Letters

Advice from Mary Calderone ’39M (MD)

I avidly read your recent article regarding Mary Calderone ’39M (MD) (“ ‘The Grand Dame of Sex Education,’ ” Spring-Summer). I think the point was that a new book was written about this American heroine by Rochester grad Ellen Singer Moore ’79 (PhD).

I think you omitted a reference to Dr. Calderone’s visit to the University in 1967–68, one of the great moments of my education. She addressed the student body, her talk having been moved from Hoyt’s lecture hall to the Men’s Dining Hall due to an overflow crowd.

I remember her talk so well. It was revolutionary and a unique experience. I still remember many of her talking points, where she received loud responses from her audience, ranging from nervous laughter to great audible sighs of relief.

She started her talk by saying aloud several words that we all knew but had never heard spoken in public.

Her greatest impact from my point of view was when she referred to research findings from the 1966 publication of Human Sexual Response by William Masters ’43M (MD), ’87 (Honorary) and Virginia Johnson ’87 (Honorary).

I remember her saying the research reported that 85 percent of men acknowledged that they had masturbated on occasion. Here she paused, and then added, “The other 15 percent lied.”

Many of us left her talk lightened, as we were able to put down the secret burden of adolescent guilt.

Lee Nagel ’70
Saratoga Springs, New York

Squealy Gobbler—Ever More Delicious

I was shocked to learn that the very existence of the Squealy Gobbler (“Ask the Archivist,” Spring-Summer) had been lost to posterity.

So that there can be no doubt for the record, I’d like to add that the sandwich was topped not only with barbecue sauce but also with mayonnaise, which is part of what made it so delicious (or disgusting, depending on one’s point of view).

Before it was discontinued for good, it had disappeared for a year in 1997 when the grill in the Pit was replaced with a kosher deli. As a cartoonist for the Campus Times, I eulogized it in an October 2, 1997, strip. It returned the next year when the deli was relocated to the Douglass Dining Center, but it wasn’t quite the same. Maybe that’s why it didn’t last.

Here’s the strip. Pretend that I didn’t misspell “cemetery.”

Peter McNally ’99
Brooklyn, New York

The author was syndications editor for the Campus Times in 1998.

Remembering Frank Nichols

Indelibly etched among memories of my year (1970–71) as a medicine-surgery intern at Strong Memorial Hospital is my middle-of-the-night discovery (following a handball game in the old courts in the hospital basement) of an older man prostrate and convulsing in a back hallway.

I recall first jamming something into his mouth—my wadded-up handball gloves? my wallet?—and then, somehow having obtained access to a crash cart, trying but failing to endotracheally intubate him. Frantic, I shouted for help: I almost wept with relief when Frank Nichols ’74M (Res), ’75M (Flw), then a junior surgery resident, appeared, and we proceeded with a tracheostomy (whether we completed it or not, or whether an anesthesiologist showed up in time to gain airway control, escapes me now more than 50 years later).

What I do know is that our patient—who turned out, astonishingly, to be one of our senior medicine attendings whose unwitnessed cardiac arrest had resulted in his anoxic seizure—not only survived our resuscitation efforts but ultimately returned (albeit a bit hoarse) to his teaching post.

Frank, that junior surgery resident, completed his Rochester surgery training in 1975 and went on to a distinguished 40-year surgical career in Tupelo, Mississippi. Frank passed away recently (Class Notes: In Memoriam, Spring-Summer).

This episode remains one of a multitude of reasons this now retired vascular surgeon remembers his internship year, and Frank Nichols, and Strong Memorial Hospital, with everlasting fondness and gratitude.

Kaj Johansen ’71M (Res)
Seattle, Washington

A Date for Graduation?

Members of the Class of 1960 wrote to let us know that when it comes to University history, sometimes you need more than a book, or in this case, a brochure.

In a list of milestones marking how the ceremony has evolved since 1851 (“All Together Now,” Spring-Summer), we noted that 1967 marked the first time that the ceremony was officially held at the War Memorial, at least according to the University’s collection of graduation programs.

Don’t flip your tassel too quickly, noted David Stokes ’60:

“We practiced at Fauver Stadium—heavy thunderstorms made [the ceremony] move to the War Memorial last minute. We then had to go to the University to pick up our diplomas.”

Brenda Miller Thalacker ’60 also wrote to say she remembers the ceremony taking place at the War Memorial. And noted that (the late) Richard Thalacker ’58 also celebrated graduation indoors.

Members of the Class of 1964 also reported that they celebrated in the War Memorial, too, when heavy rain forced the ceremony to relocate to the downtown location.

They’re with the Band: A Photo Mystery Solved?

The archival photo featured on the first page of Class Notes in the Spring-Summer issue prompted sleuthing efforts from alumni band members who pulled out old issues of the Interpres and searched a few online resources. In the course of their research, alumni detectives added details to the late-1960s and early-1970s history of the marching band at Yellowjackets football games.

The correspondents agreed that the photo had to have been taken in 1970 or a few years before.

“The photo . . . was taken in either 1968, ’69, or ’70. The picture could be from 1970, but not 1971. I didn’t join the band in 1971 (got tired of waiting around for practice to start),” wrote Peggy Wolf Geiger ’72, who identified herself at the band member at the far left in the photo.

Fellow band member Fenton Williams ’73 agreed that the photo was taken no later than 1970 because that was the band’s last year on the field.

“I believe that would have been taken in fall 1970, my second year in the band and the last year it performed. . . . I informally compute that in fall 1971, the band was replaced by a record of the National Anthem. Other yearbooks can perhaps confirm—or refute—that recollection.”

Williams compared notes with sousaphone-playing bandmate Marcus Hatch ’72, ’73 (MS), shown in the photo. Williams also ID’d the band member on the right as Don Strebel ’72.

And Paul Trainor ’70 shared photos from the 1970 Interpres to try to match classmates with the photo in Review.

Also a member of the band, Trainor offered several plausible matches for the marchers in the photo. “Anyhow, it was a bit of fun investigation,” he noted.