was a difficult time but, on January 6, 2014, Mary Clare had surgery that put her back in the pink.  The Knapps are good.)

Thanks. – Tom Figel, 1054 West North Shore, Apt. 3-E, Chicago, IL, tfigel@lake-effect.com, tel. (office) 312-223-9536.

A sketch received from Jim Hennegan around 1971 – with a laugh.

South Bend, IN has its good qualities but who’s ever heard South Bend’s weather included on that list?
The exceptions are our own John McCoy and Dennis Gallagher, who both found their climate situations improved when they matriculated at Notre Dame.
“We both came for the mild climate,” John McCoy said, “but the dispute was over who had bettered his lot the most.”
Dennis is from Oswego, NY, which is on the east end of Lake Ontario and directly in the path of the Lake Ontario lake effect.
John is from Bradford, PA (about 80 miles south of Buffalo and 2 miles south of the NY/PA line). Bradford is due east of about the first 200 miles of Lake Erie (the shore line eventually bears north east toward Buffalo). As a result, says John, Bradford gets the bulk of the Lake Erie lake effect and much worse winters than Buffalo sees.
John says he and Dennis have debated the issue for many years. Then a third party stepped into the argument.
“I claimed victory a few years ago,” John said, “when the Weather Channel set up an NCAA BB style bracket of 64 cities and had its viewers vote on which ones had the worst weather. Bradford won in the east region and in its semi-final match-up, but lost to Fargo, ND in the final. If I recall correctly, Bradford was the only one of the six cities that Fargo faced to hold it under 60 percent of the vote.”
And what about present locations? Neither classmate returned to old haunts. Instead, they both live in the DC area, where NBC news reporter Pat Collins keeps track of snowfall with a blue stick and lots of commentary.
In revisiting the argument, John sent two links:
Perhaps global warming is having an effect:
http://www.bradfordera.com/news/article_aeb1420c-9352-11e2-b44f-0019bb2963f4.html

This is the weather channel’s description of Bradford’s climate from the 2011 competition:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/final-four-bradford-pa_2011-03-25

New York City resident Tom Fitzharris says graduating from the General Program of Liberal Studies turned out to be a big asset. Just take a look at the images of Tom’s work.

Bad Spring 2001 by Tom Fitzharris

Since leaving fulltime work as head of Court TV’s website, Tom has turned plenty of spare time to painting. He is also part of the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he draws on his General Studies knowledge while conducting tours for school groups.

Tom’s painting “Fall Interior” was among the works of Met employees included in a special exhibit during 2014. Another work was part of a similar exhibit in 2012.

“Fall Interior” by Tom Fitzharris

Tom had to miss the 45^th class reunion when it conflicted with a long-sought honor, selection as a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, where he spent two weeks. In July, 2014, the art critic David Cohen (www.artcritical.com) made Tom’s work “Landscape” part of an exhibit in the Manhattan gallery Bowery, located in Chelsea. Tom also has a work included in the permanent collection of the US mission to the United Nations.

 Tom’s email address is: tom.fitzharris@gmail.com

“Landscape” by Tom Fitzharris