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After our web posting in January, I turned my attention to a consulting job that involved looking into the finances of three large hospitals. Wow!  Who would guess how much profit a  non-profit institution can make!?  Another reminder of how much hard work lies ahead to get control over health care costs.

As winter wound down, I followed the final phase of  the Yale men’s hockey season, frequently accompanied at rinkside by hockey guru Gus Hedlund.  This included a solid victory over Harvard at Ingalls Rink, followed a couple of weeks later by  the ECAC tournament series against Brown.  As the top seed, Yale had home ice advantage but lost to Brown 2-1 in a close third game. The deciding game 3 loss  was one of those familiar to hockey fans where we played well but a)took a dumb penalty at a critical time and b) the opposing goalie  went into an elevated mental zone where he  blocked every  Yale shot.  But that wasn’t the end of the season.  Yale has a  national caliber hockey team that the NCAA recognized  with an invitation to the NCAA tournament.  For the first round, Kane and Hedlund trekked to Worcester, Mass to see Yale play – and defeat – the much feared North Dakota “Fighting Sioux”, first time since the 1950’s that Yale has advanced past the first round.  NDakota has won the NCAA any number of times and some 16 guys on  the team  had been drafted by the  NHL.  By the demeanor of their many fans in Worcester,  all  wearing actual hockey shirts, they seemed to expect to blow by Yale, but it didn’t happen.  Yale took the lead with a bunch of goals in the 2d period and held on with composure and grit in the third period to get the W.  The next day Yale had to play the eventual NCAA champs Boston College and lost 9-7, no disgrace.  It has been a long wait, but Yale has arrived in college hockey.

Yale played all  its tournament games without  their leading scorer,  a senior breaking an ankle in a late night  frolic in Payne Whitney Gym, rumored as a  spooky event.

After the Harvard hockey game, I visited Tom Luckey as he recovered from  pneumonia and bed sores – thankfully nothing  turned out to be  critical – in the Yale New Haven Hospital.  He was  in good spirit and obviously a favorite of the nursing staff.  As we talked, he skillfully operated the computer mounted over his bed by means of a metallic sticker on the end of his nose.  Some days later I got the good news that  he had been discharged in good health back to his res. in East Haven.

The weekend of the Harvard  game was, by the way, the kickoff of Yale’s biennial  “Sex Week”,  critically reported in this posting’s  “This Just In” section.  This involved (apparently) many forums, panels, speeches, manifestos and other utterances and surveys all to improve  the sex life and/or fantasies of the undergraduates.  Too weird for old fuds like me.

After Yale’s hockey journey ended, I flew out for  spring break to Arizona, with a visit to Tucson and former Yale Dean Bob Porter as the highlight.  Bob, as some recall, kept bachelor quarters in Davenport  and some of us were regular visitors and beneficiaries of both his hospitality ( unlimited beer and cheese) and learned sayings.  Greece has been in the news, reminding  me of a time when  our undergrad chatter  at Bob’s place turned to the touristic charms of Greece, upon which Bob, a classics scholar and known for an epigrammatic conversation style, said (as ever, squinting far into the distance:  “The only thing wrong with Greece is the Greeks.”  Of course we had no idea what he meant, but perhaps it’s clearer now.  Bob moved with his family to Tucson in 1934, and he returned there when he left Yale in 1984.  He now  enjoys what he calls “foothills living”  in a suburb with his  niece, Christine,  and her small but ferocious dog.   He put on several gourmet dinners in my honor, preceded by  hand-crafted frozen margaritas, making a point of  using blue agave nectar in lieu of sugar.  When not entertaining visitors and puttering around the residence, Bob drives himself into town to his favorite trading post, “Trader Joe’s” market, and serves as a volunteer guide for the US Forest Service in the Santa Catalina National Park.  He has reached 89 with gusto and it was good to see him after about 40 years. On my last day in Tucson, Andy Block (YC’61) drove down from Phoenix and the three of us had lunch.

Andy Block (Y'61), Bob Porter and CorSec Kane, Spring '10

In our “This Just In” section Steve Howard poses the question of how best to respond to the arrival of one’s 70th Birthday.  Myself, I am going to be spared some unwelcome fuss because my birthday is July 29, and by chance my eldest daughter and fiance picked July 31  for their wedding date.  But Steve’s question is a great one and I hope we will hear comments from many classmates. Steve’s email seems to  frame the main issue as “what have I accomplished” and “what can I still accomplish,” making me also hope that most will opt for a broad definition of accomplishment.  For sure, our class has its fair share of  distinguished authors, scholars, lawyers, doctors, corporate chieftains, community leaders, artists and others whose professional accomplishments if listed would circle the earth.   Yet, in three years as your Corresponding Secretary, as I have learned of  many remarkable achievements by our classmates, I have yet to hear  much about  how we feel about our lives.  I suspect this is tricky terrain for many.  Maybe another  question on reaching 70 is, what kind of life have I led and what is the right yardstick for that?   Looking forward to hearing what many of you think.

Mike Kane
mkane40@gmail.com
Newton, Massachusetts
May 14, 2010

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