HOME PAGE                              Red Book Submission for The Seventieth Reunion of the Harvard Class of 1955

   Reflecting on what I consider important or noteworthy in my own life in the past five years since our sixty-fifth reunion Redbook Report would take very few words.    On a bookshelf in my library there are thirteen Redbooks. This current volume, commemorating our seventieth reunion, will be the fourteenth on the shelf and the last of our class's redbooks. The seventy-fifth reunion class will have none. Why not? You need not ask.
   The initial volume was The Triennial Report in 1958. The succeeding twelve texts came out at five year intervals after our graduation. If you were a student at Harvard College, even if only for one day, the HAA asked you to submit thoughts for the red-covered book in advance of each reunion. In reviewing many of our entries from previous years I am not surprised that there is little in the way of deathless prose. In the thirteen earlier editions I submitted my own ephemeral musings ten times.
   For most of us born around 1933 life expectancy, according to the Office for National Statistics, was 61 years for white males, 52 years for black males.
   It is strange, passing strange that we of the Harvard Class of 1955 have exceeded Jaques's Seven Ages of Man by Two. We are no longer middle aged, but most of us who are skimming this text have happily not yet reached dotage and death.
   Recently I have had issues of health and illness much on my mind.
   For the past three years I have been living on the south shore overlooking Buzzards Bay in the town of Mattapoisett (Wampanoag for "a place of rest" with a population of 6,508 recorded in the 2020 census). It is a very quiet town.
   I do miss my home in the MetroWest suburb and its proximity to the attractions and events of Cambridge and Boston, but occasionally I manage to get up to the cities.
   Presently I am looking after a friend whom I've known for over six decades as she undergoes palliative chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer. She and I trained at The Mass General Hospital in the 1960s, she in anesthesiology, I in neurosurgery.  I am impressed by how far medicine has advanced in treating what formerly were malignancies with poor, short-lived prognoses.
   Last month (October, 2024) John Hancock, along with its parent company Manulife, hosted its Longer. Healthier. Better. Longevity Symposium in Boston. Global leaders across public and private sectors convened to share the latest research and innovations driving longevity, and how best to prepare for a longer, healthier, better life.
   We all know the rudiments, exercise, no smoking, drinking in moderation, sensible sleep routines.
   The previous year The Guardian on July 24, 2023, reported a Veterans Administration study of 700,00 US veterans who ranged in age from forty to ninety-nine.
   The headline read:
   "Adopt eight lifestyle changes to add 20 years to your life, researchers say"
   There followed the eight lifestyle changes that could extend your life
    Eat well.
    Avoid cigarettes.
    Get a good nights sleep.
    Be physically active.
    Manage stress.
    Avoid binge drinking.
    Be free from opioid addiction.
    Have positive social relationships.
   Granted the preceding makes good common sense, I think very few of us would wish for another two decades. My own feeling about achieving longevity is that for the majority it's the luck of the draw or a roll of the dice depending on which idiom you prefer. And of course it doesn't hurt to have good genes.
   Nowadays my principal physical activity is walking a Shiba Inu four times daily, usually a total of two hours. Milo, at fourteen and I, at ninety-one, do not set a very brisk pace.
   During the past five years I consider my life neither exciting nor particularly interesting. Much of my indoor activity is at the computer revising a manuscript that will likely end up in the wastebasket when I cross the bar.
   Earlier in life I had intended to read the entire extant oeuvre of  Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. And there remains much of Shakespeare that I have not yet read. The ambitions to study Classical Greek and become fluent in French are goals long since abandoned.  
   My progeny remain cherished and dear despite being far-flung. They are the reason I am quite content to remain around and retain a modicum of joy in life. Four children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild presently live in The Netherlands, California, New York, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts.
   Only one marriage among the eight and only one great-grandchild so far.
   Widener Library, containing 3.5 million books, defines alumni as those who have completed two terms of study at any of the university's schools. We alumni, with no fee, can obtain a Widener Stacks Access Card. I'm certain as an undergraduate I could ascend those twenty-nine-nine steps two at a time. But that was then and now is now, and with single steps taken briskly my legs feel somewhat heavy at the entrance.
   I deferred submitting this reunion entry until after the 2024 election. We endured what has been the most consequential presidential election in our lifetime. The process and its culmination has shaken my faith in our democracy. Hoi polloi have made their choices. I am very disappointed. .
   Many national and international events have been distressing and chaotic but have not yet directly affected me or those near and dear to me:
   Mass shootings, too many suicides among former military, Russias incursion into Ukraine, the middle east turmoil and ongoing loss of life, the conflict in Sudan and the enormity of continued suffering, failure to more successfully address the very real threat posed by climate change.
   In both military and civilian neurosurgical practice I often recalled Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly's words from an Adams House production of T.S. Eliot'sThe Cocktail Party.
    "...I often have to make a decision
    Which may mean restoration or ruin to a patient -
    And sometimes I have made the wrong decision."
   I wish that all my decisions caring for the countless casualties of the International Armed Conflict in Vietnam and for the over five thousand patients in civilian practice were the correct ones, but some were not. Even now, decades after retiring I cannot forget many of those who did not return to full active lives.
   In managing our class website (www.harvardclassof1955.org) I strive to accurately record the deaths of our cohort. 775 of our original 1156 (67%) have passed on, although I believe the actual number is greater than that. In futureI hope that those classmates who wish to share their thoughts will take advantage of the site (think of it as an ongoing mini-Red Book) and submit updates for all to share via mhelfant@gmail.com.
   Over the past decade I have been a volunteer control subject in many medical studies to document the changes that occur in our bodies, brains and minds as we age. Happily neither amyloid plaques nor tau tangles appear to be accumulating in my brain, at least none that are discernible during successive MRI exams.
    Nevertheless I fear my learning curve has flattened. In the past five years I have not advanced in chess ratings, still losing to the computer and often to my children and grandchildren.
   Happily I have not yet reached life's coda with Prospero's words on my mind,
    "...Where every third thought shall be my grave."
   Best wishes to the happy few, the residuum of the Harvard Class of 1955.
   Memento Mori - That residuum includes the two survivors of my six undergraduate roommates.