WHAT WE DO (or DID)!!
This page provides some of what we are doing as Retired Old Fudds (and maybe some stories of what we did as Young Studs). All that is left then is what we did as Lieutenant Commanders.
It will be revised from time-to-time as the Class, National, and World Situation dictates. Suggestions/recommendations for items to be posted should be sent to the Class Webmeister. Contributions are both sought and welcome.
Bill Peerenboom sends!
An event on Saturday May 9th marked a standout occasion for our class - the wedding of Sylvia Auton, and Jack Cook (11). Sylvia is the widow of our class' honor graduate, Forrest (Bob) Hanvey (5). A number of local Northern Virginia classmates were in attendance to celebrate with Sylvia and Jack - Dave and Diane Smith (2) , Lee Walker (2), Larry Cohen(1) ,Gary Antonides (2) and Bill and Betty Peerenboom (3). The ceremony took place at Jack's church, St. James' Episcopal, in Leesburg. The beautiful wedding was followed by a grand reception in the church hall. A wonderful writeup of this singular event can be found in the linked article from the New York Times . It tells the story not only of their wedding, but the wonderful "back story" of their romance. It includes some superb pictures.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/style/john-cook-sylvia-auton-wedding.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Frank Parker sends!
Hi guys – I wanted to share with y’all a couple of folks that I had the privilege to know during my working years, that in my opinion have made major contributions to our country. You all know of one of them, but maybe not the other. Just in our class I would include Bruce Demars and Charlie Duke in the same category, each of which I was also privileged to know and work with during my time at USNA and NASA. I’m attaching a photo and writeup about the first one, and I’m giving you the link to the other guy on findagrave.com, on which I wrote the only poem I’ve ever written. The link is: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59682968/claude-douglas-clower.
I’m sure you guys have similar stories, and I thought it was time that at least for those of us who are still on the green side of the grass, I would share two of mine.
Frank
Memories of Neil Armstrong
I met Neil and his wife Jan in 1967. They were friends of Jim and Merle Prim. I worked with Jim at NASA on the Apollo program, and he was later the best man at my wedding. He and Merle used to ask me over for dinner, knowing I was a bachelor and needed a good home-cooked meal once in a while. They sailed with me on my Cal-30 sailboat that I kept at a slip in the Seabrook, TX Shipyard. On a couple of sails on Galveston Bay they brought Neil and Jan along, and I remember at least once when we all cooked out over at Neil's house, which was a couple of blocks from Jim's house in the El Lago subdivision, near Clear Lake. Later, in July of ’68, after I met Nina Cornwell, (the girl I was destined to marry), Neil had begun the serious training for his Apollo 11 mission, and didn't make any more sailings with us, but I can remember two occasions where we were all together. One was at the Elks Club Hall in Kemah, TX, where we all went to eat a big Maine lobster dinner. We, the Prims and the Armstrongs all sat together that night. Nina, being from North Carolina, didn’t know how to eat a Maine lobster and Neil took her under his wing and showed her how it was done. On another occasion, at a party at the Prim's house, we rolled back the rug and danced. That day I had given Nina her engagement ring, and as we danced, Neil and Jan were dancing nearby. I said "Neil, Nina got engaged today - show him your ring, Nina". Upon which Neil quickly replied "Oh yeah? - Who's the lucky guy?" He was a very quiet person, but also very quick witted. At gatherings, or in meetings at NASA, he usually sat in the background and listened intently, but was not averse to speaking up when he heard something that didn't sound right. After the Apollo 11 mission, he was well aware that he would be lauded as the 1st man to set foot on the moon, but was also well aware that his crew just happened to be the next one in line when NASA decided that it was time to go for the landing, and that any other of the Apollo mission commanders could have been first. So he spent the remainder of his days in solitude. He moved to a farm in Ohio, and taught engineering at the University of Cincinnati, avoiding interviews like the plague. Later he spoke out on the subject of how the USA is stepping away from leading the world in space exploration, which he viewed as a mistake. For example, cancelling the Shuttle program before we have developed an alternate way to get our crews and supplies to the International Space Station. Nina and I have fond memories of the short period in our life when we knew the man who was destined to have his name go down in history, whether he liked it or not! The attached photo shows Neil and Jan on one of our afternoon sails on Galveston Bay, where Jan is breaking up at some joke. Jim Prim is the guy with the cigar standing in the hatch.
Frank Parker
CDR USNR (Ret)
USNA Class of 1957
Christmas Luncheon 2025
As is our usual Christmas custom, the local members gathered at the Army-Navy Club in December 2025 to collect Toys for Tots and enjoy the company of our colleagues, wives, and other hanger-ons of whatever variety. Although our numbers are falling our enjoyment of our association have not!
To paraphrase Ole Hank the V,
“We few, we doddering few, we band of brothers!!
For he who’s come this far, shall be my brother
etc., etc. etc.”
I send my greatest appreciation and thanks to Ginger Poole who graciously did the photographs and sent them to me for the web site. Kudos, Ginger, for all that you do for this Class!!
Herewith some photographic evidence of the festive event!!
Art Wright Still Going to Sea!!
The Virtues of Doing Instead of Talking
by Avi Loeb
Art Wright served as the “party chief” on our expedition to the Pacific Ocean, in search of fragments from the crash site of the first recognized interstellar meteor, IM1. “Party chief” is the senior leader who oversees and manages a field survey team, directs its operations, and ensures that work is completed accurately, safely, and on time.
I served as the “chief scientist” for the expedition. Our research team completed two extensive peer-reviewed publications by now on our findings (accessible here and here), with a few more anticipated in the coming year.
The expedition was coordinated in zoom calls. I met Art for the first time in person on the deck of our aluminum ship, which was fittingly called “Silver Star.” He reminded me of my father with his integrity, honesty and work ethic. He did not say much but everything he said was true and insightful. In our early zoom calls we disagreed about technical details, but later became close friends.
Art’s main virtue is his focus on accomplishing the goals. He would solve problems on his own to the extent possible and only burden others with words if absolutely necessary. His solutions had the mark of a genius. Let me illustrate that with one example.
Our ship had a winch that released a long cable to carry a meter-scale sled covered with magnets that Art helped design and test ahead of time. The sled was supposed to skim the ocean floor and collect iron-rich fragments, some potentially from IM1. In the first couple of days, our sled was lifted like a kite by the water flow around it and the tension of the cable. Within a day, Art figured out the solution: make the sled heavier by adding lead, extend the cable to a 5-kilometer length and take into account the ocean currents. It worked!
According to the expedition coordinator, Rob McCallum, all ocean expeditions led by Art were successful. His full name is Arthur St. Claire Wright but I like the abbreviated version of Art Wright because he masters the art of being right.
Art was a commander of a destroyer warship during the Vietnam War. In 1987, he became Vice President of Operations at Williamson & Associates in Seattle, and a few years ago — the founder of Marine Induced Polarization Associates. His expertise involves basic research in underwater acoustics, seafloor engineering. and management of field operations. He was an Unlimited Ocean Master in the US Coast Guard, and sailed as Chief Mate in the SL-7 M/V Capella during the Gulf War in 1991. Art retired as Captain in the United States Navy. During his last tour, he was commander of the Pacific Fleet mine forces. Earlier assignments included commanding three ships and serving on a variety of staffs in Vietnam and as a mine warfare specialist. Art received a B.Sc. in Naval Science, from United States Naval Academy and an M.Sc. in Engineering Acoustics, from United States Naval Postgraduate School. He is a certified American Congress of Surveying and Mapping Hydrographer.
In my lecture to first-year students at Harvard College this week, I explained that Art epitomizes the polar opposite to the culture of “virtue signaling” which dominates social media, academia and politics these days. Art is focused on solving the problems and not about showing off. In academia, one sees many who speak loudly on how much they care about blacks or Palestinians, but they never leave campus and actually go to black neighborhoods or to Gaza to help the people they claim to care about. Instead, Art offers the unpopular alternative of not saying much and doing the best he can to solve the problems that he cares about. Some may call this quality old fashioned. I call it being honest with yourself.
Art is now in his late eighties. A year ago, I met him in the Seattle airport. We sat at the coffee shop for more than an hour, planning our next ocean expedition to retrieve large pieces of IM1. We converged on many important details regarding the engineering and management of the next expedition. As we finished our conversation, Art insisted on paying 10 dollars to our server, a tip of that size was four times the cost of the coffee he ordered. “She deserves it for allowing us to speak that long, as other customers could have used our space,” he noted quietly. “And we had our time well spent,” he concluded. By the size of the server’s smile, it was evident that Art made her day. He paid it forward.
“When you get that old, some parts stop functioning,” he said in reference to the cane that he was leaning on. “We would all be better off if we leaned on Art’s principles,” I thought to myself but said nothing. Similarly, I never said much to my father. We understood each other. We went through life like collaborative members of a sports team, in which success is dictated by what you do, not by how much you talk.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
Astronomy
Philosophy
Science
Psychology
WebMeister Comment: There were photos of Art and Avi but, however they were formatted, your WebMeister could not break that code and so, in abject defeat, has published the text as something is better than nothing!!
Below is an expansion of the description of the IM1 by Art.
Per IMI (CNEOS 2014-01-08) a basketball-sized meteorite disintegrated in 3 separate, closely spaced, explosions about 20 km above the ocean 85 km north of Manus Island on 8 January 2014 per NASA. Because of the low trajectory and high speed Space Command opined that it could have originated outside of our solar system. We towed a weighted sled with hundreds of small disc magnets over the suspected splash area and recovered almost a thousand millimeter sized shiny black spherules. Analysis showed that many of them were composed of elements never before seen in our solar system.
It is an interesting trip. Avi is looking for funding to go out again.
HelenAnn Phillips Has Not Slowed A Bit!!
This from Robert Phillips, recent of sports car fame but now basking in the glory of the Fair HelenAnn!!
On 14 October 2022 the 35th Huntsman World Senior Games concluded in St. George Utah. Over 11,000 folks competed in various sports from 33 foreign countries.
Competing in the Women 85-89 age group, HelenAnn ran the 1,500m on Monday, the 800m on Tuesday and on Wednesday she competed in a 400m race for the first time. Results were: Gold, Silver and Gold respectively. They were all run in the middle of the day, so it was hot but dry.
There is one more interesting fleeting statistic. In the early June heat and humidity of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida she ran a 1,500m race at the National Senior Games (formerly Senior Olympics). According to the MastersRanking.com tracking website, her time at this event so far this calendar year is still the fastest in the world for the women’s competitive 85 to 89 age group. That time was also faster than the existing USA record but will not be recorded as she was not a dues paying USA Track and Field member at the time.
Your WebMeister wants to brag a bit!!
For the past four or five years I have been working on a book that is more of an anthology than an autobiography. Back in August it was published on Amazon as an E-Book. The Title is “Travails With Charlie (And Apologies to Steinbeck)”.
It can be found on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/TRAVAILS-CHARLIE-Charles-Hall-III-ebook/dp/B0B9X87KZL .
If you have problems, please let me know and I will try to help you.
It’s not meant to be read cover-to-cover like a summer beach pot-boiler but rather to be dipped into from time-to-time to see what Ole Charlie has written about on some topic from the Table of Contents that seems interesting. But, of course, the reader is free to read as he/she likes. I welcome any comments that might spring to mind!
I have enjoyed the writing and I hope that you enjoy the reading! Here’s the cover:
