UMass Magazine Online

OLMSTEAD'S INFLUENCE SEEN IN AMHERST
In response to the review of Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, I need to point out that not only is Olmstead famous for his work in New York City, he's also important to the town of Amherst. Austin Dickinson, who was instrumental in the landscaping of the town common and Wildwood Cemetary, consulted Olmstead about the Amherst College campus and was influenced by Olmstead's work when landscaping other areas such as the Evergreens.

Marcy Tanter ’86 ’96G
Stephenville, TX

WHAT'S OBVIOUS TO SOME...
Betty Shamieh's "evidence" that her rights were trampled when theater festival funding for her play was withdrawn is without merit. Writers get the rug pulled out from under them all the time, no matter what their ancestry. The truth is everyone in America experiences setbacks, disappointments, and difficulties. That's life.

I must say that if I'd just lost a loved one in either of the World Trade Center attacks, in a Pennsylvania field, in Mogadishu, on the US Cole, in any of the numerous attacks against the United States, I couldn't wait to see a play about the sister of a murderous thug. How does Ms. Shamieh spell sensitivity? Doesn't she know that the ultimate discrimination is taking an innocent life?

The obvious has eluded Ms. Shamieh, Christopher O'Carroll, the article's author, and the staff of UMass Amherst. Ms. Shamieh has a platform. No, she has a a stage and a paying audience. That's called success. She bewailed her downtrodden state on campus and in the pages of this magazine. That's called free speech. And a pity party.

Finally, Mr. O'Carroll, in describing Ms. Shamieh as "an Arab in America," errs by elevating ancestry over citizenship. Ours is a nation of citizens, not tribes. If Ms. Shamieh traveled to the Middle Eastern country of her parents' birth, she'd realize she is no more an Arab than Mr. O'Carroll or I. Nor would Ms. Shamieh enjoy the free speech she now takes for granted.

Paula L. Messina '73
Revere

WHO WAS THAT BAKER?
Re: Brendan Whittaker’s letter in the Fall ’03 magazine – He has the story backwards as to which Baker recommended the other to the Amherst scene. As Professor Rand clearly relates in his book Yesterdays at Massachusetts State College, it was Ray Stannard Baker (who came to Amherst in 1910) who suggested to the trustees that he had a brother Hugh P. “who would make a good college president.” Hugh took over as president of M.S.C. in February 1933.

Myron Hager ’40
Falmouth, ME

KUDOS TO ANIMAL ISSUE
I have hosted and produced a public access show for over 10 years dealing with children, animal and environmental welfare issues. The Fall '03 issue included many interesting articles regarding grads and their work with animals. We just returned from Cozumel, Mexico, an island where the locals are doing their best to protect species of turtles that inhabit the surrounding waters and lay their eggs on the beaches. The article (Fall '03) by Charles Creekmore ('95) describing Robert Prescott's ('73) efforts to help struggling sea turtles was most heartening. Prescott's role as director of the Mass. Audubon Society's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary gives him this unique opportunity to work with his volunteers in a humane effort. It was interested to note Cape Cod bay's geological role in creating a natural hazard for the turtle's migration south. I am a true believer that, since man has interfered so negatively in ill-advised and ill-fated wildlife management activities, we can contribute to balancing that score. Kudos to the Cape Codders (my Mom and brothers live in Hysannis).

C. Veronica Guerra-Varno '80
"All God's Creatures," Comcast Cable Ch. 12, Groton, CT.

EMILY - COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA
Historian Ruth Owen Jones believes that the first president of Massachusetts Agricultural College may be the mystery man in Emily Dickinson’s Master letters. Based on the flimsiest of evidence she’s willing to argue that she’s right. She asks “That’s what scholarship is all about isn’t it?” Well, at many universities, scholarship is not taking a wild ass guess about something, presenting scant evidence that it’s true, and posing as an authority on it!

A case could be made that the mystery man was a master herdsman from the farm up the road who did Emily a kindness one day when he delivered a container of milk, extra rich in butterfat, with a nosegay attached to it. It makes as much sense as her theory!

Jones is probably better suited to writing for a sitcom like Seinfeld “The show about nothing.” She could call it “Emily, Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda”.

Arthur J. Stevens Sr. ’62
Stratham, NH

LOST IN SPACE
Josh Simpson's "Inhabited Planet" is mesmerizing. I have not yet finished reading the magazine (summer 2003), but I had to write. It is something in which I could lose myself. Also loved Scott Prior's "Blimp, Buildings and Bovines," so utterly (no pun intended) different, yet so UMass.

Barbara Peirce '72
San Pedro, CA

RECYCLED RUBBER - HOT!
I am writing about the controversial rubberized asphalt repaving (“One Giant Molecule,” winter 2003) of the freeways in the Phoenix area, which is ongoing; to reduce noise. The rubberized asphalt has a major negative result. It remains hotter at night than the concrete surface does. July 2003 was the hottest month ever recorded in Phoenix, AZ. The intense urban “heat island” registered 10 nights in July of a low temp of 90 degrees plus!

Andy Conway
Phoenix, AZ

COINCIDENCE IS IN THE AIR
Artist-alumni Scott Prior’s oil painting (inside front cover, summer 2003 issue) may contain a coincidence both he and UMass Magazine are unaware of! Prior noted that his picture of the UMass campus was “imaginary…there’s no such spot”. Yet, if the pictured glow is an Amherst sunset beyond the tall buildings, the location could well be the present Sunset Avenue of Amherst Town.

The spot where the two cows gaze at the viewer could be the old Smith Farm (there before there was a Sunset Avenue) where author and historian Ray Stannard Baker built a house on ten acres and created a small farm there in 1910. This writer, who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Woodrow Wilson, undoubtedly was first attracted to Amherst by his brother, Mass Agricultural College President Hugh Potter Baker. (I lived in Baker Dorm as a freshman in 1952-53.)

The coincidence is in artist Prior’s placing of a “blimp” airship in the sunset sky – as he noted on your cover, for reasons of humor. Yet Ray S. Baker, writing under his usual rural pen name of David Grayson describes an actual “airship” flying on a November afternoon over Mt. Toby and Deerfield, southward over Mt. Warner and disappearing “a fading speck in the sky” over Mt. Tom and Springfield. (“November” in The Countryman’s Year, Doubleday Doran & Co., Inc. 1936). While a “blimp” is not a Zeppelin-type airship, it is close enough to show how accurate Prior’s perceptions are!

Thanks to Prior, and the Barletta Co., for commissioning his artwork. His painting re-enforces in me the hope that UMass Amherst, no matter how many tall skyscrapers are built, will retain at least some of its rural roots in the most beautiful Connecticut River Valley.

Brendan Whittaker ’57
Guildhall, Vermont

GET THE FACTS RIGHT
In the Books article of the summer 2003 issue, Charles Creekmore refers to “some strange and wonderful factoids.” A factoid is “an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print” (Webster’s), i.e., a lie. So, whom is Mr. Creekmore calling a liar – the children’s book author or the scientists who discovered the megamouth shark? In his freelance articles for the New York Times, did Mr. Creekmore ever misuse the term “factoids” for “facts” and was it passed over by the same editors who published Jayson Blair’s factoids as facts?

Priscilla Biondi ’59
Brighton

EXPRESS YOURSELF WITH SENSITIVITY
I commend you for the level of professionalism of the alumni magazine of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but I found the cartoon for the "Express yourself" postcard offensive. It was taken from the picture on page 9, with a reference to sports, but to use it out of context, on a request for alumni to express themselves, imbues it with more meaning.

A Minuteman/Alumni holding a club, standing on a dead wolf is a rather unattractive portrayal. Clubbing animals to death is funny? Standing on dead animals fulfills the ego? Minutemen are brutal?

It's a small point in a violent world, but one hopes for more sensitivity in the educated.

Anne Rylestone '88G
Ware

FRANK WAUGH - GOOD TIMING
Your article on Frank Waugh was very well timed as it was then that my husband, Everett Roberts '39, was hospitalized before his death. When Ev was in college for his fifth year in order to attain his degree in landscape architecture, he benefited greatly from being in Professor Waugh's classes.

The day I visited Ev in the hospital and read him your article about Prof. Waugh and showed him the interesting photos, his spirits took a "high note" which didn't happen very often.

Sally Roberts '37
Elkhart, IN

CALLING THE CLASS OF 1954
A devoted core group from the class of 1954 began working soon after our 45th reunion to make our 50th reunion a wonderful Homecoming for as many class members as possible. There have been physical changes to the pastoral landscape we fondly remember, the central core to us is still the college pond and Old Chapel, handsomely restored by earlier class gift contributions. In addition to the natural beauty and good education, it is friendships shared there that we hope will bring our classmates back to Amherst again.

We have a new Chancellor Lombardi who realizes people – graduates and facutly – are the core for maintaining a top rated university. He has been helpful in supporting our Class Gift
project, and looks forward to meeting and welcoming each of you next June. 1954 classmates, we hope you will make your plans now and we can count on each one of you to join us June 4-6, 2004, for our 50th reunion celebration.

Ed and Franny (Jones) Craig '54
Eastham

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ALL THE LETTERS ALL THE TIME

LETTERS IN PRINT, FALL 2003