Groton School Quarterly, Spring 2009

Spring 2009 | Vol. LXXI, No. 2

Groton School Quarterly

Gifts We Receive From Others

Spring 2009 | Vol. LXXI, No. 2

Contents Circiter | Featured on Campus

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My Fair Lady

Students dazzle in production of winter musical

at the Campbell Performing Arts Center

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Gallery News Exhibits change at the de Menil and Brodigan Galleries

Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle

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A Chapel Talk by Franz Colloredo-Mansfeld ’81, Trustee, P ’09

12 Gadugi at Groton

A Chapel Talk by Melinda Stewart, Director of Counseling

16 Roommates

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Do Not Take the Express Train, Take the Local

A Chapel Talk by Sarah Norodom ’09 and Cynthia Liu ’09

21 Tides on the Train

A Chapel Talk by Lorcan McGonigle ’09

Groton School Quarterly Personae | People of Note

24 50 Years of Discovery

Alumni Reflect on their experiences

with Hugh Sackett

Grotoniana | All Things Groton

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44 Winter Sports

Boys Varsity Hockey wins Eberhart Trophy for first time in school history

50 School News

Alumni Games / GWN / GSSA /

Annual Fund

52 New Releases

Alumni publications

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In Memoriam | As we Remember

54 Malcolm J. Edgerton, Jr. ’38

56 Charles H. Erhart, Jr. ’44

57 Mark R. Griffith ’78

Notabilia | New & Noteworthy

61 Form Notes 91 Marriages, New Arrivals, Deaths

Alumni stroll towards reunion weekend lunch.

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FROM THE EDITOR

Groton School Quarterly Spring 2009 | Vol. LXXI, No. 2

Our Human Techology

B

ack on October 22, 2007, the School hosted an all school lecture the text of which we carried in the winter edition of the Quarterly. The speaker was environmentalist Bill McKibben who at the time was a scholar-inresidence at Middlebury College. The author of ten books, including The End of Nature and Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, McKibbin’s message that night was challenging. He maintained that Americans had created a society poorly equipped to confront its environmental problems because we were too tied to economic growth and to a way of life that separated us one from another. Fossil fuels had, in his words “screw[ed] up the planet, [and] allowed us to be the first people in the world who have no need of their neighbors.” As he offered hopeful solutions to the dilemma, McKibben acknowledged:

“We need lots of new technology, and we can talk about that all along, but what we really need more than anything else is the kind of human technology that you guys are developing here.”

—February 2008 Quarterly, page 18

Vaughn Winchell

His used the term “human technology” to suggest not tools or machines, but rather a system of ideas and behaviors that, acting together, beneficially affect the environment. The human technology that will save our planet and us from ourselves, McKibben argues, will develop from individuals who seek connection and community, rather than isolation. It will flow from those who have “the ability to work with each other. The ability to be with each other. The ability, most of all, to take [their] pleasure from each other and not from the accumulation of yet another round of stuff.” —idem, page 18 As I pulled together this spring’s issue of the Quarterly, the submissions echoed one another in their valuing of relationships and they affirmed the very connectedness that McKibben saw in our School when he visited. I am heartened to think that the Groton experience continues to prepare young men and women to approach life in a way that might well save it.

And in the spirit of McKibben’s environmental concerns, we at the Quarterly continue to contemplate the best ways to get its content to you, as we seek to grow greener and look at the costs and environmental impact of printing and mailing over 22,500 magazines to Grotonians in the United States and abroad. I hope you enjoy the spring issue, and I welcome comments and story suggestions. Please email messages to

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John M. Niles, Editor Quarterly@groton.org

Editor John M. Niles Graphic Design Jeanne Abboud Contributing Editors Julia B. Alling Amybeth Babeu Elizabeth Wray Lawrence ’82 Erin E. Lyman John D. MacEachern Melissa J. Ribaudo Rachel S. Silver Photography Cover photo by Arthur Durity All other photography by Arthur Durity unless otherwise noted.

Editorial Offices The Schoolhouse Groton School Groton, MA 01450 Phone: 978-448-7506 E-mail: quarterly@groton.org

Other School Offices Alumni Office 978-448-7520 Admission Office 978- 448-7510 The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the School.

Groton School of Groton, Massachusetts 01450 publishes the Groton School Quarterly three times a year in late summer, winter, and spring, and the Annual Report once a year in the fall.

Circiter | Featured on Campus

MY FAIR LADY

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tudents, faculty, parents, staff, and local residents filled the Campbell Performing Arts Center three times over on the weekend of February 20th to enjoy the 2009 winter term production of My Fair Lady. Directed by Laurie Sales, artistic director of the Campbell Performing Arts Center, with set and lighting design by Sarah Sullivan, production designer and technical director, the musical was lavishly costumed by Catherine Coursaget, costumier, and the excellent instrumental accompaniment was ably conducted by Michael Smith, Groton’s organist and choirmaster. Highlights of the show were performances of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” sung by Eliza Doolittle (Haley Willis ’09) and the Cockney Quartet (Ward Scott ’11, Will Goodenough ’12, Matt Clarida ’12, and Tae Hoo Lee ’13), Professor Henry Higgins’ (Ben Lamont ’09) “Why Can’t The English,” Eliza’s “I Could Have Danced All Night,” Mr. Alfred P. Doolittle’s (Zach Nicol ’11) “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “Get Me To The Church On Time,” and Freddy Eynsford-Hill’s (Aaron Primero ’09) “On the Street Where You Live.” As in the fall production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the supporting cast was exceptional and again included several faculty children.

Congratulations to cast, crew, and all who brought the play to life.

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Circiter | Featured on Campus

Clockwise from above: Alfred Doolittle (Zach Nicol ‘11) makes his point with Harry, a street urchin (Tae Hoon Lee ’13.) Alfred Doolittle schemes on the street with Cocknies Bubba Scott ’11, Adriana Sclafani ’11 center, and Likhitha Palaypu ’11. Henry Higgins (Ben Lamont ’09) encounters Eliza Doolittle (Hayley Willis ’09) on the street. Bottom: Cockney child Jaden Cheeks looks on as Eliza sings. Cockney chorus performs “With A Little Bit Of Luck”. Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Aaron Primero ’09) sings “On The Street Where You Live” Reprise. Center: Eliza Doolittle and the Cockney Quartet.

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A Midsummer Night’s My Fair Dream Lady

Top Row left to right: The Company sings “Ascot Gavotte.” Jamie (Bubba Scott ’11), Alfred Doolittle (Zach Nicol ’09) and Harry (Tae Hoon Lee ’13) perform dance number. Center Row right: Col. Pickering (Robert Black ’10) and Mrs. Pearce (Emily Tizard ’12) attend Henry Higgins in his living room as Eliza argues. Cockney child Jaden Cheeks listens with Jamie (Bubba Scott ’11) as Eliza argues with Henry Higgins.

Bottom Row right: Alfred Doolittle (Zach Nicol ’09) and the Cockney chorus perform “Get Me ToThe Church On Time.” Left: Eliza sings “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” as Cockney child Avery Cheeks listens.

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Circiter | Featured on Campus

Gallery News The de Menil Gallery spring

E xhibit

Another China: Recent Art from the Ethnic Southwest

Women in bright moon

April 2–June 2, 2009

T

he spring show at the de Menil Gallery features contemporary artworks from China’s ethnic minority provinces Yunnan and Guizhou. Nine artists are showcased in the exhibition, seven of whom have works that were recently added to the collection of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. Most of the works featured at the exhibition are reduction woodcuts, along with some more innovative pieces.

q Yongsheng Yang’s “Process III” is a monochrome accordion album of reduction woodcut process. This pioneering work is based on the Chinese traditions of the accordion album book and multi-point perspective literati painting. q Yuhui Wang’s dramatic oil painting memorializing New York City’s Twin Towers is created with pigments he has developed that change colors with the application of heat. q Jianshan Wang’s reduction woodcut “Miao (Hmong) Women in Bright Moon” employs a combination of symbolist approaches and allegorical and representational forms to build a mural-like ensemble of Guizhou`s Miao (Hmong) women in festival mood. This work was also added to the collection of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum in 2008. q Artist Qingxue Zhang, of the Tujia ethnicity, shows the reduction woodcut “Heavenly Bath,” which plays with the concepts of Greek and Chinese mythologies. He created it by weaving and lacing rich fabric patterns of Guizhou’s ethnic minority peoples over his matrix. This work was added to the collection of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum in 2008. q Jianghua Zhao is of the Miao (Hmong) ethnicity. His reduction woodcut “The Impression of a Miao (Hmong) Village” is a landscape of the largest and most famous village of China’s Miao (Hmong) ethnicity.

Xiaochun Zhang’s reduction woodcut series poignantly narrates his struggles with the four political mottos that dominated his life during China’s Cultural Revolution. q Artist Haiping Li of the Hani ethnicity shows a couple of works from his reduction woodcut series “Daily Life,” which features luscious female lips taken from the increasingly common roadside billboards. They emit youthful pop-culture vitality while commenting on the division between the haves and the have-nots, and the regression of women’s roles in China’s new capitalist economy.

With this exhibition, the de Menil Gallery introduces unique art from some of China’s and, indeed, the world’s most culturally rich and visually spectacular ethnic regions.

Contradictions

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Labor

Hmong village impression

Memory of barren land #3

Gallery News

Christopher Carey Brodigan Gallery spring

E xhibit

Resa Blatman: Luscious Bird Paintings April 1–May 10, 2009

Aphrodite’s Garden

They Gather In Such Profusion

T

he Christopher Brodigan Gallery spring show features the work of Boston-area artist Resa Blatman. Blatman has been teaching at the Massachusetts College of Art since 1997 and has shown her work in scores of shows. As her artist’s statement explains, by playing with the contradictions of emptiness versus fullness, lush versus barren, and rapture versus displeasure, Blatman attempts to show nature at odds with itself. Inspired by Baroque, Romantic, and Victorian decorative art, as well as by botanical imagery, her compositions create a visual feast of fruit, flora, wildlife, and pattern. She takes these elements out of their context and gives them a surreal landscape or contemporary stage.

Through their decorative qualities, Blatman’s paintings also deal with themes of excess and beauty.

These ornamental, invasive patterns creep into the fecund environments of the birds and bats—sometimes overtaking, even strangling the animals—and, along with the ominous berry, create a picture of sensuality mixed with undertones of wanting and dismay.

Blatman’s paintings and prints are in private collections throughout the United States, and in Italy, England, Switzerland, and South Africa. She is also a lending artist to the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Fourteen of her paintings currently are on loan to the museum’s corporate members throughout New England.

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle Some 40 years ago, weekday Chapel Talks became regular occurrences at Groton. They are now an ingrained tradition at the School, and parents, trustees, alumni, faculty, and students continue to address the School four times a week in Chapel. The talks have become the centerpiece of services that enrich the Groton experience by virtue of the points of view, ideas, experiences, and opinions expressed in this more formal setting. Over 100 speakers present at Chapel each academic year, adding to the voices on the Circle. We offer several examples from the winter term here.

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Do not Take the Express Train, Take the Local A Chapel Talk by Franz Colloredo–Mansfeld ’81, Trustee, P’09 January 23, 2009

I

am so pleased to be here today, and honored to have the opportunity to be a part of the wonderful Groton tradition of delivering a Chapel Talk. Attending chapel is not merely a great way to start the day, but will bring you great benefits in later life. As Winston Churchill once noted of his boarding school chapel experience, “I had accumulated in those years so fine a surplus in the Bank of Observance that I have been drawing confidently upon it ever since.”

It is fitting to speak to you today in this beautiful church because it was here that an enjoyable part of my Groton education took place. Fourth Form year, though I had never received any musical training, I was so impressed with the quality of the School’s choir, I decided I to join. I remember thinking hopefully at the time, “Who knows? Maybe I have an undiscovered talent.”

In any case, by the age of fifteen, all that I had known in terms of instruction was academic or sports related, and I was ready and eager to try something different. Several days into rehearsals, however, it became apparent to the entire bass section that I was not only constantly off-key, but loudly so. Mr. Craig Smith, the choir master, diagnosed the situation and called me in for special tutoring. Despite his enormous skill and patience, I was a difficult case.

It turned out that my enthusiasm could not compensate for my profound lack of skills. No doubt, not wishing to hurt my feelings, Mr. Smith very generously allowed me to remain in the choir—with the tacit understanding that I would not sing audibly. Mr. Smith has my gratitude and remains one of my favorite teachers to this day.

So why was this an important part of my Groton education? Aside from discovering that I should not pursue a career in music, lip synching in the choir made me happy. Though I could not overcome my tone-deafness, I did learn a bit about music and I got to know a whole group of students outside my regular social circle. Simply put, by trying something new, by seeking out a new adventure, my world expanded. Joining the choir was not something I had planned on when I arrived at Groton in September of 1977, but then many of the most memorable experiences of my life were unplanned. And this, in fact, is my message today: as you chart your course through Groton and through life, be sure to leave some time to seek out little detours along the way.

Set your goals, but do not be in such a rush to achieve them that you pass up opportunities to learn something new, meet new people, or visit a new place.

In short, do not take the express train, take the local.

Fortunately for me, my father also espoused this approach to life, and when I was in college gave me some wise counsel. I was a history major considering a career in business and thought that I ought to get some practical training, so I decided to enroll in an accounting course. I remember telling my father about Quarterly Spring 2009

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle my proposed course of action, fully expecting praise for my maturity and practicality. Instead, emphatically disapproving, he exclaimed, “Accounting?!! Harvard College is not a trade school!” He encouraged me, instead, to take a survey course in fine arts. I was surprised by his advice, but I followed it, happily. The fine arts course not only turned out to be one of my favorite classes, but gave me skills of observation that have enhanced my enjoyment of art ever since.

Admittedly, at some points along your journey, you have to stay on the highway in order to make significant progress toward your goals; but if you are creative and on the lookout for opportunities, sometimes it is possible to divert the road a bit to accomplish the dual goals of advancement and adventure. For me, this happened

as well as witness the beginning of the process of the reunification of East and West Germany.

At the end of the fellowship, I returned to Boston and took a job as a management consultant for McKinsey and Company, a large global firm. This was the first time I was given cause to question the circuitous professional route I had followed. When I showed up for my first day of work, I discovered that I would be reporting to several of my business school classmates who had gone to work at McKinsey right after graduation. This was a bit tough on my ego at times, but I would not have traded my experience in Germany for anything. And in fact, at the first opportunity, I grabbed at the chance for another adventure.

That opportunity presented itself a few years later

“If you are creative and on the lookout for opportunities, sometimes it is possible to divert the road a bit to accomplish the dual goals of advancement and adventure.” when I took my first job after college, working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. For two years, I slogged away as a junior banker in New York City with legions of other ambitious twenty-something’s on a set track. But when I was offered a promotion to the next level of responsibility, I decided that I needed to do something different. Instead, I was able to arrange a transfer to Merrill’s Tokyo office followed by a stint in the Hong Kong office. Though this was considered a lateral transfer, in my mind—and in actuality—it was a huge step up: because I was the only analyst doing my job in such a huge territory (instead of being one of many in New York), I was given more responsibility and autonomy. But best of all, while learning about finance, I was living in and experiencing exciting new cultures.

In addition, while my former colleagues in New York merely read about the Tiananmen Square uprisings in 1989, I joined tens of thousands of demonstrators on the streets of downtown Hong Kong to protest the Chinese government’s crackdown. This was not the only time one of my side trips would enable me to witness first hand, major world events.

Shortly after the Tiananmen uprising, I left Merrill to attend business school. For those two years my studies, a new wife—and a baby named Seppi—made it difficult for me to find the opportunity for adventure.

Sometimes it has to be nose to the grindstone. But following graduation, I found my opportunity for adventure when I applied for and won a year-long fellowship to live in Germany where I was assigned to work for the German Central Bank. This allowed me to continue my training in finance, work on my German,

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when McKinsey was hired to consult for a German client that had just acquired a Hungarian insurance company.

I immediately volunteered for the assignment which required relocating my young family to Budapest for six months. My job was to help restructure the company.

Until the collapse of the communist government there, the Hungaria Insurance Company had enjoyed its status as the only provider of insurance in all of Hungary. My directive was to make the company profitable for the first time in its history. To put it more simply, my job was to give advice to a group of people who did not want my advice. Now that I have three teenage sons, this is a challenge I face often. But at that time, it was a novel experience.

The tools of my trade were long PowerPoint presentations. Every two weeks, as the leader of my project team, I presented a series of facts and analyses in a large paneled board room. On one side of the table sat the Hungarian executives and on the other side the German investors. I was used to giving such presentations; what I was not expecting were the loud outbursts from Mr. Uzonyi, the company’s unreformed communist CEO. He objected to almost every thing I had to say. When I attempted to relate to the new German owners basic facts, such as the number of workers on the payroll, or the budget for Mr. Uzonyi’s personal security force, he objected. His favorite line, which he always delivered on his feet with an index finger jabbing the air was, “Are you going to listen to this fast-talking American, or are you going to believe me, the ruler of this company for the past 20 years?” I always thought this criticism a bit ironic as

Do Not Take the Express Train, Take the Local

“To put it more simply, my job was to give advice to a group of people who did not want my advice. Now that I have three teenage sons, this is a challenge I face often.”

my presentations were usually given in German which certainly did not give me the opportunity to talk very quickly at all.

If Comrade Uzonyi was unsuccessful in derailing a meeting, a frantic-looking messenger would burst into the room and announce that a bomb threat had been received and we were to clear out of the building immediately. Thereupon, we would all retire across the street to the bar of the Kempenski Hotel. After all of Mr. Uzonyi’s antics, I was always happy to get a drink.

As bizarre as this assignment was, it ranks as my favorite and most difficult during my time at McKinsey—and no doubt was far more exciting than spending those six months in the Boston office.

But I did return to Boston, and I have to say that, for the time being anyway, it has become more difficult to work these detours into my life. When you are in school, the route is often well-defined and efforts to divert course are perceived as risky. Similarly, as you get older, responsibilities grow with the size of your family, and choices are not always your own. So although I have become more modest in my pursuit of adventures in recent years, I have not given up. For example, these days, I take great pleasure from my involvement as president of the board of the Sabre Foundation, a small, nonprofit based in Cambridge. The foundation has provided

millions of books to libraries, schools, and universities in 80 countries around the world. Though I do not usually visit the countries we serve, each week I am consulted

by Sabre staff on how to respond to an array of issues such as how to deal with demands for bribes in Nigeria, how best to obtain permits for shipments from Turkey into Iraq, or how to halt the illegal reselling of donated material in Ukraine. So while I am not adventuring so much in the physical sense, at least I am dealing with issues that take my mind off the beaten path and broaden my engagement with the world.

There is an enormous temptation in this competitive, uncertain world, to take the most direct path to one’s goal in order to secure a desired position. But a life led that way misses a lot. The life adventures I have shared with you today are largely unknown to my colleagues and do not appear on my résumé—but they are essential elements of my experience. They have certainly contributed a great deal of joy to my life and, I hope, made me a better citizen of the world. While it is appropriate and wise to plan for your future, I urge you to look for some adventure, for some detours, along the way. Seek out interesting experiences, to punctuate and add variety to your life. Such a course can only make you a more valuable, happier person in whatever role you ultimately script for yourself. Thank you.

Franz ColoredoMansfeld ’81 and his son Seppi ’09 before fall home football game 2008.

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle

Gadugi

at Groton A Chapel Talk by Melinda Stewart, Director of Counseling December 9, 2008

I

would like to open with a prayer that I found called Cherokee Traveler’s Blessing. Here, “white” means “peaceful.” The Cherokee had two chiefs; red for war and white for peace

Cherokee Travelers Blessing1 I will draw thorns from your feet We will walk the white path Of life together Like a brother of my own blood I will love you.

I will wipe tears from your eyes When you are sad I will put your aching heart to rest

Members of the Third Form at a Headmaster’s Parlor.

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Last weekend I had the privilege of attending the People of Color Conference in New Orleans with Ms. Stanton, Ms. Eghan and Mr. Pomeroy.

For those of you who do not know, this conference brings together faculty and administrators from independent schools and American international schools around the world. Some of us are racial minorities, and some of us are not.

What we have in common is our love of working with students and a shared commitment to building a world inside our schools where all students and all adults feel equally valued and where each person is loved in a way that honors her or him.

These are easy words to say and in many ways sound a lot like the rhetoric that we hear ad nauseum whenever we read the advertising materials for schools and colleges and even some companies. If you are anything like me, you probably say to yourself “Sure. Sure. They are just saying that because itis fashionable. There’s no way they ‘get it.’” It might even make you feel angry, defensive or frightened. Perhaps it just does not matter to you. Maybe you look at the pictures and wonder how many of these visible minority kids actually go to the school. Maybe you count how many times the same person appears in the catalog. Maybe you worry that you are too ordinary to be interesting or valued, that people will not appreciate or see you for what you bring. Many of you worry that you will be misunderstood, that people will make assumptions about you based on how you look to them and will not bother to understand who you are. I talk to kids and adults every day who feel that they are somehow “not enough” or “too much” or somehow just not “right.” I imagine that there are as many reactions as there are people.

Gadugi at Groton Race in America is a very powerful and a very messy business. We have a long and ugly history of oppression, slavery, and genocide. Especially for those of us who are mixed race or “other”—other than what?—someone said to me this weekend—this can be a particularly confusing thing. Do I have to choose? What are my choices? If I self-identify as a minority, what kind of assumptions will people make? How will they treat me? If I call myself mixed, will I be ostracized by others in my minority group? If I choose one ethnicity, am I denying one of my parents? What if I am adopted? What if I was raised in one culture and know nothing of the other? What if I do not know what my ancestry is exactly? What if I have blood from three or more races? What if I look like people of one culture and identify with another? Those stupid boxes! How many of you have to think about which one to check? I know that I have to, and I do not always give the same answer.

When I was applying to college and grad school, I left the boxes blank. I believe from their responses to me after I enrolled, that in both of these cases, after having read my personal statement, the admissions offices had assumed that I was Black. Aargh! These questions just hurt my head!

In my world growing up, and in the world of my parents, your “color” determined what schools you could attend. It determined whom you could date, where you could work, what pools you could swim in, what drinking fountains you could use, what restaurants you could eat in and what hotels you could sleep in. You did not get to decide if you were “colored” or “white”—and this is an important distinction- someone else decided for you.

You can imagine the confusion in mixed blood families trying to take a vacation, when some members were white and some were colored and some could go either way.

As a person who was born in the mid-fifties during Jim Crow in Oklahoma and graduated from high school in 1974, these questions are almost incomprehensible. To you students, my children’s generation, they are nearly irrelevant. One of the things that came up over and over again at the conference is that we older folks need to move beyond a discussion of race and into an understanding of cultures. The younger folks, we saw, are already there. You are living a reality that I never dared to dream.

Before I went away to boarding school in 10th grade, I went to a crowded, segregated, urban school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. S. E. Hinton, who wrote The Outsiders was a few years ahead of me and the world that she wrote about was the world in which I lived. My grandmother, who raised me, and who was Plains Indian and Swedish, grew up in a one room house with waxed paper windows during the Dust Bowl on the Kansas prairie. My grandfather was raised in a sod house by a single Cherokee mother who had him when she was a young teen. She had been sold to a white man at about age nine after her family died and her uncle’s family could not feed her. In my school, everyone was nominally “white” (Asians and Jews were also white), although almost all of us were mixed race Indians from one of the 44 tribes relocated to Indian Territory and which later became part of the state of Oklahoma. None of us talked about it or claimed our heritage. Somehow it did not seem relevant to our lives. Even so, all of our families had opinions about some Indian tribes. We all knew that the adults had the opinion that to act like a Comanche was a bad thing and that Cheyenne were bloodthirsty. Apache were barely human. God forbid that a Cherokee get entwined with a Creek. Many of our tribal practices were outlawed as part of federal policy, and the federal government had been paying people to relocate to far away urban centers as part of the Indian relocation policy. I never heard anyone speak an Indian language except my father who as far as I know is 100 percent Scots-Irish, although he did practice law in the Indian courts.

Today, we have a president-elect who, it seems to me, has transcended “the boxes;” someone whose message and whose life has made my generation’s predilection for categorization seem irrelevant and honestly a bit ridiculous. Many of my childhood friends from Tulsa have become active in their tribes. They are working as lawyers, farmers, executives and artists. My next door neighbor, a boy with whom I played “Man from Uncle” every afternoon is now a leading consultant in sustainable farming and agriculture, teaching indigenous people the ways to preserve their land and feed their people.

Melinda Stewart in the counseling office.

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle

“Today, we have a president-elect who, it seems to me, has transcended “the boxes”; someone whose message and whose life has made my generation’s predilection for categorization seem irrelevant and honestly a bit ridiculous.”

We grew up together and spent every day together. We never discussed anything about our tribes and in fact I did not even know he was Cherokee. When my son applied to college a few years ago, I was first horrified and ultimately amused that he had checked the “other” racial box and written “human.” In the notes, he wrote that he was Cherokee and had German, French, Scots-Irish and Swedish blood. He did get in to college and is now doing well, even though he did scare his mother by not following the rules as I understood them.

When I taught 20th century American History in 2004, I was shocked to learn that most of the students in my class did not know (or believe) that we had had a version of apartheid in the United States within very recent memory. Although most of them had heard of the Watts race riots and the Black Panthers, none of them understood the pervasiveness and power of racism in America. It had not been part of their experience.

No one had heard of the American Indian movement, Wounded Knee, or the occupation of Alcatraz—not even my own son who was in the class. How many of you have heard of these things?

As a mixed-blood Indian, I can be invisible if I choose to. For most of my adult life, that is what I have done. Most of the time, especially in the Northeast, people who see me just imagine that I am Caucasian. That is OK. I am Scots-Irish and Swedish. Those are important parts of my heritage, too. That is just not all that I am. I am also Cherokee and some kind of Plains Indian—no one even knows now which tribe although we think we are Osage or Kaw. Every part of my ancestry and my culture has a rich history that makes up me. That, along with all my experiences in life, my husband and children, and now all of you at Groton, are part of who I am. There is more to me than what you see. The same is true for you. So many things make up who you are.

I have been doing a lot of crying lately, as often in happiness and awe as in sadness and regret. Walks With Thunder, a Caddo blogger, offered this meditation on October 22, 2008 “Growth is a painful process.”

–Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee

n “Whenever we grow, we usually need to let go of emotional attachments. ~Letting go can be painful.~ Sometimes growth allows us to deal with fear.~ All fear can fit into two categories: one, we’re going to lose something we have, and two, we’re not going to get something we want.~ Both of these categories can cause pain.~ The best way to grow is to pray to the Great Spirit and ask Him to guide and protect us.~ All growth is guided

by God.”

n Here is a prayer for that pain: “My Creator, guide my growth today and give me Your love and courage to help my pain.”2 I cried when Obama won the election—not because of his policies or even because of his person, but because it was possible. Not only was it possible, but it had actually happened. I cried when my nephew succeeded in adopting his daughter in Cherokee tribal court after the death of her mother The adoption was made according to tribal law which is in opposition to a US law which still stands. I cried when I brought my mother to see my niece graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Mt. Holyoke—the college that was instrumental in starting the Cherokee Female Seminary, now Northeastern State College, in Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, where my mother attended and another nephew now attends.

I cried when my daughter told me that she refused to be Cherokee and that she hated

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Gadugi at Groton the shape of her face and her eyes because they made her look “weird and ugly.” I cried when I realized that I could have taught her something different and I did not. I did not teach my children to build a proper fire circle or to build a proper fire. They cannot build a house or furniture out of sticks and vines. They cannot navigate by the stars. They cannot make sassafras tea or fly fish. They cannot smell the rain. I did not teach them because it did not seem important.

I cried when I sat in a room with 20 Native American private school teachers of my generation at the People of Color Conference. I cried because we saw one another and were not alone. We were not invisible. We made a sacred space together. We cried together as we talked about how our children’s generation, your generation, was rising up and rebuilding the 595 sovereign Native American nations: preserving the cultures and the languages and values of ancestors long dead. We laughed and cried together as all six Cherokee lined up in order of skin tone and marveled at how similar our faces were despite our rainbow of hue and the blood of other cultures that each of us carried and that were equally important to us. We cried because we had survived a genocide and had come together on that day and in that place bearing joyful stories of hope—hope that was carried in the actions of our children and our students. We made music together, and I got to sing the blues in New Orleans. That was cool.

So where does that leave me—and you—and all of us? Here is what I decided. I decided that from now on I would not be afraid to stand up and be counted, that I would not be invisible. I do not know if you can imagine just how frightening and weird that feels. I have seen the Ku Klux Klan marching through the streets of my town. I have seen the crosses burning at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds less than a mile from my house.

So here I am, standing on this ornate and rather frightening pulpit—a teacher, a counselor, a mother, a wife, and a daughter. An American of Cherokee, Scots-Irish, and Swedish descent. A musician, a writer and the holder of the world’s highest score in at least one computer game. I challenge you to stand up and be counted. Let us know who you are, what is important to you and what you think. What can you teach us?

The Cherokee have a word—ga-du-gi—which means “working together as individuals, families, and communities for a better quality of life for this and future generations.”3 As a School and a community, we can only be stronger and richer when all our members—students, faculty and staff alike—are effective, equally valued members of our School. It is only by nurturing our community, by supporting and loving even the weakest or most disagreeable member, that any of us can truly prosper. We can only thrive by embracing the sacred fire of each one.

I find great wisdom in another Cherokee prayer, which says,

Members of the Fourth Form at a Headmaster’s Parlor.

“Great Spirit—Help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence”

n In closing, I would like to leave you with a quote by Florence Soap, a Cherokee elder.

“I consider myself a prayerful person. When I pray, I always pray to love all people. Some people claim that they love, but it is not from their heart. By carefully observing a person, one can tell if they have love within them. I pray that people will learn to love one another.”4 _________________________________________________________ 1 various sources 2 “Welcome to My World, Walks with Thunder” blog on keen.com 3 www.Cherokee.org official webite of the Cherokee Nation 4 Florence Soap quoted in Every Day is a Good Day by Wilma Mankiller. Fulcrum Publishing, 2004

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle

ROOMMATES A Chapel Talk by Cynthia Liu ’09 and Sarah Norodom ’09 December 6, 2008

Cynthia: Even before I met her, I knew Sarah was eccentric. I had walked into my third form cubicle, and the only thing on her side was a small suitcase. No posters of half-naked David Beckham, no colorful sheets on her bed, and the weirdest part—she had no clothes! I stopped for a moment to compose myself; I should have known this was going to happen. The day before, I had gone to a Chinese restaurant with my mom, and the fortune cookie that I grabbed had no fortune in it. As in, the little paper was blank—a sign of calamity for sure, hinting to me that something terrible was about to happen. I just did not know it would be in terms of my roommate. All I wanted was somebody cool. Somebody I could talk to about anything, about the boys I had crushes on, and … about other boys. Somebody I could share dresses with, somebody I could do silly things with, somebody to go shopping with. I looked again at the one and only sweater hanging in her closet, and I thought to myself, “Oh boy, this is going to be a long year.”

Sarah: “Wow this girl drinks a lot of juice” my mother exclaimed as we walked into the cubicle. We had arrived three hours late to registration because our taxi had gotten lost. On top of that, my luggage was missing, leaving me with no clothes, no sheets, nothing. I was already cranky and extremely anxious at the thought of meeting my future roommate. Seeing the way her side of the room looked made me even more nervous. On my right were two large cartons containing about 40 apple juice boxes each, sitting next to a box full of goldfish, Asian cup noodles, and other snacks. This only added to the clutter and messiness of her side, as clothes lay randomly scattered on the floor and her desk was completely hidden under books and other stationary. I slowly took in the rest of her room, scanning for further evidence of the obvious wreck I was beginning to suspect my roommate to be. Umm, all right, a Winnie the Pooh comforter? This girl was way too much into pink for us to ever get along.

Cynthia: I was pretty scared to talk to her at first. She asked me,

Roommates Sarah and Cynthia back at the dorm.

Sarah: “Where’s orientation?”

Cynthia: “Ah…. I don’t know.” was my answer. To be honest, I was scared to come off as too friendly, scared to say something wrong. What resulted was a day full of awkward encounters and forced greetings, but I assured myself that it was okay. I mean, she seemed so different, so hard to approach, and she did not give off that bouncy vibe everyone else had. She seemed … more of an intellectual, and god knows, I am not one of those. But night-time soon came, putting an end to

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Roommates the tiresome unpacking and the first-day frenzy. Silence became more conspicuous, and so I carefully made conversation. “Sarah, how was that meeting?”

Sarah: It was great! Want to know something?

Cynthia: What?

Sarah: A boy walked me back to the dorm! And I think he’s kind of cute.

Cynthia: OH MY GOD, WHO? Sarah: You promise not to tell?

Cynthia: Yeah! .

Sarah: That kid named---Pause—for privacy reasons I have decided not to reveal this boy’s identity. And it was at that point I realized, maybe she was normal after all. Well, except for her taste in boys.

Sarah: It’s safe to say Cynthia and I have our differences—in fact, we have a lot of them. Cynthia has a fear that I have termed monophobia—a fear not only of being alone, but of going anywhere by herself. This even includes popular destinations around the Groton campus such as the Dining Hall, the Health Center, Scudder’s, Dory’s, the Art Center, the Brooks House vending machine, and other places that require Cynthia to step out of her room. And, as is obvious, Cynthia cannot even give a Chapel Talk by herself.

I, on the other hand, have never had a problem going to places by myself, and still do not understand the social stigma that comes with going to dinner alone.

Furthermore, while Cynthia is more of a Chinese and Korean pop artist kind of girl, I occasionally enjoy—to Cynthia’s great amusement—the good Italian or French opera. I love movies such as Gone With the Wind and obscure foreign films, and Cynthia prefers Hana Yori Dango or Secret—a movie in which the girl dies because she travels into the future but forgets to take her inhaler along.

While midnight is a late bedtime for me, I sometimes see Cynthia finally crawling into bed as I wake up in the morning. When I was going through my healthy food phase, Cynthia’s idea of healthy food was and still is egg drop soup from the local Wok ’n Roll. Then after cramming herself with General Gaos and skipping every yoga practice of fall term, Cynthia complains about her body. This is a conversation that happens daily in our room:

Sarah and Cynthia in New York City.

“I have come to recognize, perhaps a little too late, that many of my judgments were wrong.”

Cynthia: Oh my god, Sarah … something terrible is happening.

Sarah: What?

Cynthia: I am fatter than I was this morning.

Sarah: Cyn, it is all in your head.

Cynthia: I can’t believe you can’t tell—the difference is so noticeable.

Sarah: Hm… Cynthia: Oh my god, Sarah look!

Sarah: What now?

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle Cynthia: Did you know that my left calf is bigger than my right one?

Sarah: Once again… all in your head!! So now you know what I have to go through every single night.

Cynthia: And it is not like we never argue. We have had one (but only one) huge fight in our four years together. It happened during Long Winter Weekend of our sophomore year, when I had gone home with Sarah to New York City. What was supposed to be a fun four-day vacation turned into a nightmare, because I decided that I was mad at her. Randomly. To tell the truth, I still to this day have no idea why I refused to talk to her. In order to cheer me up, Sarah dragged me to Maddy Kemble’s apartment for dinner one night, and Lizz and Andi also came over. Seeing them, and listening to them ask Sarah why we were no longer on speaking terms caused a mental breakdown. I started to cry hysterically on Maddy’s sofa, and to make the situation more difficult for everyone, I started to scream in Chinese. Maddy had no idea what to do, so she put Nancy on the phone, who tried to calm me down with no success. Then, after Nancy’s failure, Maddy made a horrible decision. She called the only other Chinese person we both knew, a boy named Sean Wu. Sean, thinking that Maddy’s cry for help meant that a party was going on, brought a whole bunch of his friends over to the scene; instead of a roaring room of fun, they found to their dismay an Asian girl going crazy on the couch. Talk about embarrassing.

Sarah: Cynthia apologized the next day, and we moved on, having survived our first—and last—fight. Even though I may make fun of Cynthia’s occasional moments of instability and of her way of life in general, I realize I could not have made it here without her. Cynthia is the one who forces me to go to the Saturday night dances, even when I insist that staying in my bed and watching TV shows would be a lot more exciting. When I was once crying about a boy, Cynthia’s way of comforting me was to tell me, “Sarah, his head was too small for his body anyway!” Despite the bad advice she gives, Cynthia has the ability to always make me smile when I am depressed. Unfortunately, I realize I probably would not have been friends with Cynthia if I had not been her roommate. I tend to make judgments on people based on my first few impressions of them, and I can be unfair in doing so. Countless times during my time at Groton I have mentally dismissed people as being mean, stuck up, or boring without really trying to get to know them to see if that was true. This year, I have spent countless hours at meals talking to some of my formmates, and I have come to recognize, perhaps

In foreground Sarah (left) and Cynthia (right) attend a Headmaster’s Parlor with other members of the Sixth Form.

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Roommates

a little too late, that many of my judgments were wrong. As I get to know these people better, I realize that I should not have been so quick to sort them into little boxes. They deserved a chance. If you had described Cynthia to me five years ago, I would have laughed at the idea of spending four years with her. But living with Cynthia has made me see a side of her that I would not have seen or cared to have seen because of my tendency to judge too quickly. There is more to someone than is first obvious, and it is only a matter of letting down your former prejudices.

While I would not exactly compare Cynthia to Mr. Darcy, nor would I compare our relationship to the one he and Elizabeth Bennet enjoy, in the end the moral is the same: pride and prejudice are two traits that impair our judgment. I wish I had given more people a chance—I may have missed out on getting to know some of the most interesting and intelligent people I will ever meet.

Cynthia: Last summer, I watched a Japanese drama called Nobuta wo Produce, which was about two really attractive boys helping a strange girl named Nobuta become popular. The show was great, but one quote from it was special. It was when the three of them were really becoming close, and they decided to join the school fair and run the “Haunted House for Couples.” The trio worked hard together, making the ghosts and the dark hallways, but Nobuta, who was in charge of the exit, kept her part a secret. It was not until the end that we see Nobuta had made a door out of a mirror, and on the surface she had written, “The person whose hand you are holding right now … your meeting that person is a miracle. So keep holding that hand even when you are out in the light.”

Groton School, especially Sarah, thank you for letting me hold your hand for the past five years. I was born in a country halfway around the world, raised by parents completely different than yours, but I am here now, standing on this pulpit, giving this Chapel Talk. It really is a miracle. So even when I step out into the light, when I leave this place for the outside world, I will keep holding on. Because all of you—my friends, my teachers, my dorm—you broke down the barriers and accepted me into your community, despite my background and despite my differences. So everybody, open your eyes. Look at all these people surrounding you, supporting you—it is a miracle. And really, no matter who you are, you are not too cool for miracles.

Sarah Norodom in Latin 5 class.

“While I would not exactly compare Cynthia to Mr. Darcy, nor would I compare our relationship to the one he and Elizabeth Bennet enjoy, in the end the moral is the same: pride and prejudice are two traits that impair our judgment.”

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle I would like to end this Chapel Talk with part of a poem that I wrote for Mr. Capen last year. The prompt of the assignment was, “How would you want Groton School to remember you?” Mine went like this: Remember meAs the roommate you loved, a sister with different mothers Would you still smile in recognition when I retell our stories?

First test: I called you on the phone, pretending to be in pain When in fact, all I wanted was the book that was out of my reach Roomates and dormmates gather on the Circle as Spring Fling 2008 begins.

You rushed in, pale with fear that soon turned into disbelief But you handed me my paperback nevertheless How about the classical music that we played in our room The nights we spent painting in the art center, the poetry readings in the forest And the countless times I told everybody the big secret, You were a princess, her royal highness of Cambodia And because you were, I was proud. I was excessively proud of you Of us. Of our four years together. Of something nobody else had.

Have you forgotten the late nights of sophomore year When you slept below me, in the bottom bunk? I felt so safe, knowing

“The person whose hand you are holding right now … your meeting that person is a miracle. So keep holding that hand even when you are out in the light.”

The monsters under the bed would get you first.

We talked over so many mysteries of the universe, pretending to be Great philosophers and wise sages simultaneously.

We failed at both professions, but our conversations linked our thoughts.

I told you about my ambitions, of studying economics and becoming A great banker, one of the best. You listened with patience When I told you that numbers and stocks and finance fascinated me That I wanted to help the world by making myself more powerful You supported my passion, and you told me, “If anybody should succeed It would be you.” Thank you for believing.

Remember all the witty banter that we shared The clothes that magically fit the both us, the shoes of the same size And the hugs, a hug of the perfect strength Not too insensitive but also not too intruding Together we studied the laws of physics, the elements of chemistry Recited Shakespeare, memorized Latin, laughed, cried An impressive list. I loved your company Remember me— As the best friend you have ever had.

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Tides on the Train A Chapel Talk by Lorcan McGonigle ’09 January 12, 2009

O

ver the past three summers I have played baseball with a very colorful crew. For the first two summers I played with the Ponce Leones, and then last summer I played for the Tides. I have never experienced anything quite like those teams. Most of the kids came from the Lower East Side, particularly Loisaida and the housing projects that stood across from the East River Parks. Amongst them there was a sense of brotherhood formed from years of living and playing together, a sense that even though this was just a baseball team, it was a family. But when I think of those kids and their coaches, I tend to remember the subway rides because that was where I saw their fun and excitement to just enjoy life at every moment spread to complete strangers. And so when I started to think about this Chapel Talk and what memory or advice I should impart to you all today, I thought of the Tides. But how could I condense three summers and 18 people into words? I could not and so instead I would like to share with you a part of that experience, an essay on one train ride, and on what it did to me.

The rhythmic rush of the subway shakes every corner of New York County.

The streets rumble, and the older buildings quiver, as these silver streaks lace their way through the subterranean miasma. The subway is a menagerie of humanity, yet because of the malignance of a few, the many isolate themselves behind great paper walls or feign deafness with a ipod or a phone. But what kind of life is this subway solitude, where music, our oldest voice, is usurped by silence? Music is universal, yet it is personal. It is a representation of the soul, and so it is tucked away. But there was a time when poets and philosophers strode down avenues with hats aslant, shoulders squared, and boom boxes banging. And what of those inspiring instrumentalists with sax, saw, synthesizer, or perhaps all three, serenading the workforce from a park bench or roadside pavement? They are not dead; they have just gone home.

Lorcan McGonigle (back row third from right) poses with his championship baseball team, summer 2008.

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Per Circulum Locuti Sunt | Voices on the Circle

“And what of those inspiring instrumentalists with sax, saw, synthesizer, or perhaps all three, serenading the workforce from a park bench or roadside pavement? They are not dead; they have just gone home.”

Lorcan in history class.

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For Elvis, that home was a Kingdom, for the Tides, my summer baseball team, it was a McDonald’s on the corner of Essex and Delancey. Across the street from the subway and on the boundary between Loisaida and the East Village, the McDonald’s was near to all, and so an hour before each game, we would meet under those hallowed golden arches.

I remember gathering there for the first game of the summer. It was early June, and it was even earlier in the morning, 6:50 am on a Sunday; blasphemy, I thought, when I could have been sleeping in. The McDonald’s was not empty, as I had expected.

Scattered amongst the three lines of tables-booths-tables were sad, disconcerting faces (for how happy can you be, eating alone in a McDonald’s before seven on a Sunday morning?). The air was cool and sterile, with a hint of lemon. And the fluorescent lights were outshone by the sunshine crashing in through the glass storefront. I hunkered down in the first booth, ten feet from the door and maybe thirty feet from the registers. I put my bag on my left and my hat on the table, for my hair was still wet from the shower. The minutes passed lethargically, boringly, in fact nothing happened at all, and I began to wonder if time was still moving. But surely it was, for the semiderelict two booths up continued to rock, back and forth, like a McMuffin-consuming metronome, keeping my time, however endless.

Then slowly my teammates trickled in. First there was John, and then there was Yosef, the cousins Almonte, with their friendliest smiles and hair like Screech from Saved by the Bell. They sat across from me in the booth, and we talked about the past year. They had just graduated from high school, while I was looking forward to senior year. Then they took out their iPods, and there was music and laughter in the McDonald’s, as they tapped the table to the beat. Leo came next in his nummular form, all “Chuckles,” as they called him, and no bite. He added his voice and a guitar, in the manifestation of his bat, and asked me to join in, and so I hummed along (for I can neither speak nor sing in Spanish). Soon Malcolm and his refrigerator frame, and Roland with his puckered lips, like a blowfish, had arrived. With music in the background, discussion arose of baseball, nocturnal debauchery, and friends past and present. Last came Josh, the lighter half of our coaching staff. He was jovial and immature in the best senses of the word. He told us the rest of the troupe would meet us on the field, and so around 7:20 we headed to the subway.

Tides on the Train It would be six miles, a great way in urban terms, on that subway from the alphabets of the Lower East Side to the Renaissances of Harlem. It was an hour, to be exact, from Delancey to 125th, where we played all our games from June to August. It could have been a real schlep at seven on a Sunday morning, yet it never was. Whether it was love of baseball, or life, or some genetic disorder, our subway rides to and from the games bustled with energy. With a bat for a guitar and headphones draped over their ears—to share their music and hearts with the world around—my teammates would sing their souls out during, after, and before our games. And in their dusty, nylon bags they bore instruments side by side with gloves, baseballs, and bats. There was Leo with his bright yellow whistle. There was Yosef and his touted tambora1; there was John and his gleeful guira2.

I remember our final train ride back from the championship in Central Park. We boarded the D train at 103rd Street. It was a subway train of the old kind: the seats alternated between red, orange, and stained, and the steel handrails, which ran above the seats, glittered in comparison to the eclectic grime which covered the floor. A few unmemorable passengers sat in scattered clusters, but mostly the car was empty. It had been a peaceful train and a fog of silence still hung in the air. But once we all settled into the middle of the car, our celebratory exuberance pierced the haze. Yosef took out his tambora, and Leo and John followed suit with their whistle and guira, and the band tuned up for the fiesta.

It started simply with a beat. Then Yosef added some flare—it was a funky little rhythm that rolled around our feet. And John mixed in the guira with notes that coruscated in the air. But now it needed a melody. So Leo loosed his whistle, and the sweet bursts completed the rhapsody. Our coach, Josh, understood this free-form epistle. He stood up, composed himself, and began a solo merengue. Someone started chanting his name, and in this way we began our final underground soiree. Soon Josh sat down, and someone else was summoned to his fame.

Somewhere near Delancey, Roland sang out, “el gringo.” I did not agree. It was not my time to be a part of this show. But the Blowfish did not budge. So I started with the ’bot. Then some peace signs crossed my face without a grudge, and after a couple dives I was done. It had been quite fun. But now the music was slowing, and we were preparing to get going, as the lights of Delancey began flowing past our car. And so the guira, tambora, and whistle were tucked back in amongst the accoutrements of baseball. With a screech and jump, the subway stopped, and we with a wave to our fellow passengers passed through the opened doors. And while we walked down the platform, the subway receded from the light of the station into the great shrouded maw of memory.

Outside the subway station, the cars swirled down Delancey, and the trucks grunted up Allen, and I went west, and the rest of the Tides went east. I passed the McDonald’s where we had met before every Sunday-morning game. Then two more blocks on my habitual route, and there was Christie Street and Roosevelt Park; its green foliage cut through the urban grey on its journey from Houston to Canal; it was a bit of beautiful chaos amidst the rectangles.

It was a bejeweled day. The sky shone sapphire and the trees were emerald and the pavement might not have been gold, but certainly marble with the lines of dirt and residue that city living make. And as I continued north through Roosevelt Park, I thought back on the subway rides, the winning Tides, and their music that always happified. And I thought to myself, what a wonderful world. _________________ 1 A Dominican drum about a foot in diameter, made from wood and animal hide 2 A steel canister that looks like a giant cheese-grater, which is played by rubbing what looks like a hair pick across the many bumps of its sides.

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Personae | People of Note

Since 1955, Groton students have known the joys of studying the classics with Hugh Sackett, one of the world’s leading authorities on the history and culture of Bronze Age Greece. Greek law forbids any of Sackett’s stunning discoveries from leaving Greece. But this past winter the de Menil Gallery was able to celebrate Sackett’s distinguished career with an exhibition of objects on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where one of Sackett’s former students, Seán Hemingway ’85, is the curator of the Department of Greek and Roman Art. Here, some of Sackett’s other students over the past 50 years recall the wonders of being taught, mentored, and inspired by Hugh Sackett.

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50 Years of

Discovery

Alumni Reflect on their Experiences with Hugh Sackett

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Personae | People of Note

Above: Students, faculty, alumni and guests attend a gallery lecture given by Hugh Sackett which accompanied an exhibit of Sackett’s archeological discoveries. The exhibit ran in the de Menil Gallery at Groton during the winter term of 2008–2009.

Previous page: The Palaikastro environment: a 1962 view over the settlement area from the peak sanctuary at Mt Petsofas. The excavation site is at lower left, the refuge site is on Kastri Hill at the center; cemeteries are on Kastri slopes, inland hillocks and along the shore line.

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Y

ears before “experiential education” mainstreamed, I hiked a section of the South Coast of Crete with Hugh and two classmates. Our spring journey began through a flooded mountain chasm that led to a pristine coast. Surely this route found no place in any travel guide. As we made our way along rocky outcrops of breathtaking views and isolated fishing villages, we lived history. From time to time, the folded earth revealed pottery shards to be held in wonder as Hugh assessed the merits of each locale. This was Sackett at his prospecting best—unbridled enthusiasm for subtle clues that bore witness to Minoan settlements four thousand years earlier. Evening story telling over simple Greek fare would propel our journey into new dimensions. Exhausted, I would later drift off musing about becoming the next Arthur Schliemann, the renowned discover­er of Mycenae.

To this day, I will not enter a museum without a detour to the antiquities collection. I might not speak Greek, but it is in my bones. Together with information gleaned from this and other field research, Hugh eventually settled on Palaikastro—and the rest is history.

– Mark Collins ’75 Groton Trustee

50 Years of Discovery

I

have had the great good fortune not only to study Latin and ­archaeology with Hugh at Groton but also to work with him at Palaikastro in Crete for the last 19 years. That is not to mention a year’s maturation in his dormitory and a harrowing, high-speed, weeklong tour of Greece that hooked me for life. As an archaeologist, Hugh brings to bear a tremendous breadth and depth of knowledge of the classics (something sadly out of date now), while being the ultimate field man with endless first-hand experience and a nose for what we term in archaeological jargon the “goodies.”

My first memory of Hugh comes from an instance when as students we tried to hack his dorm and he came out to defend it with a broom. We thought he was posturing and wouldn’t use it. We were wrong. Many years later, I saw him drive off a muckraking film crew from the local news station in Crete using a shovel (they were spreading rumors about archaeologists to free up land for tourism development.) Wisely, they did not doubt his resolve. Hugh has a gift for teaching, for taking students on the path from understanding to appreciation, and I look forward to many more years of learning and collaborating with him.

– Tim Cunningham ’84

Tim Cunningham ’84, of the University of Louvain (Belgium) is an indefatigable field worker, excavator, scholar and researcher.

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Personae | People of Note

W Dr Seán Hemingway ’85, Assistant Curator at the Metropolitan Museum, Palaikastro excavator, scholarly researcher and author.

The Palaikastro Kouros. One of the finest examples of Neopalatial ivory (and gold) work, but a casualty of destructive fire (probably deliberate arson) c. 1490 BC. Torso, arms, feet, eyes, gold foil and goldspangled blue material (from the base) were found in the street; the legs and gold sandals 10 metres away inside the town shrine. Interpreted as a youthful male divinity, perhaps related to Orion or Osiris.

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hen I think back on my Groton education Hugh Sackett played a formative role. It is not so much the intricacies of Greek and Latin grammar or even the events of ancient history that immediately come to mind but the enthusiasm and skill with which Hugh imparted this knowledge. Sitting in his living room in his dorm senior year and learning Modern Greek while drinking English tea with biscuits was an unusual and exciting prologue to traveling around Greece with Hugh that summer of 1985 after graduation. I am sure if you asked Eugene Gardner, Sallie Smith, Char Joslin or Phoebe Moore, they would all have stories to tell. It was an unforgettable experience for us: listening to Hugh tell the story of his discovery of the Heroon at Lefkandi at the site and seeing the thirty-foot-tall fig tree, which grew from a seed he discarded years ago, against the backdrop of some two thousand years of stratified history in an extraordinarily deep trench on the promontory; walking up to the Menelaion underneath the hot Mediterranean sun as lizards scampered across the crumbling ruins of the sanctuary built to the most beautiful woman in the world and looking out across the fertile plain of Sparta to the snow-capped mountains of Taiyetos; camping by the Alpheios river near Olympia and swimming in its crystal clear rushing waters; ascending Mount Ida on Crete to the Kamares Cave and stopping at a monastery along the way for a small glass of raki (the Cretan moonshine) and some fruit with the monks there; looking in vain for the golden step at Krissokalitissas Monastery, which according to legend can only be seen by the pure of heart (Hugh knew which one it was); and wading out to the little island at Elafonisi from the pink sand beach at the southwestern most tip of Crete, a place that was nothing short of paradise. That was also the first time that Hugh and the future Mrs. L. H. Sackett traveled together, and even we immature teenagers could see the electricity between them.

For many Groton students, and there are hundreds who have had similar experiences with Hugh, the trip to Greece is the last of their special tutorials with this exceptional teacher, and they move on to other chapters of their lives. I feel fortunate to have continued learning from and working with Hugh for more than twenty years now at his excavation at Palaikastro in eastern Crete. I am enormously grateful to him for believing in my talents for archaeology at a young age and for entrusting me with the responsibilities of acting as a trench supervisor for the excavations at Palaikastro, even when I started working there as a junior from Dartmouth College. This is how students learn through the opportunities and lessons given them by their teachers. To sit in a trench and draw a section of stratigraphy with Hugh Sackett—essentially “reading” the earth—is a revelatory experience.

As one of the foremost excavators in Greece, Nikos Daskalakis (also a field student of Hugh’s), said to me recently, “Hugh Sackett is among the finest living field archaeologists.” Hugh has said to me that, to his mind, my job as a curator of Greek and Roman Art the Metropolitan Museum of Art must be the best job in the world. But having been Hugh’s student and having shared a small part of his life for the last 25 years, I can say that, hands down, his work holds that title. Thank you, Hugh, for caring so deeply for your students, for your dedication to your profession, and for your friendship.

– Seán Hemingway ’85

50 Years of Discovery

“

M

ake your way to Palaikastro. Then ask Maria at the local tavern where to find me.”

I don’t have Mr. Sackett’s letter anymore, but according to my journal, this is what he wrote to me in January, 1994 after I told him my sister and I were going on a long trip, and I asked if we could stop in Crete for a couple of weeks to work on his dig. These were the days before international cell phones and easy access to email, but even back then Mr. Sackett’s version of contact information struck my sister and me as mysterious. But we were up for an adventure, and in May when we finally arrived in Palaikastro after a ferry from Athens and two buses along the cliffs of Crete, we searched out Maria at the local tavern. And after a couple of Marias, we really did find Mr. Sackett. He was in a nearby village called Agathia. He immediately took us down to the archeological site and explained the settlement of Rousolakos to us.

Then he invited us to dinner at the dig house with the ten or so people who had arrived to work on the dig.

For the next two weeks, we spent every morning sorting through piles of broken pottery pieces, arranging them from coarse to fine and rims to bottoms.

Then we’d try to find joins, i.e., pieces that matched up that we could glue back together. In the evenings we had lovely dinners with Mr. Sackett and the rest of the crew in the dig house, a cozy hobbit-hole sort of building with low beams and little windows. And in the afternoons, we would walk down to the beach to swim in the beautifully blue Aegean. The water was cold as can be, but once you were in for a while you were able to say “extremely refreshing.”

I loved those two weeks in Palaikastro. Thank you, Mr. Sackett.

– Tanya George ’93

Hugh Sackett answers questions about the Palaikastro Kouros.

The Palaikastro Kouros has been interpreted as the figure of a youthful God like the Egyptian Osiris or Orion the or even a predecessor to the Diktaian Zeus.

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Mr. Sackett and Groton students in Brooks House c. 1967.

This unique painted alabastron (for perfumed oil or ointment) from Xeropolis was found near the surface. It is a good example of the pictorial style which flourished in the penultimate stage (c. 1100 BC) of Mycenaean history (c. 1,600-1050 BC), and possibly influenced by the diaspora fleeing the destroyed cities.

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ugh has been so generous to me in so many ways over the years that the memories pile up and it is hard to choose only a few.

When I was a trustee, I used to stay in his rooms. I especially looked forward to seeing whatever new books he had acquired, which like his company, I found ambrosial. In Crete, I recall a memorable evening in which we were enjoying ourselves at an outdoor café near Knossos.

Those of you who have been in Greece in the summer know how delightful these cafes are. The former foreman of a dig crew found us and sat down.

Carried away by the high honor of sitting with such a distinguished boss, he ordered cucumbers and ouzo for us. Not wishing to cause offense, we partook. Then more cucumbers and ouzo, then more, then more, then more—all pressed on us with manic gusto. I have never been able to eat a cucumber since, but I well recall the indescribably lovely chirping of the ­cicadas as I staggered back to bed.

– Hunter Lewis ’65

50 Years of Discovery

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hen invited to participate in this tribute, I went back to the journal that I kept while on a spring break trip to Greece with Mr. Sackett. Over the course of three weeks, our group managed to cover a tremendous amount of ground (and consume a fair number of gyros!). In my last journal entry, written after returning to Groton, I attempted to summarize my thoughts about the trip. Surprisingly, my seventeen-year-old self hit the nail on the head when I observed of Mr. Sackett that “he truly is one of those ‘young at heart.’” His enthusiasm for and his knowledge of the ancient world made the trip intellectually fascinating, but it was his sense of humor and willingness to explore new places and things that made it both fun and memorable. I feel fortunate to have been a part of that trip and to have had Mr. Sackett as a teacher. He deserves to be recognized on many levels—congratulations, Mr. Sackett!

– Mary Murphy ’95

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he trip to Greece during spring break last year was without a doubt the most memorable and meaningful experience of my life. This would not have been possible if not for Mr. Sackett’s constant commentary and guidance. Not only is Mr. Sackett an inexhaustible fount of all things Greek and classical, it was amazing to see the profound passion that lit up his eyes when he explained the purpose of lustral basin or the significance of each and every artifact. In addition to his spectacularly comprehensive knowledge of classical archaeology, his experiences traveling the world qualify him as an expert in all other imaginable topics as well. While this may make lesser souls arrogant and pretentious, Mr. Sackett radiates an aurora of warmth and geniality. He dispenses sagacious advice and playful teasing in equal measures and is inclined to frequent bouts of hearty chuckling. On top of all of this, Mr. Sackett is the most energetic guide I have ever met, bar none.

He was never content to direct our exploration from the back but always eager to be the first up every ragged hill and down every overgrown path. I am forever grateful to Mr. Sackett for everything he has taught me, but even more so, for sharing a part of his incredible life with me.

– Matt Luk ’08

Terracotta rim and body fragment of an Arretine cup with satyrs. Roman, Early Imperial, Augustan, terrasigillata, ca. 31 B.C.–A.D. 14. Signed by Perennius. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.194.1931)

Terracotta fragment of a loutrophoros (ceremonial vase for water). Greek, Attic, Classical, red-figure, ca. 440 B.C. Attributed to the Polygnotos Group. On the body, warriors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1907 (07.286.58)

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n the summer of 2005, Mr. Sackett took five of us on a weeklong tour of the ancient cities of Greece before we started to work at his dig site in Palaikastro, Crete. It was roughly like getting a White House tour from the President. Mr. Sackett could point to an excavated grave and tell us the style of urn buried with the body because he himself had unearthed the finds. His wit and intellectual curiosity kept us listening intently on the drives, just as they had in the classroom. He also handled the hairpin turns in the mountains of Greece well enough to add racecar driver as a third job, on top of teacher and archaeologist. More than a teacher to us, Mr. Sackett is a mentor. Distinguished for his fifty years of finds in the field, so he is also for his inspiration to decades of students from Groton. He led us into a world of gypsum palaces, tholos tombs, and chryselephantine kouroi; he led us with an enthusiasm, a grace, and an integrity that seemed like a rare treasure uncovered from one of his sites. Thank you, Mr. Sackett, for your service to Groton and its students.

– Bucky Marshall ’05

Terracotta fragment of a closed vessel with horizontal bands and cross-hatched diamond pattern. Greek, Laconian, Geometric, ca.

900–700 B.C. Said to be from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, Sparta. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of A. J. B. Wace, 1924 (24.195.201)

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Personae | People of Note

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These tiny earrings from Toumba Tomb 5 (c.875 BC.), were made by a local goldsmith familiar with the art of granulation – a common Minoan skill later lost but preserved and handed back to Greece through Lefkandi

by Phoenician craftsmen. They recall those described by Homer [‘glittering gold earrings with triple mulberries’ Odyssey 18, 297], offered by the suitors to catch Penelope’s heart.

hile we celebrate Hugh Sackett’s impressive archaeological achieve­ ments, I would like to commend him as well for his often miraculous behind-the-scenes efforts. Mr. Sackett has safely escorted countless students to, from and around Greece. The planning, patience, and persistence that he has maintained over so many years is quite a feat in itself, all with the very selfless purpose of sharing the ancient world with so many of us. In addition to chaperoning students on ‘insider’ tours of Greece and giving so many of us the opportunity to work on an important excavation, he has also taken on the daunting responsibility of managing a large excavation. He has navigated the bureaucracy to acquire countless permits needed—permits for cars, permits for land, permits for digging, perhaps even permits for permits! He has deftly smoothed over political troubles between the town and the dig, such as when angry townspeople, upset about the value of their land, held the excavation team hostage! And then there are the bills to pay. At the end of the excavation season, Mr. Sackett must spend a day settling the debts of the dig. This process requires lengthy, back-to-back visits to every shop, taverna, and tradesman that has worked with the excavation—and at each stop, Mr. Sackett must politely accept any and all food or drink that is offered (that is a lot of raki!). It is amazing that he continues to accomplish so much in addition to his contributions to the archaeological record, all the while maintaining his gracious demeanor and making it appear so easy. I am so very grateful for the huge investment that Mr. Sackett makes in his students. My own experience on Crete is something I draw from continually. Hugh, you have left your own "mason’s mark" on all of us!

– Brooke Howenstein Fink ’83 Palaikastro survey 1983, excavation 1990–1995

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The ‘Queen’s’ necklace with granulated pendant, and a parallel from Dilbat (Babylon) (in the Met.Museum at New York).

The date of the Heroön burial is c. 1.000950 BC, whereas the closest parallel for her pendant comes from a context over 700 years earlier at Dilbat, south of Babylon; —so possibly a treasured heirloom.

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took Hugh Sackett’s archaeology class for two terms during my sixth form year at Groton. They were two of the most enjoyable classes I’ve taken in my academic career, primarily because of Sackett’s passion for the subject and his love of teaching. I sometimes, not too often, wish I had taken more Latin classes or even learned Greek! These days, a person who stays with a job for ten years is the exception. To have devoted fifty years to a “job” shows it is so much more. A calling or a mission, maybe. I remember Sackett as a dorm master who was truly interested in the students who resided in and visited his dorm. I spent many evenings during my fifth form year in Sackett’s common room when he would come “hang out” and talk with the likes of Wesley Davis, Mike Scola, Bill Sloan, Steve Pelligrino, and Sam Spackman.

One of my best trips overseas was with Sackett, Dr. Tyler, Wesley Davis, Al Cho, Bill Sloan, Oliver Grantham, Anson Montgomery, Jean Song, Grethcen Zurn, Noel Theodosiou, and Sarah Canner. In 1990, we spent an amazing spring break touring Greece, visiting ancient ruins, museums, cities, and small towns, camping out, and, of course, eating the best feta cheese ever. Seeing museum displays of artifacts Sackett had discovered was amazing. What comes to my mind most quickly, however, was convincing Sackett to come with us to a discotheque. He only came because we promised to buy him a “gin rickey”! I also remember him telling us that the Greek word for bread meant “rock-hard island,” and that we hit a bird while I was riding in the front middle seat of the van!

As a teacher of eighth graders, I hope that I possess even a tiny bit of the dedication Sackett has for his students. And I would like to impart a fraction of the love of learning and of the subject matter that Sackett has to his students. Thanks so much!

– Hope Barber McIntosh ’90

50 Years of Discovery

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ugh Sackett is an indelible figure in my memories of Groton. His professorial demeanor, his vivid stories, his many experiences, and his breadth of knowledge impressed me. Most of all, I was taken with his ability to bring the past to life, whether sitting in a dark classroom on campus looking at his archaic slides or standing on a site with a few piles of stone. Professor Sackett always transformed the vista into one of real towns and palaces with enemies and trading partners on another distant shore. His passion for and dedication to archeology is infectious.

When visiting a site, only Eleanor’s gentle reminder that it was now time to eat seemingly interrupted his enthusiasm. Professor Sackett was also dedicated to his students. When my flight to Crete was horribly delayed, and I found myself sitting on the tarmac at the Thessaloniki airport instead of Heraklion, I remember wondering how he was going to respond and if I would ever find my way to Palaikastro. There should not have been any doubt. As I finally entered the arrivals hall in Heraklion during the wee hours, I immediately spotted the lone, unmistakable figure of Hugh Sackett, dressed in his familiar ensemble. He greeted me with his genial grin as if nothing unusual had occurred.

I feel fortunate to have studied under Hugh Sackett, and I hope he continues to pursue what he loves.

– Alexander Littauer ’05

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n the spring of 1990, I spent six magical weeks working as a trench assistant on Hugh Sackett’s dig in Palaikastro, Crete. Mr Sackett had been my Greek teacher at Groton, and, along with Mr. Myers and Mr. Scudder, had made the study of that ancient language one of my most beloved courses. Despite his calm style in the classroom and forgiving manner as a dorm master, there was at Groton always a certain twinkle in Mr Sackett’s blue eyes, and by the shores of the bright Mediterranean Sea, this side of him truly sparkled. His passion for his work studying the art and humanity of the ancient Minoan people was inspiring, and the atmosphere on the dig he directed was not only intellectually rigorous but also full of fun and adventure.

There were several Grotties at the dig that spring. Those of us who were unskilled assistants spent each day waist deep in a square trench, watching Greek workmen gently unearth painted bits of pottery, which we would then place into small, numbered plastic bags. I could not have been happier. Fueled by black coffee and the fumes from the previous night’s revelries, we arrived at the dig site at 6 a.m. and worked until 2, when the sun was fully high and the dusty air just becoming too hot. Then, with a quick dip in the sea to rid the outermost layer of red dirt, followed by an outdoor lunch by the beach, we were off to study the day's findings or to wander the island. We convened as a group for dinner and then again later for laughter and dancing at a tiny, one room bar in the otherwise quiet, beautiful village of “PK.” Memories of this time include hiking to the summit of Mount Ida, sailing to an uninhabited island, and searching for Orion in the night sky with my friend and classmate, Sean Hemingway. We never found him there (turns out he’s a winter constellation), but one memorable day Sean discovered in his trench the leg, veined foot and fine gold sandal of an ancient ivory statuette, perhaps an image of Orion himself.

Thank you, Mr Sackett, for sharing with me the thrill of your work, the beauty and mystery of ancient Greek language, poetry, and art, and a fabulous, unforgettable experience on the eastern tip of Crete!

– Nina Simonds Trowbridge ’85

Lefkandi. Necklace of faience beads representing a lion-headed Egyptian or Phoenician god and (as central pendant) Isis and Horus, from Toumba Cemetery, Tomb 22 c.900-875 BC. An exotic import from Egypt or the Levant, one of many not so ‘dark age’ links with the East.

Gold necklace with pendant and beads with double spirals, from the Toumba Cemetery Tomb 63 [T 63,18-24]; 950-900 BC. A fine example of fine gold-smithing, rare elsewhere at this early, ‘dark-age’ period.

Three Phoenician Seals with hieroglyphs in intaglio, from the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi. Left: this seal of white steatite (in the shape of a couchant lion) was found in Tomb 27 (perhaps of an elite lady of the Early 9th cent. BC) with many objects of personal adornment (gold rings, bracelets, fibulae and over1000 beads of faience, glass and amber). Center and right: from Tomb 36 (later 9th cent. BC) come a four sided steatite seal in the form of a roofed shrine and a gold mounted scarab in steatite.

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Personae | People of Note

W Dionysus (through the use of wine) brings Hephaestos back to work at Mt. Olympos.

Detail from a short amphora or ‘Pelike’ by the Cleophon Painter, in Gela; 435-30 BC.

ithout question, the best trip of my life was the month I spent traveling around Greece in a minivan piloted by Hugh Sackett with my fellow recent graduates: Sascha Pleasant, Robin Davies, Philip Nicholas, and Adam Spence. To this day, whenever I read Greek myths to my children or see Greek antiquities in a museum, I proudly say, “I’ve been there. We saw that. Here’s what I learned.” Other reminders are still scattered around our house, in the vases and pots I made at Groton and in college, several of them replicas of pieces I photographed that summer.

Building these replicas in the ceramics studio was the natural extension of Dr. Sackett’s lessons to us: bury yourself in a subject and force yourself to solve its problems from first principles. Not only will you understand it better than any casual observer, you will develop a passion for knowledge powerful enough to infect those around you. As I learned from personal experience, it is even strong enough to distract 18-year-olds from the prospect of otherwise Ouzo-soaked escapades in Greek coastal towns.

– Ed Blair ’92

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Fragments of a fine Red-figure Bell-Krater from the Dema House, with Symposion scene. A bearded Dionysos presides over the party, where youths recline on couches with striped cushions and enjoy their wine to the accompaniment of a flute girl.

An Athenian Red-figure Bell-krater (wine mixing bowl) from the Metropolitan Museum [07.286.85]; mid 5th cent. BC. A good parallel for the example found in small fragments above.

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ugh Sackett’s influence on my life started at Groton, and has in many ways only grown stronger in the intervening years. When I first got to Groton, I already had a fascination with ancient history, and I could hardly wait to get to the sixth form, when I’d be able to take Hugh’s classes in Greek archaeology. Hugh’s teaching style, always low key and humorous, combined with the exciting stories inherent in his material, made for classes (which met in his living room) that were rigorous in their spirit of inquiry, yet always fun. Classes were filled with the stories of Agamemnon, or Knossos, or Thermopylae. We learned the stories and then considered them in the cold light of physical evidence. An adventure in partial debunking that was great fun for a 17-year-old. Hugh’s intellect, his sly and subtle humor, his enthusiasm were clear examples of the value of a life’s work that is satisfying, rewarding, and fun. I was lucky enough to be invited to accompany Hugh, along with my classmate Mike Ward, to spend part of our sixth-form spring trimester working at Lefkandi, one of Hugh’s important Late Bronze Age sites in Greece. For six weeks, Hugh was a teacher, tour guide, mentor, and friend, always taking the time to explain the work we saw or were helping with, or to take us to the best souvlaki stand. He shared his life with us, including his beat-up old Mercedes, and the squirrelly hot water heater in his apartment (where we all stayed). He did all this with us, while he was also overseeing one of the most important discoveries in Greek archaeology of the last 30 years! Mike and I watched as the bronze vessel, burial shroud, and animal offerings were all excavated from what has come to be called the Hero’s Tomb. Years later, when I was a furniture conservator working on Phrygian furniture in Ankara, Turkey, I told my colleagues that I had been there when Hugh Sackett discovered the Hero’s Tomb at Lefkandi. Talk about instant cred! Hugh’s great gift has always been that he has found ways to make his two vocations, archaeology and teaching Groton students, complement each other rather than conflict. I learned very quickly after leaving Groton for Yale that not all archaeology instructors are as talented as Hugh Sackett, and so I am not now an archaeologist. But I am a museum professional working with historic objects. Every day I use the lessons I learned, pursuing the interests I developed while a student of Hugh’s.

– John D. Childs ’81

50 Years of Discovery

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n May 2003, I bumped into Hugh at a Groton event. I asked him about his summer plans and he said, “We leave for Crete in 10 days. You should visit.” A month later I found myself in Crete with my 11-year-old son Austin, now in the Fifth Form. Hugh and Eleanor were incredibly gracious—as they have been with many visitors over the years—generously sharing their time and expertise. Hugh patiently explained the history, relevance, and strategy for the work in Palaikastro. Despite Hugh’s modest demeanor, it was clear that he has contributed immensely to the scholarly body of work in his field. In addition to his considerable talent and intellect, Hugh has demonstrated admirable patience in the face of Greek government obstacles.

Groton has certainly benefited from Hugh’s presence on campus, both inside and outside the classroom. I look forward to the day that Hugh completes the next phase of his work at Palaikastro—uncovering the palace!

– Charles Anton ’75

Above: Lefkandi: The exciting first day of digging on Xeropolis hill. Who knew (any more than Schliemann did at Troy!) that the nearest trench would go down some 27 feet, through some 16 centuries of history?

The Future of Palaikastro’s Past lies here in a quiet well watered vale at the south of the excavated town. A full session of remote sensing after the rainy season of 2001 (measuring resistivity and using magnetometry) showed anomalies (here in yellow/brown color), which can be interpreted as large-scale built structures oriented slightly east of north (like known Minoan palaces).

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Lefkandi, female inhumation in the Heroön.

This young lady, bedecked with gold bras, gold earrings, necklace and pendant, and with gilt pins on her dress, lay beside the cremated remains of her warrior mate placed in a fine bronze urn. Their horses were in an adjacent compartment.

hen I was at Groton, Sackett’s dorm was the most sought out Upper School boys’ dormitory at the School, and I was lucky enough to have him as my dorm head during my fourth and fifth form years. Mr. Sackett’s cool, calm leadership style and his ability to inspire students to pursue knowledge of the classical Greek and Latin languages and writings, along with Roman and Greek archaeology, garnered him enormous respect from the students. He inspired me and other students in the classroom through his tremendously deep knowledge of whatever subject he was teaching, which was invariably accompanied by anecdotes (more often than not quite humorous) drawn from his decades of experiences on archaeological digs throughout the world. Mr. Sackett’s subtle, sophisticated sense of humor was much appreciated in the classroom as well as the dorm, and his warmth and hospitality endeared him to everyone. Many of my best Groton memories are of life in Sackett’s dorm. The “Snake Dinners” he and Mr. Scudder hosted were truly phenomenal, and I have not had better steaks or baked potatoes since—in fact, I used his baked potato technique the other day. Playing leisurely card games around the fire with Mr. Sackett and other students was always enjoyable as well. If the dorm was a family, then Mr. Sackett was the don.

While I was lucky enough to have had Mr. Sackett as both a teacher and dorm head, I also had the good fortune to accompany him and a handful of other students to Crete after my sixth form year, to take part in an archaeological dig. This phenomenal experience was followed up with an equally memorable three-week tour of Crete and Greece with Mr. Sackett as our trusted tour guide.

Mr. Sackett has an air about him that would lead you to believe he could have been a real life James Bond or Indiana Jones in his younger days, taking part in action-movie adventures during his expeditions through Greece and other areas in search of ancient classic artifacts. As a true friend to all of his students, who carries himself with such a distinguished ease, Mr. Sackett embodies the definition a “gentleman and a scholar,” and I feel lucky to have been one of his students. He has made Groton a better place for all of us.

– Robin Davies, ’92

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Lefkandi, gold diadem, rings and ‘attachments’. 83 tombs and 37 cremation pyres were excavated in the Toumba Cemetery. Gold occurred in a large proportion of the tombs.

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’m sure there are many of us for whom Hugh Sackett’s well-known archaeological tour of Greece ranks among the highest points of our education. For me, as for others no doubt, the time spent in Greece with Mr. Sackett also marks a turning point on my life’s trajectory, which has ultimately brought me to a profession that I find thoroughly rewarding.

I confess I was deeply ignorant of Greek archaeology when I set out for the Sackett tour in July 1991 (I hadn’t actually taken Mr. Sackett’s archaeology class, but managed to sneak onto the tour as a keen classicist and former resident of Sackett’s dorm); but my ignorance was no match for Mr. Sackett’s mastery as a teacher. By the end of our three-week trip, not only was I armed with a knowledge of archaeological details that continues to prove extremely useful in my professional life, but I was also convinced of the importance, as well as the great pleasure, of studying the archaeological record as part of any attempt to understand the ancient Mediterranean. I am forever grateful to Mr. Sackett for having introduced me to the world of archaeology and for having done so with such expertise and with such good humor that I became instantly hooked.

– Will Broadhead ’91

50 Years of Discovery

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s a sixth former, I was invited by Mr. Sackett to join him and faculty member Tom Carpenter on a trip to mainland Italy, Sicily, and Malta.

This was an exceptional opportunity to tour the ancient world with personal guides of extraordinary caliber. And, while the ­destinations were off the beaten path, they were nonetheless impressive: • The megalithic temple complex at Tarxien, on the Maltese island of Gozo.

Dating back more than 5,000 years, the temples are among the world’s oldest buildings, and contain some of the best-preserved Neolithic reliefs anywhere.

• The controversial third century B.C. theatre in Taormina. Was it Greek or Roman? (Smart money is on the Greeks.)

• The fourth century Villa Roman del Casale at Piazza Armerina, site of the largest collection of late Roman mosaics in the world.

• The sixth century Temple of Heracles, one of five Greek temples along a ridge in Agrigento rivaling the Acropolis in scope and majesty.

Traveling with Mr. Sackett was part vacation, part education, and all fun.

With an encyclopedic knowledge of the ancient world, street smarts, and gentle humor, this soft-spoken scholar opened my eyes to a world full of wonder.

– Charles S. C. Clement, ’76

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experienced an early take on what has since blossomed more formally. It was, maybe, a near miss. There was no field work when I arrived after my freshman year (July-August 1973), but Hugh generously put me up (and put up with me) worn from backpacking and Greek buses, in preparation for our time-pressured driving in a seasoned Mercedes acquired from a colleague, from Athens to Calais. The colonels still ruled Greece, and some carefully illegible paperwork explained orally in wonderfully demonstrative Greek seasoned with British certainty won exit rights for a car that, though duly registered, had some bureaucratic problems that Hugh, a practical archaeologist, wished would remain buried. Luckily, they did. We left, and with the roadways proving wide enough, even those you would swear weren’t, and despite that unexpected oncoming lorry in France, I like to think our reaching Calais left Hugh not too discouraged to welcome others in later years. I know many of our form (1972), feeling the turmoils of growing up when we did, are grateful, as I am, to have had Hugh as a dorm master, teacher, and friend, then, as much as today, an exemplar of a life being well lived. So, Hugh, thank you from all of us in 1972.

– Peter Berry ’72

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here are so many good memories of Mr. Sackett. I was lucky enough to live in Sackett’s dorm in 1988–1989, and to take his wonderful archaeology class and travel to Greece. One of my many cherished memories is when we were walking through town (in Iraklion, Crete, I think) hunting for a restaurant for our group and a certain restaurant manager said something derisive. Before we knew it, Mr. Sackett was engaged in a lively dialogue in Greek with the man. Our Groton crew hushed and observed attentively. As the exchange came to an end, “What happened Mr. Sackett?” we all inquired. “Oh, nothing, I just reminded him to be careful to whom you direct your insults…and that we would be dining at a different establishment.” Classic Mr. Sackett—witty, imparting authority and respect, and with a good lesson!

– Wesley Davis ’90

Portrait of a Roman resident of Knossos c.

150-175 AD. (local gypsum plaster). When excavated, the house noted by Sir Arthur Evans in 1905, was found to have well preserved walls decorated with colourful Diamond frescoes. The occupants had a workshop of plaster portraits, some painted, perhaps to be used as funerary busts (long common in Egypt and North Africa) or to decorate local Roman villas.

A Herdsman and his Cattle, from Palaikastro.

The early potters (18th century BC.) had a particularly graphic imagination; but in a herd of livestock lay a good man’s wealth (as it still does today in the countryside of Crete)! Found in the early twentieth century excavations of the site.

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ended my Groton career about 20 yards from where I started. As a first former, I was in Paul Abry’s Hundred House dorm, and as a sixth form prefect I was in Hugh Sackett’s dorm 20 yards away. Hugh was not appreciably older than any of his prefects in 1959, but he was measurably older in experience and shared faculty company. After all, he taught Classics side by side that year with the estimable and remarkable Messrs. Mansur, Getty, and Benton. As a dorm master, Hugh was relaxed, generous, erudite if asked, and always available—traits I still recognize after 50 years.

We have remained in loose contact over these decades, corresponding occasionally when I sent him comparative Slavic exploits to contrast with his Attic ones. Once, with another of those ancient ’59 prefects—Martin Wilkens (our Swedish AFS exchange student with whom I have maintained a lifelong friendship)—we visited Hugh and Eleanor in Crete. It was an eye-opening experience when we realized what expertise Hugh wielded in his archaeological pursuits in addition to his facility in the classroom, and his skill in gently molding the character of unruly teenagers.

Seeing him lecture in the de Menil Exhibit this past January, I watched delightedly as he described his work, sought answers and participation from the students, and interpreted the ancient past for us all. It was a bravura performance, much like his many others during his lengthy Groton career.

Ave, Hugh, and may there be many years before the atque vale.

– Phil Tilney ’59

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Beneath a lower layer of the Augustan Roman colony (c.14 AD) are village style houses of the Hellenistic period (300-60 BC).

Cutingthrough the Severan floor (200-230 AD) into a fine Hadrianc building below (c. 130 AD).

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n the spring of 1981, Mr. Sackett took John Childs and me with him on a British School of Archaeology dig at Lefkandi. On an excavation that re-wrote history, we uncovered the earliest columned temple in Greece and evidence of hero worship as well as human and animal sacrifice.

Bronze Age history was never the same.

Nor was the British School of Archaeology! Mr. Sackett’s expedition co-leader, the imperious Mervyn Popham, tried his best to rid himself of John and me. He would put us on a remote corner of the site, but we always got the better of him by leading our motley crews of day laboring locals to another rare artifact that would cause Popham to have to condescend to pay attention to us. He’d redeploy us again only to have the entire Eureka cycle repeat itself, much to his consternation.

Hugh observed all this with bemusement and supported us throughout the trip with his casual grace. Our lives have been forever enriched.

– Mike Ward ’81

50 Years of Discovery

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n the spring of 1989, I joined Mr. Sackett in Greece for a seven-week trip that included travel around the country and a stint working at the dig site in Palekasto. The entire experience remains one of my fondest memories, and it would not have been the same without Mr. Sackett leading the way.

Whenever I see Mr. Sackett, the story he often recounts to me involves a trip to the hospital. Two weeks into the trip, I pulled my back out and the concierge at our hotel recommended we go to a local doctor. The physician turned out to have a very unorthodox style. Mr. Sackett stood in the room while the doctor wrenched my body in several directions and placed both his knees in my back while pulling up on my chin and feet. The pain of the treatment was somewhat offset by the expressions on Mr. Sackett’s face. The doctor followed the beating with an acupuncture session where he placed needles in my ear and in the bottoms of my feet and told me to leave them in for several hours. Needless to say, the needles in the feet made it tricky to get back to the hotel, so I was carried

by Mr. Sackett and Bill Getty ’89. After 24 hours in bed, my back was as good as new.

In hindsight, I am not sure which one of us, Mr. Sackett or I, experienced the greater degree of agony during the ordeal. He was pretty much a nervous wreck from the time I got hurt until a day or two after I was back on my feet.

I think this story illustrates what is so great about traveling with Mr. Sackett in Greece. He is far more than a teacher or a tour guide. He is a genuine friend.

– Grant Gund ’86

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s part of a small team of six, I had the opportunity to travel around Greece and work on the dig site in Palaikastro with Hugh Sackett in 2005. I felt incredibly lucky to be learning about ancient art, architec­ ture, and archaeology on location from one of the most ­intelligent and patient teachers at Groton, as well as one of the leading experts on the subject.

I am confident that we all left after a month together with not only a sound knowledge and heightened interest in ancient Greece but also the feeling that we had just been a part of one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Hugh Sackett’s influence on my life remains constant, from day to day, as I continue my education on the art and architecture of antiquity at university.

– Caitlin Arner ’05

Imported Attic pots, from Toumba Cemetery, Tomb 31 (c.800 BC). They include a fine set of wine jugs, and are part of the evidence for a close connection between the two centers.

At this period (800 BC), Lefkandi was by no means a vassal city like its Classical successor Eretria, but rather a leading, seagoing player on the international scene.

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avid Erhart and I had the opportunity to work and travel with Hugh Sackett in the spring of 1973, the year between our graduation from Groton in 1972 and college. Hugh graciously offered his apartments in Athens and Eritrea as a base, and he was our tour guide for Athens, Crete, the Peloponnese and Euboea. We spent time at Knossos and worked with him at the “undiscovered mansion” excavating an ancient well.

Like many ancient wells when it was abandoned it took on a second life as a trash receptacle. Two local diggers excavated the well while David and I scoured the excavated fill for potsherds, and catalogued the findings. I will be eternally grateful for the experience Hugh gave us. For me, it was a significant aspect of my Groton education.

When not at Knossos we traveled around Greece in a powder blue Mercedes sedan with a 1967 Massachusetts license plate. Hugh’s only request of us was that we repair the roof of his apartment in Eritrea; though our repairs are suspect as the roof continues to leak.

– Charles Coolidge ’72

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Personae | People of Note

“Sackae” A Greek Comedy in One Act Cast: Cooligius and Davidon: Eighteen year old students, from a country far away Sackus: Himself Abbae: A late 20’s female Doctor of Philosophy student from Athens (On the rooftop of Sackus’ country house) Cooligius: What say you Davidon? Are we not done with this reflective paint yet?

Davidon: Sackus says he wants all of this done before our midday meal.

The Dema House (c. 450-425 BC.) restored in water colour by John Ellis Jones. Among the discoveries made by Sackett and others from 1961-63, the Dema House is a rare example of a freestanding house of c.450-415 BC.

Cooligius: Well, in that case man, take this, and that. (He hurls paint twice onto Davidon.)

Davidon: My raging god, scaldingly do these streaks of silver run through my bones posthaste... To you, rotten swine, I reply... (Cooligius winces as a hot blast of liquid lands on his legs and chest.)

Sackus (appearing at a door on the top of the landing.) What is all this fun you two are having on my roof? Come come, it’s LUNCHTIME!!

The master and his students enter the apartment below. An omelette is being cooked by Abbae, the assistant of Sackus.

Sackus: Ah, Abbae, how well you do those eggs?

Abbae: You’ve showed me, Sackus, a trick or two!

Cooligius: (to Davidon) Abbae makes a play for our master. Too bad, I’d like to ring her up myself.

Abbae: (Who has heard.) Not so fast, Cooligius!

Sackus: (Laughing) Good friends, the Retsina I promised.

Hugh Sackett and Henry Walters conversing at the Mycenae Museum, during the Groton Study Tour in Greece, March 2008.

Davidon: You’re treating us like kings, Sackus. We are only your young students.

Sackus: Come, come. None of that. This pungent wine awaits us as does our omelette supreme. Abbae and I, after, will call forth the frosty seas to shed you of your paint.

– David Erhart ’72

M Townsend Davis ’82 has worked at Palaikastro excavating at the site and sorting and studying in the potshed, where he is seen carefully distinguishing ceramic fragments by their clay fabric, surface treatment and decoration.

40 | Quarterly Spring 2009

r. Sackett was always available to provide advice and comfort and was always there for others. A planned trip to Lefkandi and PK over the Groton spring break was cancelled because of fears surrounding the first Gulf War; so a few of us planned to visit the summer after graduation instead. Four of us arrived in Athens on separate flights and somehow made it to the British School in Athens, where we luckily found Mr. Sackett, who was quite surprised to see us. Signals had been crossed, or were never sent correctly. He dropped everything, cancelled all of his plans for more than a month, and graciously toured us across Greece and Crete without missing a beat. The trip even included incorporating us into a trip he had planned with Eleanor, now Mrs. Sackett. This is just one example of how he always puts himself out for others.

– Garrett Hartley ’91

50 Years of Discovery

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he names Sackett, Scudder, Myers and Getty evoke the happiest of memories. To be taught by them, to observe their dedication to their studies, to be cheered by their humor and optimism, were privileges only a school like Groton could offer. How many of us will carry a lifelong interest in Greek and Minoan archaeology because of Mr. Sackett?

For many, our interest is due not just to the subject matter but also because it reminds us of Mr. Sackett. I cannot look at a Greek pot, statue or temple without thinking of him. The particular happy memories of Mr. Sackett from our 1982 trip to Greece and Crete are many: visiting the sites and listening to his colorful narratives, watching him outfitted in mask and flippers walking backwards into the sea in search of “rocks and fishes,” listening to him negotiate an inkeeper down a few drachmas on a room, and bracing against the side of the van as he navigated a hairpin turn. But mostly I think of the unique qualities of Mr. Sackett’s character: independent, understated, generous and fair minded.

He always accepted both the conformist and the non-conformist, and all those in between, with respect for everybody. His friendship, support and lifelong impact on us are deeply appreciated.

– James H. R. Windels ’82

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n a perfect world, every classics teacher would look like Julius Caesar, dig for ancient treasure like Indiana Jones, have the accent and manners of an Oxford don, and be as beloved by his students as Mr. Chips. Groton has that perfect world with Mr. Sackett. No other school in the world, including colleges and universities, has done a better job of making Latin, Greek, and classical culture such an important part of today’s life. Mr. Sackett is our colossus in that grand tradition. He is modest to a fault, but his inspiration extends for many generations.

– James Cooper ’72

The Lefkandi Centaur. A fine ceramic figure found beheaded (head and body in separate tombs of 900-875 BC); a branch once resting on the left shoulder is lost.

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n early September 1955, twelve first formers uneasily started what looked like their no-end-in-sight years at Groton. After school lunch with lingering parents (at which one form mate, on being passed a serving dish of asparagus, sliced off and took for himself all the tips), we spotted on the circle a young, silver-haired man, foreign-dressed in heather jacket, green wool tie, drab pants and sensible shoes. He had a communicative walk, a walk with a little bounce lagging each step that spoke not only of his energy, but also of his being every bit as uncomfortable with his new surroundings as we were. The Sack was a newk too, and we first formers soon came to claim him as our own.

Like so many of us, he was shy, innocent, and guile-less. Though clearly a high-order scholar, he never crossed students off his list on the basis of their own academic short-comings. My 28 on a first form Latin exam taught me that; and he didn’t throw me out of his ancient Mercedes Benz in Lefkandi one summer when I failed to identify a Greek radio broadcast as a city-by-city weather report.

He just laughed. Thankfully, Mr. Sackett’s standards were forgiving.

He was a colossus of integrity, laughter, and generosity. From his generally low-key manner, he would explode into high-pitched glee at a good joke or a sweet goal. And when we advanced into his second form dorm, he would frequently drive down to Ayer to get us pizza at the Kit Kat Lounge. Somehow, it never occurred to us the Kit Kat may have had other attractions for him. As I say, I can’t think of anything not to love about Hugh, an authentic Groton legend.

– David Auchincloss ’61

A Wine Flask from Palaikastro. The freeflowing octopus decoration is recognized as the leitmotif of the Late Minoan IB period (c.1500-1450 BC), though it became popular all over the Aegean and was much copied (eg. at Mycenae). Found in the early twentieth century excavations of the site.

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Personae | People of Note

Hugh and Eleanor Sackett on a summer evening in 2008 in Greece.

The

In summer 2008, Mr. Sackett walks with Ward Goodenough ’08 (right) as faculty member Henry Walters and Katie Hamm ’08 follow.

42 | Quarterly Spring 2009

Huge Extended Family

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ugh’s colleague and co-director of the Palaikastro excavations, Sandy MacGillivray likes to give us nicknames. Then there are the buddies from the class of 1984. Together a nickname evolved for Hugh that somehow fits: HUGE, because we are all members of the HUGE extended family, and we have all benefited HUGELY from his generosity, mentoring, friendship and his travels. Also he is rather HUGE if one is five feet tall like me.

This tribute for the Groton School Quarterly brings this special family together and the memories give us our bond.

– Eleanor Sackett

Grotoniana | All Things Groton

Boys Varsity Hockey are Champions!

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Grotoniana | All Things Groton

WINTER SPORTS Boys Basketball | 5 – 13

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laying in one of the best leagues in the state, the boys varsity team did a tremendous job this season, given its relative youth and inexperience. Returning only three players who saw significant minutes from the previous season, Groton was led by its Sixth Form Captains Nick Hennrikus and Cole Papakyrikos. Team MVP Hennrikus, averaging over 14 points per game, was the team’s leading scorer.

Papakyrikos chipped in with an average 6.7 points per game while also providing a tough defensive presence in the paint, earning him the Coaches’ Award. Fifth Formers Andrew Daigneault and Tanner Keefe also carried much of the scoring load, averaging over 12 and 6 points per game, respectively. In particular, Keefe came on strong at the end of the season, scoring over 20 points against BB&N and Rivers and earning Most Improved honors. Rounding

Tanner Keefe ’10 takes a jump shot against Cushing Academy.

44 | Quarterly Spring 2009

Nick Hennrikus ’09 drives the lane in Cushing Academy game.

out the starting five was sophomore point guard Matt Hennrikus, a newcomer to this year’s squad. Often matched up against more experienced players, Matt held his own and did a great job serving as the team's floor “general.” A highlight of his season was his 18 point performance against Roxbury Latin. Coming off the bench, Sixth Former Billy Larkin and Fifth Formers Mike Bianco and Immanuel Adeola provided timely scoring and defensive intensity.

The varsity also welcomed three additional players to this year’s squad, with sophomores Mike Corkrum and Alozie Erondu and freshman Evan Hansen-Bundy all making significant contributions to the team. Corkrum and Hansen-Bundy look to provide a formidable presence in the paint next year while Erondu has the athleticism to be one of the team's top players.

After starting the season with a victory against a solid Milton team, the Zebras hit a rough mid-season stretch. Plagued by injuries and illness, the team struggled to play with the necessary intensity and focus, dropping close games to St. George’s, Belmont Hill, St. Paul’s and Roxbury Latin. However, to its credit, the team came to practice each day with a positive attitude and, more importantly, a desire to improve. While their efforts may not necessarily be reflected in the final scores, the Zebras played much better in the final weeks of the season, winning a close game against Rivers and playing with perennial powerhouse and long-time rival St. Mark’s for a half.

Going forward, the Zebras are losing three key seniors but return a solid nucleus of players who gained valuable varsity experience this season. The Zebras look to be one of the up-andcoming teams in the ISL for the 2009-2010 season.

Winter Sports

Boys Hockey | 14 – 4 – 3 Eberhardt Division Champions NEPSAC Quarterfinalists ….the first will be last, and the last first. (Matthew 19:27-30)

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roton hockey entered the 2008-09 season with very high expectations after winning seven of the last nine games to finish the 2007-08 season. Higher expectation, of course, can come with frustration and disappointment if the expectations are not followed by more discipline, more commitment, more attention to detail and a lot more hard work. This year’s Groton boys hockey team was ready for the challenge. Early on, the players realized their opportunity and posted a quote from Aristotle at the locker room entrance that typified what they were striving for: “Excellence is what we repeatedly do. Therefore, it is not an act but a habit.”

This group of young men was on a mission; they took on each day’s challenges with enthusiasm, commitment, pride, and an extraordinary work ethic, and in the process they created memories that will last a lifetime. Groton hockey did indeed have an excellent season, compiling at 14-4-3 the best record since 1957 and capturing its first ever ISL Eberhart League championship.

The season was a culmination of four years of building a team.

The plan was to build it from the bottom up, starting with Second and Third Formers. The incoming group four years ago included Sean LaLiberte, Ben Sargent, Jono Turchetta, Conor Robinson, and Dale Adams. They were baptized under fire their first season under the tutelage of then Sixth Formers Zach Miller, Greg Parker, and Max Foster. Those three young men created a culture through their leadership that was based on discipline, commitment, accountability to themselves and their coaches, respect for each other and pride. In this atmosphere each player had a voice, each

Jono Turchetta ’09 works to control the puck in NEPSAC quarterfinal play.

Garrett Sunda ’11 breaks down the ice.

was an intrinsic part of the group, and each was encouraged and expected to contribute. This year Groton hockey reaped the fruits of the lessons learned over the past few seasons and turned this potentially promising season into a significant accomplishment.

The season’s success was testament to a true team effort with each and every player being instrumental in our success. Teams that are greater than their individual parts are most often successful, and this year’s group proved that.

Highlights of the season include: • A decisive victory over Portsmouth Abbey in which six different players scored. This December victory gave us an indication of how much this year’s success would truly be a team effort.

• The team’s reaction to the unfortunate ending to our first game with Brooks, a scuffle behind the net involving most of the players on both teams. The boys took full responsibility for their inappropriate behavior and never did anything for the rest of the season that in any way resembled that conduct.

• The team’s response to losing to Roxbury Latin in late January.

After that, the team went on to compile a 5-0-2 record and in the process out-scored their opponents by a 35-12 margin.

• Winning the Eberhart division for the first time ever and earning a fifth seed in the season-ending Division 2 playoffs, only the second time a Groton boys’ hockey team has been invited to the post-season tournament. The team lost 3-1 to a talented North Yarmouth Academy team in a well-played first-round game.

• The end-of-season ISL honors. Jono Turchetta ’09, Sean La Liberte ’09, Charles-Eric Boutet ’10, and Dale Adams ’10 were selected to the league’s all-star team and Nils Martin ’11, Scott Fronsdahl ’10, Ben Sargent ’09, Conor Robinson ’10, and Garrett Sunda ’11 all received honorable mention. Sean La Liberte won the Flood Shield, the league’s most prestigious award.

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Grotoniana | All Things Groton Boys Squash | 2 – 9

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his was a true rebuilding year for the varsity boys squash team. After six of last year’s top nine players graduated, it fell to Co-captains Henry Hoffstot ’09 and Reed Simmons ’09 and to Fourth Former Alex Southmayd to carry the Groton squash torch to their numerous new teammates. There was no shortage of players eager to fill the vacant ladder positions. Moving up from last year’s JV team, Charlie Bolton ’09, Will Stankiewicz ’10 and Jamie Conner ’11 were joined by newcomers Walker Evans ’12, Gage Wells ’11 and Tripp Kaelin ’13. Although lacking the top-level talent that Groton teams often boast, together they made a very promising group that was as dedicated as they come.

Losses to some of the best teams in New England came as no surprise to this young squad, but the Groton players rose to the challenge each time and played their best against strong opponents. On other occasions, the Groton team did well enough to be right in matches against good teams, but not quite well enough to bring home a win. The losses against Brooks, St. Paul’s, and Milton were close enough that they could have gone either way, so it was tough to see them slip away.

Expecting a rebuilding season is one thing, but actually playing through one and working hard to improve as quickly as possible while incurring one loss after another is quite another. Fortunately, the optimism of the two co-captains never flagged and they kept the team focused on improving as much as possible. No matter what happened the day before, Hoffstot and Simmons were ready to go for every practice, eager to improve and to encourage their teammates to do the same.

Finally, as the team entered February, the hard work started to pay off, and their improvement began to appear on the scoreboard. In a match that could have been very competitive, Groton played with great confidence and beat St. George’s, 7–0. This was followed by an easier win, against Middlesex, and then Groton came within four points of pulling off a huge upset of Milton.

The team lost enough matches to play in the B Division at New Englands, but the players knew how strong they had become

Capt. Henry Hoffstot ’09 lunges from the T.

46 | Quarterly Spring 2009

Walker Evans ’12 takes a backhand.

and how close they had come to beating higher-ranked teams, so Groton’s top seven entered the tournament with confidence.

There were other strong teams from Taft, St. Luke’s, WillistonNorthampton, and Brooks that had all landed in the B’s as well.

Eager for the chance to prove themselves against good competition, all of the Groton players won their first-round matches and then three, Southmayd, Wells and Bolton, won their next ones to get through to their respective semifinals. After a few more individual wins, the team arrived at Sunday morning with four players in consolation semifinals and three in main draw semifinals.

Looking fit and balanced, all seven Groton players managed to win those terrific semifinal matches on Sunday morning, with Bolton coming back from two games down to do it. That set up an exciting tournament finish, with Hoffstot, Evans, Simmons, and Stankiewicz up first to play their consolation finals simultaneously. Stankiewicz took care of his opponent quickly while the other matches progressed more slowly through long points and close games. When the dust had settled, Hoffstot and Evans came away with good wins over very strong opponents, while Simmons gave his all before falling to a very sharp player from Brooks. Next on were the main draw finals, in which Bolton played the squash of his life to come away with a clean win; Wells came back from two games down to pull out an impossible-seeming victory and Southmayd came within a hair’s breadth of taking out an extremely talented opponent. With an incredible display of focus, determination and quality squash, the Groton seven won 12 of their 14 matches on Sunday to secure third place in the tournament, just behind Taft and St. Luke’s. This fantastic team performance on the final weekend of the season confirmed that, despite their losing record, the Groton players had indeed improved immensely through the season.

With a very promising group of young players returning, next year’s team should be poised to move forward from where this year’s left off. This year’s sixth formers, Hoffstot, Simmons and Bolton, never let down all season, helping ensure that this was in fact an extremely productive rebuilding year. These three will be missed, but their leadership this season has helped lay the foundation for their team’s future success.

Girls Basketball | 11 – 10 NEPSAC Quarterfinalists

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ed by senior captains Gabriella Flibotte, Madeline Kemble and Danielle Rainer, the Lady Zebra’s are one of only two teams to qualify for the NEPSAC Class B tournament for the fourth straight year. Equally as impressive, the Junior Varsity program finished the season with only one loss—a heartbreaking one-point defeat by ISL rival Middlesex.

Groton girls basketball has established itself as one of the top programs in the Class B division.

Groton lost in the quarterfinal round of the NEPSAC tournament to Suffield Academy. The Suffield Tigers defeated Groton last year in the semi final round and this time around the Zebras spent two days preparing for the Tigers. Unfortunately, the Zebras came out flat defensively in the first half, allowing Suffield 36 first half points. Groton used the half time to make defensive adjustments and to refocus its energy on the defensive end of the floor.

Groton’s intensity and communication on the defense resulted in a second half 24-20 win, but cold shooting plagued the Zebras the entire night and they were unable to recover from the first-half deficit. Groton lost 56-44.

Groton’s fast-paced, aggressive style of play enabled them to post big wins during the season. They defeated Class A Northfield Mount Hermon (a team that beat Suffield twice during the regular

Captain Danny Rainer drop steps to the hoop during quarterfinal round play against Suffield Academy.

season) 61-48. They also had impressive Class A wins over Thayer (55-40) and St. Paul’s (65-28). The Zebras had two heart-breaking losses down the stretch, losing by two points to Kimball Union (62-60) and Milton (42-40). For the second year in a row, the Lady Zebras defeated the St. Mark’s Lions in the final regular season game by a score of 69-57.

Coach Sue Wynn develops game strategy during a timeout in quarterfinal game.

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Grotoniana | All Things Groton The Lady Zebras were honored at the end of the season with the Bobbie Crump-Burbank and Byron Bowman Sportsmanship Award, given to the ISL team that demonstrates the highest level of sportsmanship and fair play. In addition, Danielle Rainer ’09 was one of the first Groton School female basketball players to receive the ISL MVP/Globe All-Scholastic Award. At the All New England level, Rainer and Gabriella Flibotte ’09 were named to the All New England Prep School Athletic Conference team.

End of Season Honors: Coach’s Award: Madeline Kemble ’09 MVP: Danielle Rainer ’09 Most Improved: Gabriella Flibotte ’09 Best Defender: Awarded to the team for the their full court man

pressure All ISL First Team: Danielle Rainer ’09, Gabriella Flibotte ’09 All ISL Second Team: Adrianna Pulford ’11 All NEPSAC: Gabriella Flibotte ’09, Danielle Rainer ’09 ISL MVP/Globe All Scholastic Award: Danielle Rainer ’09

Girls Hockey | 2 – 14 – 1

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lthough they won only two games all season, the Girls Varsity Hockey team succeeded in one very important way: despite the adversity, they grew together. Any team can be measured by statistics and deemed successful on

Talia Simon ‘12 controls the puck.

that basis. Last year, our team enjoyed one of its best seasons ever with a 14-8 record. But sometimes even the best teams struggle with team bonding. This season, our team rallied together through the weeks and formed one of the tightest bonds a team could have.

Every practice and every game, team members joined forces and worked hard together. When one player needed to be picked up, another was right there to do so. Through a program called Team Synergy, the squad introduced the new traditions of the coveted positive reinforcement bag and game rewarding cowbell.

No matter the battles that the team faced, each time they left the locker room there were smiles all around. These smiles are proof of the season’s success.

The season had other ironies. We won one game with lackluster intensity and drive, but lost several despite our best effort, tenacity, and stamina. The season had many highpoints, moments where individual efforts inspired the team to push through to a score or a save. One example occurred during the midseason Proctor Academy game when Ashleigh Corvi, our goalie and only senior, stopped 57 of 58 shots on goal to gain a 1-1 tie against a very good team. Our young team looks forward to building and growing into next year with the positive chemistry established in 2008-2009.

The following players earned season awards: Most Improved Player: KC Hambleton ’11 Most Valuable Player: Michelle Murphy ’10 Coaches Award: Haley Ladd-Lutheringhauser ’11

Goalie Ashleigh Corvi ’09 makes save as Michaela Mustrullo looks on.

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Winter Sports

Girls Squash | 10 – 4

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he girls varsity squash team had another terrific season. Capably led by senior Co-captains Ripley Hartmeyer and Sommer Carroll, the team battled its way to second position in the ISL and seventh in the New England Division A tournament. Its season record was 10-4, with two losses to Deerfield Academy, one to Milton and a narrow 3-4 loss to Nobles. The team beat every other ISL side and had wins over Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, Choate and Hotchkiss.

It played its best squash at the end of season in the New England Division A tournament, where it finished seventh with only 6 points separating seventh and fifth position. In Division 1, Sommer Carroll finished seventh. In Division 2, Ripley Hartmeyer finished eighth. In Division 3, Lizzy Ross ’12 finished fifth. In Division 4, Whitney Hartmeyer ’11 finished 11th. In Division 5, Hilary Evans ’10 finished eighth. In Division 6, Georgie Brinkley ’10 finished sixth, and in Division 7, Chloe Fross ’12, who was playing because our regular number seven Harling Ross was sick, finished 12th, coming within points of upsetting the number three seed in the first round.

Co-captains Sommer and Ripley are the two seniors who leave the team after representing Groton School in exemplary manner over the past few years. Sommer will join her ex-teammate Kyla Sherwood ’08 to play squash for Stanford University, while Ripley will not be playing squash in college. They were both awarded the Coach’s Award at the end of the season for the responsible way in

All ISL team co-captain Sommer Carroll completes a backhand drop shot.

which they managed the team this year and for the outstanding squash that they played throughout the season. Lizzy Ross was awarded the Most Improved Player award for her terrific performance in the New England tournament, where she beat players she had lost to during the regular season. While the team loses two of their veteran players. It is a very young team and prospects look very bright for the future.

Co-captain Ripley Hartmeyer reaches for a forehand in St. Paul's match.

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Grotoniana | All Things Groton

SCHOOL NEWS GWN

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espite a cold and snowy northeast winter and a turbulent economy, the Groton Women’s Network continues to offer varied educational and social events to Groton community members across the country.

Boston city chairs Hannah Wood Wick ’93, Haley Milner LaMonica ’97, and Christine Baharozian P’10, ’12, along with School personnel, organized a reception and dinner to introduce the Impact: Model Mugging program to the

50 | Quarterly Spring 2009

sixth form girls. Introduced in 1991, this program is offered each spring to seniors and teaches self-defense and assertiveness skills. In 2005 the GWN started the Self-Defense Endowment Fund to ensure that this powerful program will be offered to future generations of female Groton students, and many young alumnae have contributed. The dinner included not only the sixth form girls but also GWN committee members, female faculty, and alumnae guest speakers who shared personal accounts of their own model mugging experiences both in the class and after graduation, when some of their selfdefense skills were put to the test. Heather Mayer ’09 wrote about this dinner in a Circle Voice article: “There has been a lot of positive feedback from the girls. Many commented on how the speakers encouraged them to want to try Model Mugging.

Others enjoyed the introduction to the GWN, which they did not know existed, and were glad to learn that there was a way to remain involved in Groton even once they have graduated.” Given the resounding positive feedback following the dinner, the GWN hopes to make this dinner an annual event.

Farther afield, the New York city chairs, in conjunction with their GSAA counterparts, hosted an educational evening at the home of alumna, current parent and GWN committee vice chair Eliza Storey Anderson ’79. A panel of four education professionals spoke on the issues and innovations facing various schools in New York City (private, public, charter, and hybrid schools were all represented). More than 30 guests, including past and current parents and alumni from 1979 to 2002, spent a few hours in thoughtful discussion concerning the future of education. They also enjoyed being together with fellow Grotonians.

Los Angeles city chairs Sara Clark ’99 and Amy Baughman ’99 organized a cocktail party at the perennial favorite watering hole, the Casa Del Mar Hotel. This annual event gets a bit bigger each year as alumni

and friends of the School return to catch up with each other and to meet fellow LA Grotties.

Many cities have events in the works: in Chicago, a community service event is in the planning stage; in Boston, there will be a gathering to discuss a Bostonbased historical novel; and in D.C., the city chairs are sorting out the details for a cultural event at an art gallery. The GWN representatives are working diligently to provide alumni, families, and friends with opportunities to keep connected with the School and with each other. If you have any event ideas or want to get involved in your area, please contact Betsy Lawrence ’82 in the Alumni Office at 978-448-7587 or at blawrence@groton.org.

GSAA Reunion Weekend

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eturn to the Circle May 8-10, 2009, to celebrate Alumni Day and Reunion Weekend. Registration begins Friday at 4 p.m. and continues throughout the afternoon and on Saturday morning. The Friday afternoon reception for all returning alumni and their families begins at 5 p.m. under the tent on the Circle with Soul Sauce, the Groton School jazz ensemble, providing the entertainment. After dinner, the entire Groton School community is invited to enjoy Tom Rush ’59 in concert in the Campbell Center for Performing Arts. Saturday’s highlights include an alumni and parent roundtable, the Headmaster’s welcome in the Hall, lunch under the tent on the Circle beginning at 12:15 p.m., athletic contests, the Edward B. Gammons Memorial Recital, form dinners, and much more.

You will receive an invitation that lists all the weekend’s exciting activities. We look forward to seeing you around the Circle in May!

ALUMNI GAMES DAY January 17, 2009

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he snows in early January, coming only days after students returned from Christmas break, did not deter scores of alumni (young and young-at-heart) from once again taking to the ice and hardwoods for their annual contests with their varsity teams. A poignant moment came at the start of the basketball game as the alumni observed the death of Mark Griffith ’78, a loyal participant in these games who had passed away in December, by playing a man down in the opening minutes. Overall, the games were spirited and fun with all participants getting solid work outs and plenty of sass and support from the crowds.

Top: current varsity players Danielle Rainer ’09 (left) and Gabriella Flibotte ’09 (right) stand with coach Sue Wynn and alumna Katie Gannett ’06 after the game. Second row left: varsity hockey team members and alumni gather after the game. Second row right: Digger Faesy ’79, JV coach Mike Sheedy ’79, Jon Choate ’60 and David Rimmer ’79 gather before the hockey contest. Third row left: Applause from the bench comes from Katie Gannett ’06 and classmates Justin Eiffel ’02 and Ben Niles ’02. Right: goalie Robert Emmons ’78 defends the cage. Fourth row: teammates Stephen Hill ’80, Gary Hill ’83, and Kevin Griffiths ’80 assemble before the game. Bottom row left: classmates Will Webb ’93 and Corey Jeffery ’93 pose before the game.

Varsity basketball team members, coaches and alumni gather after their contest.

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Grotoniana | All Things Groton

New releases Louis S. Auchincloss ’35

Last of the Old Guard December 1, 2008 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

T

ouching, comical, and replete with fascinating social detail, Last of the Old Guard renders the conclusion of a poignant friendship that shaped two lives and offers readers an unforgettable depiction of Old New York. In his latest novel, Louis Auchincloss, master portraitist of America's ruling class, offers a humane, moving and shrewd chapter in his evolving portrayal of New York, the great American city, and its most influential citizens and reigning families. The novel is an elegant interweaving of the lives of those “upstairs and downstairs” in a stratum of society accustomed to wielding power and control while exposing the temptations and vicissitudes of two remarkable men. (Taken from the novel’s bookjacket.)

Daniyal N. Mueenuddin ’81

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders February 9, 2009 W.W. Norton

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n Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a collection of linked stories illuminating a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of an extended family of Pakistani landowners and their retainers. The book explores class, culture, power, and desire among the ruling and servant classes of Pakistan. (For more information, please go to www.InOtherRooms.com.)

Mia M. Mochizuki ’89

The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566-1672.

Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age November 2008 Ashgate Publishing (Aldershot, UK)

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ebunking the myth of the stark white Protestant church interior, this innovative book draws on art history, reformation history, and theology to explain the impact of iconoclasm on the cultural topography of the Dutch Golden Age. Lavishly illustrated with color photographs of objects never before published, this study identifies a previously overlooked aspect of iconoclasm: while acknowledging its destructive force, Mochizuki also discloses its generative power and the remarkable creativity it unleashed.

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Groton School 2008–2009 Annual Fund

cui servire est regnare

Three members of the Groton family have generously agreed to give the School $50,000 each to this year’s Fund if together we raise $300,000 in new or increased gifts by June 30, 2009.

We are well on our way to meeting this goal but still need your help to capture all of these challenge dollars.

Joined with others, your gift will ensure an exceptional education for today’s students. Please consider a gift today.

To make a gift or complete a pledge, please go to www.groton.org and click on Giving to Groton; send a check to the Annual Fund, Groton School, P.O. Box 991, Groton, MA 01450; or call the Development Office at 800-396-6866 to make a gift of securities.

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In Memoriam | As We Remember I N

M E M O R I A M

Malcolm J. Edgerton, Jr. ’38

1 January 3, 1920 —May 12, 2008

by David P. H. Watson, 1938

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y first contact with Edge was in late summer 1932 when Mrs. Rose Peabody Parsons, one of the Rector’s daughters and a very good friend of my mother’s, thought it would be a good idea if I were to meet a couple of my future formmates before school opened. Accordingly, I met with Edge and David Hadden in Stamford, Connecticut, and spent the major part of an afternoon with them. This early introduction meant that there were at least two familiar faces when I and 11 other “new boys” arrived for the start of the second form year. More boys were added the next year, and the Form of 1938 finally grew to a total of 39 boys, the largest number of boys in a form to date.

In spring sports we all played baseball at many skill levels for the first two years, and after that some of us elected to take up rowing. Foremost among the rowers was Edge, who in his fourth form year rowed his way to the number seven seat in Groton’s first boat (all our boats were “eights” in those days).

Looking back on it now, this was quite extraordinary, for being at the most 160 pounds and no more than 5’10” tall, Edge did not meet the classic description of an oarsmen. The following year, Edge was again in the number seven slot, and in his sixth form year he was moved up to stroke and was named captain. In fall 1937, he had been a letterman on Groton’s highly successful football team which was undefeated, untied, and scored on only once in the six-game season. It was in the end of the fifth form year, I believe, that Edge and Goodhue Livingston set out on a grand walking tour of Western Europe armed with no more than stout hiking boots, ponchos and rucksacks. Towards the end of our last year, Edge applied for admission to Yale, as did I and a considerable number of our formmates. In fact, this was the first time in many years that the applicants to Yale outnumbered those seeking admission to Harvard.

In early September 1938, Edge, my freshman roommate, John Chandler, and I walked up to the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps building and enrolled in the four-year course.

I am not sure why the other two did so, but in my case it

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was apprehension about what was happening in Europe and a sprinkling of patriotism. Shortly after arriving in New Haven for freshman year, Edge reported to the crew coach, hoping to be able to win a berth on the 150-pound freshman boat.

Rowing at Yale in those days was far from easy or pleasant. It involved round-trip bus rides from New Haven out to Derby on the Housatonic River in secondhand yellow school buses.

The facilities at Derby in those days were extremely poor: the boathouses were antiquated, and the showers ran either scalding hot or miserably cold. When the ice formed on the river, the oarsmen would row daily in the tanks in Payne Whitney gymnasium for the rest of the winter.

Edge was a mathematics major, one of a small handful of students who made this choice, another being my then roommate, Warren Sheldon. To hear them discuss their courses and try to answer each other’s questions, was to enter a world of mysterious words and unfathomable concepts.

At the Yale graduation in June 1942, there were no mortarboards for us. Instead we had ensign’s uniforms and orders from the Navy’s Bureau of Personnel instructing us to report to our destroyers in Norfolk, Virginia, later in the month. True to our orders, Edge and I went together on the train from New York City headed for Norfolk. Along the way, it got quite warm in the compartment, so Edge opened the window (which you could do in those days). Almost immediately, a red-hot cinder from the steam locomotive blew in the window and burned a hole in my brand-new dress blue uniform.

As it turned out, our destroyers were sisterships in the same destroyer division (four destroyers to a division). For the next two years, these two destroyers acted together for the most part in numerous cross North Atlantic runs, escorting large and very slow merchant-ship convoys and on occasion faster troop-ship convoys, all bound for Great Britain. In fall 1942, we got a break in this work when we joined the second wave in the invasion of Northern Africa and remained in Casablanca until things were secure. In 1943 there were several more North Atlantic convoys followed by a succession

In Memoriam I N

M E M O R I A M

of five round-trip convoys between Curaçao in the Dutch Street firm where he specialized in estates and trusts. For my West Indies and Wales escorting tankers loaded with aviation part, I was hired by an admiralty and maritime law firm down gasoline. We would have a few days in Londonderry at one the street, and this is where we renewed our friendship after end and a few days in Curaçao at the other. In February 1944, some three or four years. There were opportunities for lunch our division was assigned to antisubmarine, together downtown and frequent early evening shore bombardment and escort services in squash games at the Yale Club. In January connection with the Anzio landings south of 1952, Edge was an usher at my wedding, “Obviously, in Rome, where the Royal Navy and U.S. Navy and a number of years later we asked him to light cruisers were bombarding the main shore be godfather to our daughter, a role which he addition to being with 6 inch guns. This duty continued for over filled very graciously. three months, culminating finally when the After the tragic death of his parents in an firmly founded in U.S. 5th Army finally broke through and made airplane crash in the jungles of Venezuela contact with the isolated Anzio beachhead. in 1956, Edge and his family moved to his the law, he had Throughout these two years, Edge was in his parents’ home on Wallack’s Point in Stamford, built up a record of where Edge could give full vent to his love of ship's communications division, whereas I was in the gunnery division of mine. Although we sailing. Edge also liked a game of golf, but he were operating together, there were virtually trustworthiness and was not as good a golfer as he was a sailor. no occasions when visits between one ship and Adele Pleasance Edgerton died suddenly integrity.” another were allowed. in 1989 after a marriage of 46 years. In 1992, Later in summer 1944, we were operating Edge married Jane Lowe Jackson, thereby off the coast of Southern France rendering acquiring three stepchildren to add to his own antiaircraft and antisubmarine support to the landings. It was four. A number of years later, Edge set about to build a new following these operations that Edge received orders from waterfront house for his family, again on Wallack’s Point. This Washington transferring him to a newer destroyer that was entailed years of complying with dozens of local, state, and operating in the Pacific. federal requirements bearing on the construction of waterfront In the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean, I lost track of houses. Somehow Edge emerged from this ordeal unscathed, Edge until the war was over. While aboard my destroyer for and the house was finally built.

41 months, I had kept a log of miles steamed. My total came All the while, Edge maintained close ties with both Groton to 240,300 miles, and I must assume that Edge’s experience and Yale. His son, M. J. E. III, graduated with the Form was similar. For a car to go that far in 3.5 years would be of 1971. Edge’s years in fund raising for the Yale Alumni possible, but it must be remembered that our average speed fund, culminated in his being named the fund's chairman, a was probably somewhere between 15 and 17 kn. Only distinct thank you for all his good work over the years, not occasionally would we see those bursts of speed of which to mention the extra responsibilities he took on. At the same destroyers were capable. time, Edge was active in numerous local charities, particularly Upon returning to the United States, we both applied to the Stamford Museum and Nature Center of which he was law school, Edge to New York University, I to the University president (as was his father before him), the Edwin Gould of Virginia School of Law. We did not see each other again Services for Children, the Stamford Community Foundation, for two or three years, for my law school class had voted to the Stamford Health Foundation and a board member and forgo all vacations so we could complete the three year course chairman of the New Canaan Country School. in two years.

Edge was still active in these charities and educational In March 1946, Edge married Adele Pleasance and took institutions at the time of his death, and was still commuting up residence in Peter Cooper Village in New York City, a two or three times a week to White & Case. When I questioned large new residential complex owned by Metropolitan Life him about this, having retired myself a number of years ago, Insurance Company where the rents, unlike most of those he stated that many of the firm’s clients still preferred to work around Manhattan, were very reasonable. through him. Obviously, in addition to being firmly founded After obtaining his law degree, Edge was hired as an in the law, he had built up a record of trustworthiness and associate by White & Case, a long-standing, prestigious Wall integrity.

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In Memoriam | As We Remember I N

M E M O R I A M

Charles H. Erhart, Jr. ’44, P’72, ’81, Former Trustee

1 July 31, 1925—January 16, 2009

by David G. Erhart ’72

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y dad, Charles Erhart, also known as Chuck, died at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital during the early morning hours of January 16, 2009. He entered Groton’s first form in 1938, and stayed until he was recruited by the Army Air Corps in 1944, in preparation for battles in the Pacific. After his stint in the Air Corps, he attended Yale, went into business, and served on the boards of Groton School, and a host of other corporate and civic-minded organizations.

Before I decided where to go to prep school, my dad had waxed poetic about his days in the Chapel. Hymns, he said, were sung by the robust and hearty. They shook the walls right down to the core. It sounded like exaggeration to me. Dad was famous for that. My siblings and I, and even my mom, had a make believe buzzer that we rang when Dad told tall tales.

In 1985, I was in a serious accident. As a result, the relationship between me and my dad changed for the better.

I began to see my dad as a man with soft corners. A person of deep feeling is the way he saw me.

Becoming close to my father, I perceived him as the greatest optimist ever. In the business world, he used his brilliant mind to smooth and soothe the corporate egos that swirled around him. At home, he could not fathom that someday he too would expire. Though never really a socialite, my father was quite charming. Few people held him in disregard. He was also a man in motion. He kept moving from sailboat, to Vermont house, to the life of world tourist in his later years.

Without any doubt, my dad was a Christian. He played the lead role in rescuing his church. Though he thought the “Big Three” were the guides he should follow, he encouraged his children to go search on their own. At the end of his life, he finally let go. Pulmonary fibrosis, a weakening heart, a series of strokes, and two weeks on a ventilating machine told him, “Move on, Chuck!” A distant memory I have of him is this. My dad, my eldest sister, Toria, and I were sitting on the wood rail fence at my grandmother’s house. “Dad,” Toria

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asked in her role as future doctor, “what is it you want to die from?” Looking up towards the treetops, at least that is my recollection, Dad responded, “I want to die of old age.” Dad, as they say in Go Fish, you got what you wanted. I salute you for the assets you gained, the charitable life you lived, and the notion that in spite of your towering tales, you had a deep and lasting humility.

The Charles H. Erhart, Jr. 1944 Financial Aid Fund was established in February 2009 through Mr. Erhart’s estate and by donations in his memory from family and friends. The fund will provide scholarship assistance to students who otherwise could not attend Groton School. If you would like to contribute to this fund, please contact Rachel Silver at rsilver@groton. org or 978-448-7584.

In Memoriam I N

M E M O R I A M

Mark R. Griffith ’78

1 April 12, 1960 – December 18, 2008 These tributes to Mark were compiled by Hilary Fowler Northrop ’78

W

hen Sammy Watkins ’77 emailed about Mark’s passing it was one of those moments that you just cannot believe. Mark was all about life, friends, making others feel good, and it is very hard to think of a world without him and that wonderful smile. As I told his brother, Kevin ’80, when you teach and coach as long as I did, you meet some very special people, and Mark was very special, especially for me.

Groton School, under Jack Crocker’s leadership, began to diversify the racial Mark Griffith composition of the student body in the 1960s. I was one of the youngest faculty members, and Jack paid me the compliment of asking me to be the informal advisor to the new black students. In 1965, he asked my advice about whether he should allow students to march with Dr. King that April. It was Mr. Crocker’s last year and many alumni were not happy with his decisions about integration, particularly his letting students miss class to march with King. Jack Crocker made the courageous and correct decision to let the School participate, and over half of the students and many of the faculty (120 in all) followed Dr. King through the streets of Boston. I think it was one of Groton’s finest moments. A friend of mine was there from Andover and they had one faculty member and three students.

Two students stand out for me personally for what they contributed to racial diversity and making it work: Jerry ­Gadsden ’68, who led us behind Dr. King, and then Mark 10 years later. When Mark arrived at Groton, the School was about to become co-educational under Headmaster Paul Wright’s leadership. In many ways, it was just as hard for girls to adapt to Groton as it was for people of color. Fortunately, Groton had very strong female leadership from faculty like Ann Tottenham and Joan Holden and from the girls themselves. Mark’s form was the second to graduate girls, and although the form often refers to itself as dysfunctional, from my perspective it was one of the first truly diversified forms at Groton. “Griff,” as he was

known to his friends, was one of the real contributors to the success of that form.

He made everyone feel good and also feel that they belonged at Groton, whether they were male or female, white or black.

He was in many ways our version of “Magic Johnson” because even if you were his biggest rival, like Larry Bird you ended up not only liking him but also feeling that he was your best friend. My father had an expression that went with Mark’s personality: “He could charm a dog out of a meat wagon.”

I was fortunate not only to teach Mark but also to coach him in both football and basketball. Mark was a good athlete, but he was more of a great teammate than he was a star. The highlight of his athletic career was a 17-1 basketball season that ended with a second heartbreaking loss when we lost our leading scorer, diminutive Stevie Brock ’77, as we were warming up. The other starters along with Mark were Sammy Watkins ’77, Clint Winters ’78, and James Young ’78. At the beginning of Christmas vacation we were invited along with our bitter rival Milton to play in a tournament in Delaware against the Tower Hill and Sanford Schools. There was no way most of the team could afford the cost the trip, but Mark and his teammates came up with the idea of selling Italian sandwiches at night to the ever-hungry student body. I think they even got others to put together the sandwiches, but they ended up selling enough sandwiches to finance three trips to Delaware. As I remember, there was only one black student on the other three teams and our squad was 50 percent black and we had a black assistant coach (Dr. J) and a black manager, Jackie Sutton ’78. What could have been a tense atmosphere was totally defused by the sportsmanship and conduct of Mark and his teammates. The coach of Sanford, the host school, came up to me afterwards and lavished praise on the entire team and singled Mark out for his friendliness and openness with everyone who took part in the tournament.

Personally, I felt the same pride for Groton School that December as I did marching with Dr. King back in 1965.

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In Memoriam | As We Remember I N

M E M O R I A M

After Mark graduated I only saw him at reunions, Martin Luther King Day, and Alumni Game Days. Fortunately, Mark was the kind of friend it did not take long to connect with again. I know his death came as a real shock to his formmates, and the outpouring of grief that followed is not surprising. I was unable to attend his memorial service so I can only guess what was said, and along with the inauguration of our new president which is taking place whilst I write this, makes me very nervous about doing justice to Mark’s memory. However, what comforts me are my many memories of this great young man and somehow I can hear him saying “Relax, Coach, everything is going to be just fine.” God bless you, Mark.

Jake Congleton faculty member from 1957-1995

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think there were only six new boys in our fourth form class: me, Arnoldo Beadle, Clint Winters, Stephen Lewis, Andrew Greene, and Tommy Nichols. All the girls were new, so they were the focal point of everyone’s attention and they were having a unifying experience. The boys had been together for the previous year or two, so they were familiar and unified. As a new boy, feeling marginalized, I took to going over to the new student center when it was open and watching the social buzz alone from a distance. Remember that grill with French fries and snacks? Mark Griffith was the only one who approached me and introduced himself and engaged me in conversation.

He was full of energy and enthusiasm, with a huge smile, a big handshake, and a warm, friendly demeanor. I know he understood what it meant to be an outsider at Groton. He was both fearless and without agenda socially, an unusual combination in high school. His kindness in those early months meant a lot to me. I learned about George Clinton and Bootsy Collins from Mark. I remember listening to Parliament’s “Mothership Connection” album in the third floor room he shared with James Young ’78 in Bannard’s dorm sixth form year. It was an epiphany to a rhythmically challenged Dead Head like myself.

I’ve seen many Parliament shows since then, and I still crank up “Flashlight” at earsplitting volume for my kids when we want to get down. Mark had the funk and he showed it to me. Spring semester of sixth form year, after I returned from my stint working oilrigs over winter term, Mark and I hung out periodically, usually over a relaxing herbal tonic in my room. There was a mutual respect and a shared sense of having outgrown the place, and I remember talking excitedly about the future—life after Groton. From what I can tell, he carried that smile and ebullience throughout his life. I’m sorry I won’t catch it again.

Tom McGlade

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G

iven that I roomed with Mark fifth form year and that I played football and basketball with him for several years, it is odd that we did not really stay in contact after graduating.

In January 1995, Jake Congleton’s last year at Groton, however, team members from the ’76-’77 basketball team returned for the alumni basketball game. Along with myself and Mark, James Young ’78, Sam Watkins ’77, Steve Brock ’77, Rob Southworth ’77 and Fred Wappler ’77 also returned. Needless to say we defeated that current Groton team handily.

The weekend culminated in a dinner for Jake at the Foxes’.

We were all there with our families, who were by this time very bored with all of our “locker room stories.” I remember that Mark was as usual laughing and talking loudly with that unabashed smile. He was always the life of the party. We all said at that time that we would make more of an effort to keep in touch. That was the last time I saw him.

When I think of my experiences with Mark, it is so easy to see why he was so loved by his friends and colleagues. He was a genuine, hardworking professional who enjoyed life to the fullest. The world is a less lively place without him.

Clint Winters

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ark’s destiny brought him to the Groton community. It must have been quite a challenge then to be an AfricanAmerican student arriving in one of the land’s most reputable institutions.

Never in the four years we shared with him did we feel Mark’s anguish to be one of Groton’s finest. Mark’s presence during classes or playing around the Circle brought comfort to me; always jovial and sincere with me, he helped me understand America, its meaning, its complexity, its aspirations.

Always diplomatic and moderate in his reactions, he understood better than any of us that difference, that larger gap between cultures. From my distant France, I can claim to have witnessed the “Dream” in the making. Thank you, Mark.

Christopher Booth

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es, like perhaps most of us, the first thing I recall about Griff is the big smile, the great laugh, and those jumping thighs.

But it’s the second thing I recall that really sticks with me: Lake Romayne...Joe Broyles...a giant ant hill...Mark and I earnestly watching those ants come and go as we practiced being lab partners and scientists. No only was he a great running back and basketball player, but he was a pretty impressive observer and reporter, even way back then.

It’s not everyone who makes such a lasting impression!

Matt Reynolds

In Memoriam I N

M E M O R I A M

W

hat I most remember about Mark was his wonderful smile and infectious humor. Mark, Kevin (his brother), and the rest of the boys basketball team members our fourth form year went out of their way to help the new girls basketball team, staying after their practice to help with ours. This was quite useful since many of the girls had never played before. In addition to “coaching” us, the shenanigans the boys played on each other, and over time, with us, kept me (at least) laughing.

I believe their help continued fifth and sixth form year, and certainly created a unique bond. The few times since graduation that our paths crossed, I always looked forward to the big bear hug I would get from Mark. What a wonderful, outgoing, and kind person Mark was. It is sad that he can no longer bring his sunshine to all those around him.

Denley Poor-Reynolds

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remember late one Sunday evening about 40 of us gathered in the football team film room to watch a....16mm Danish “art’” film. When it turned out to actually BE a Danish Art film, Griff took it upon himself to save the day (and a few individuals!) with his laughter and good humor. What a great guy.

Geoff Pope

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remember third form year, Brooks House. We were in Monty’s dorm together. The image in my mind of the dark wood paneling on the cubicles is suddenly sort of ominous and depressing. Anyway, I remember the downstairs where pairs of us shared study rooms. I think students smoked in some of the rooms, didn’t they? I didn’t smoke, and the rooms could

be kind of mysterious for me; upper classmen did ... “stuff ”... like that. I didn’t, wasn’t old enough for, or was scared of, or something definitely regrettable. I opened the door on one of the rooms and Mark was in there with James Young. I don’t know what James had said—you know, James never said much very loud, but whatever it was, it had to be something bad, because Griff was rocking with laughter and had a most devilish expression of glee on his face. It was the sort of expression that when you see it on a man’s face, you know whomever he’s with is like a true brother to him, that kind of glee is closeness.

I was jealous of that, whatever it was that Mark had or that James had that made them lock. And I might have been jealous, too, because I was pretty sure that whatever life happened in the mysterious rooms was not something either of them was the least bit afraid of.

Nate Harvey

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ark and James Young lived across the hall from Douglas Wu and me in Pest House fourth form year. Of course, Mark lit up the dorm with his energy and enthusiasm for sports, music, girls, and life, fueled by his electric smile. His humor—“What did you guys do to end up in the (Pest House) ghetto?”—his joy and his physical strength were his calling cards and his shield against our adolescent challenges.

All of that joy came back when I saw the email that Mark sent last fall entitled “What’s uuuuuuupppppppppp?” He mockingly lamented getting older because he couldn’t run as fast or jump as high. It was clear that same energy and enthusiasm were still there as he talked about life’s more current challenges. And I could almost see his smile.

Greg Maffei

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In Memoriam | As We Remember I N

M E M O R I A M

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uch has been said about Mark’s incredible smile and infectious personality, which he clearly maintained and grew throughout his life. In addition to a broad and brilliant smile, Mark had the biggest, most muscular thighs any of us had seen, which allowed him to leap higher than any of us imagined possible. As Ted Everett notes, it is captured in our yearbook.

He was a prodigious fullback, for whom all of us were happy to block. Geoff Pope reminded me that we all looked better than we actually were because of Mark—if we missed our block or failed to hold it long enough, Mark made it all OK because he was fast enough to get through the hole anyway and strong enough to just run someone over. We often stood in awe.

Mark’s physical strength was equally matched by his internal strength. I think only with the distance of 30 years can we recognize the strange and bizarre world we shared as adolescents at an elite New England prep school. The fact that Mark could enter and excel in that environment, maintain his effervescent and brilliant personality, and leave all of us with such an indelible sense of him and regrets that we did not stay in closer touch is a testament to his inner strength.

Charles Gardiner

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too, recall his thousand-watt smile—all those teeth!—and a volcanic laugh that exploded with deep, heartfelt mirth easily and often. And I cannot get that image of him from the yearbook out of my mind—his seemingly “standing” three feet up in the air on his approach to the basketball hoop. The two of us were from very different backgrounds, but I, like Tom McGlade, felt a kinship with Mark as we both shared something of an outsider’s perspective on the traditional Groton School fraternity of old.

His sartorial standards included no Brooks Brothers or LL Bean, and how much richer all of our experience was for it! Yet Mark and I shared a sense of “otherness” during those “awkward teenage years.” Griff bridged the various worlds at Groton through the force of his own spirit and internal goodness. I chose the external foil of humor to make my way.

Humor was, in fact, something we shared and I would like to think I was there at the start of his eventual career in media/ entertainment. I believe it all began in Bob Parker’s comedy class—not that Mark had to learn how to tell a good story without bursting into that explosive laugh of his.

Mark and I had to work up a skit for class. Part of it involved a dialog between a nurse and doctor delivering a lame and tasteless joke having something to do with a mix-up between the doctor’s pen and a rectal thermometer (don’t ask). What made the encounter so funny—at least to the two of us—was Mark’s falsetto voice as the nurse—yes, he played the nurse.

In fact, we cracked ourselves up so much trying to record the skit for class that even after several takes, the dialog was barely audible in the final version. Clearly Mark went on to remedy

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that shortcoming as mastery of equipment and technique was just one of his many hallmarks in the broadcasting world.

Our Form lost a few members early on, tragically and truly too early in life. Mark’s passing, while also tragic and too soon, seems to have struck a particular chord, perhaps because it has reminded us of the passage of time and our own mortality.

All the wonderful comments offered here suggest something of a lesson. At the risk of sounding trite, Mark’s passing reminds us to cherish and enjoy our friendships—both present and distant past—and not let ourselves get too busy to make time to keep up or renew those connections.

Ted Everett

n Hey, hey………..

All is good except getting older…..

Can’t run as fast or jump as high……….

This is amazing……..all the email addresses….fantastic All is good…..

Still in the news biz almost after 29 years…..

Wow….

That scares me even to write it…..

Still divorced/single….no kids…

I think that’s the part I miss….the kids….

Moved to Kensington, Brooklyn ……

Nice mixed neighborhood……

I’m glad we can all say hey to one another….

Mark Griffith, September 2008

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eartfelt thanks go to the Form of 1978 for all the wonderful contributions submitted on behalf of Mark Griffith, and to Jake Congleton for his tribute.

Hilary Northrop

Form notes

R Form Notes are now password-protected.

Members of the Groton community may read them online by signing in at www.groton.org/myGroton.