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Melissa Newman Concert: St. Lukes, starting at 6:30 March 31, 2022

March 9, 2022 /

As we emerge from COVID, the DMA Social Committee, led by Jan Selkowitz, Gehr Brown and Bob McGroarty, has been seeking to schedule a variety of events and activities for this spring. Plans are in preliminary stages, with many options being considered, including musical performances, sporting events, trips to museums, sorties on Long Island Sound and the June DMA picnic. The first event is a catered musical performance on March 31, at St. Luke’s, by The Melissa Newman Quartet. The Quartet, which has been together since 2012, will be performing standards from The Great American Songbook.

The musical ensemble includes the following talented performers:

Melissa Newman, Vocals: In addition to her vocal talents, Melissa has appeared in many television series (“Bonanza”, “Entertainment Tonight” and “The New Perry Mason” to name a few) and movies (“Mr. and Mrs. Bridge”, “See How She Runs”, etc.). You will also have heard her singing on many commercial jingles. In addition, Melissa is a sculptor and works with ceramics and has volunteered her time to teach art, singing and drawing at correctional facilities for women. She is currently working with the publisher on a previously unreleased memoir by her father, Paul Newman.

Phil Bowler, Bass: Phil graduated with a music degree from The University of Hartford in 1972 and has since played with a long list of jazz greats such as Roland Kirk, Hugh Masekela, Wynton Marsalis, Slide Hampton, John Faddis, Max Roach, Horace Silver and the Count Basie Orchestra. He also hosted Jazz Adventures on WHKN in Bridgeport from 1999-2009.

Tony Lombardozzi, Guitar: Tony has been a jazz guitar instructor and ensemble director on the Wesleyan University music faculty since 1986. He has performed at many famous jazz venues such as the Blue Note and Lincoln Center Jazz in New York City and at many jazz festivals. Since the ‘70s he has performed with a long list of jazz greats such as Clark Terry, Les Paul, Kenny Barron, Rufus Reed and others too numerous to mention.

Matt Moadel, Drums: Matt is a working drummer as well as a teacher. Armed with a degree in percussion from Western Connecticut State University, he has studied many different drumming styles from traditional drum set styles and rudimentary snare drumming to Middle Eastern and African drumming. Matt has performed in many settings—from Jazz and Reggae to Flamenco and Funk to marching bands and pit orchestras.

Time and Location: St. Luke’s Youth and Community Center, at St. Luke’s Parish, 1864 Post Road, Darien Wine and Hors d’oeuvres, 6:30 p.m.—7:30 p.m./Music 7:30 p.m.—8:45 p.m. Catering by Carolyn Eddie’s Absolutely Fabulous Events

Cost: $20 per attendee for DMA members and spouses/significant others. Sign-up sheets will be available during the DMA’s general meetings at the DCA in the month of March. Make checks payable to the Darien Men’s Association and either deliver them when you sign up or mail them to the DMA, c/o the Darien Community Association, attention of Marilyn DeMaio, 274 Middlesex Road, Darien, CT 06820.

Plan to join us for a wonderful evening of food, drink and an outstanding musical performance!

March Madness 2022

March 5, 2022 /

Your hosts: Joe Spain and David Mace

March Madness Entry Form 2022

March Madness Contest
The 2022 March Madness contest will officially start with the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Selection Committee’s naming of the 68 teams who will participate in the annual post season tournament that leads up to the national championship game in early April. They will be named on Selection Sunday, March 13, and will be publicized all over in the media and on the Internet.

At the DMA, at our regular March 16 weekly meeting, members who wish to participate in the contest will hand in their entry sheets naming eight teams of their choosing from the 68 ranked teams that the NCAA has placed in its four regional brackets. We will have distributed entry sheet forms at the prior week’s meeting, and the form also will be available on the DMA website. The entry fee for each sheet shall be $5.00, the same as in prior years, and members can submit entries for themselves and for family members, but each entry should include the name of the DMA member who is submitting it.

The contest objective is to name teams that will win in the successive rounds of games in their respective regions. The entry sheet will be awarded points every time one of its eight named teams wins a game in this single elimination tournament. The number of points awarded for each win will equal the NCAA assigned ranking of that winning team in their tournament region. If a member’s sheet names a team that ranks five in one of the regions, then five points will be tallied on his sheet each time that team wins a game. If another team named on that sheet is a 12th ranked team, then the sheet receives 12 points each time that team wins a game. Teams that lose get no points and are out of the tournament. Only the winning teams continue to play into the succeeding rounds of games over the approximate two weeks when the tournament games will be played at the more than a dozen game venues all over the country.

Each entry sheet should have a circle drawn around the name of one of its teams, indicating that the entrant has chosen that team to be the tournament winner and National Champion. Circling the correct choice of the tournament winner means the sheet could be awarded an additional 25 bonus points in the contest tally. That circled team will have won all of its tournament games, right up to the championship game on Monday, April 4, and each win will have earned points for the entry sheet equal to its NCAA tournament ranking in its assigned division. But if it is the champ, it probably was placed high in the rankings, and every win will have yielded only a few points – save for the handsome bonus of 25 points for becoming Champion.

And, yes – there will be prizes. The winning sheet, the one with the most total points, gets the first prize of $100. And the runners-up get $50 each, until we have handed out all the funds that came in as entry fees. We hope we have a strong showing on the entry line on March 16 when we shall be receiving the entries.

We will hand out entry form sheets at the Wednesday, March 9 DMA meeting, and will have them again at the March 16 meeting, plus members can print their own sheet from the file that will be on our website. There may be some members who want to enter but are not yet ready to come to our Wednesday in-person meetings at the DCA. To accommodate them, the Wanderers plan to stay late after the meeting on March 16 for about half an hour, so members can drop by when most of the crowd has dissipated and make their entry in the vestibule, or outside, if the weather is dry.

Astute DMA members will, by now, have figured out that the entry sheet that has a high chance of winning our contest is one that names teams that received somewhat low rankings in their assigned region by the NCAA Selection Committee, but in reality, turn out to be much better than the rank the Committee gave them. They may be a nine or a thirteen ranked team, but they can defeat the higher ranked teams that they will be facing in each tournament round. And each win will yield bountiful points for their entry sheets. These are often called the Cinderella teams, and an entrant would do well to choose such teams for seven of the teams listed on his sheet. As for the eighth slot on your sheet, that is reserved for the team who will win the tournament, so make sure its name is circled. It doesn’t matter that it may receive only one or two points every time it wins, for the pay-off there is when your circled team keeps on winning and brings home the 25 bonus points. It may turn out that several entrants’ sheets have named and circled the same winning team to become the champ. If so, all such sheets will receive the 25 bonus points.

Craft, John

February 28, 2022 /

Born in 1953, I grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Princeton and the Wharton School (MBA).  After college, I married a high school classmate, and we decided to brave the challenges of late 70s New York City.  Conditions chased us away from the City, and we moved to Darien in 1980, where we have lived ever since, in the same house since 1984.  

I spent twenty years in the institutional fixed income business (Bankers Trust and Merrill Lynch) and subsequently co-found a technology start-up that developed internet-based applications for the bond market.  We sold the business in 2018, and we were dismissed from our duties in 2019, resulting in an involuntary (but ultimately welcome) retirement.  

Ginger and I have three children, born from 1983 to 1991.  Our oldest graduated from Washington & Lee and Dartmouth (MBA), has four children, works for Spencer Stuart, and lives with his family in Rowayton.  Our middle child graduated from Princeton, is a veteran of a number of successful start-ups, and lives in London with her husband and daughter.  Our youngest is a Yale grad, where he was captain of the lacrosse team.  He is partner in a small sports marketing firm and splits time between New York and Darien.

Ginger and I are active members of St. Luke’s Parish, members of Wee Burn, and both enjoy bridge and golf.  We own a vacation house in Sea Island, GA, where we spend 2-3 months per year.  I am a fanatical student of history and western civilization, as well as an aficianado of great spy and mystery fiction.

Delaney, Mike

February 27, 2022 /

Mike Delaney was born in Boston in 1949 and grew up in Yorktown Heights, NY.  He attended Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers, NY and went on to Villanova University where he majored in accounting, graduating in 1971. After a stint in the army, he began his career with the accounting firm Ernst & Ernst and later with General Foods Corp. in White Plains NY. In 1985 Mike moved to UST Inc. in Greenwich where he served as General Auditor until 2009 when the company was bought out.  Mike and his wife Maricel moved to Darien in 1989. Mike has served as a Board member and Treasurer of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for many years. He and his wife are members of the Country Club of Darien. They have five married children, all graduates of the Darien School System, spread out across the U.S. from New York to Seattle and four grandchildren.  Mike is a lifelong Yankees nut and a big fan of Big East basketball. He enjoys golf, bird watching, traveling and spending time with his grandchildren. 

Book Club: LIFTOFF-ELON MUSK AND THE DESPERATE EARLY DAYS THAT LAUNCHED SPACEX BY ERIC BERGER ‧April 13, 2022

February 13, 2022 /

An up-close account of the otherworldly trajectory of tech magnate Elon Musk.

Ars Technica editor Berger opens with a telling scene set in South Texas in late September 2019, when Musk visited a factory building a rocket that one day will be bound for Mars. Sending that ship—and people—to the red planet is of a parcel with Musk’s pioneering work in “remaking the global aerospace industry,” which includes privatizing efforts that had long belonged to government agencies such as NASA—which, though funded to the tune of some $25 billion per year, still “remains several giant leaps away from sending a few astronauts to Mars.” Getting the SpaceX rocket safely to distant Mars “may not work,” Musk confessed before adding, “But it probably will.” By Berger’s swiftly moving account, it will, not just because Musk is an endlessly driven, intensely focused sort who could use a little more fun in life—at one point, Musk ruefully allows that “it wouldn’t have hurt to have just one cocktail on the damn beach” of a distant Pacific atoll used in test flights—but also because Musk is surrounded by brilliant scientists recruited from academia and industry who are thoroughly invested in the project’s success. “They want that golden ticket for the world’s greatest thrill ride,” Berger writes, evoking another obsessed genius, Willie Wonka. Musk now leads not just SpaceX, but also the Tesla electric automobile company as well as a neural technology company and a firm devoted to digging new transportation tunnels below overcrowded cities. Even so, he remains closely attentive to matters that aviation engineers have often overlooked, such as recycling rocket stages: “If an airline discarded a 747 jet after every transcontinental flight,” writes the author, “passengers would have to pay $1 million for a ticket.”

Readers interested in business and entrepreneurship, as well as outer space, will find Berger’s book irresistible.

Hike Waveny, March 21, 2022 @10:00

February 10, 2022 /

Please join us at Waveny Park in New Canaan at 10:00 am this Monday, March 21 for a walk in the woods. It is also a great way for DMA hikers to celebrate the first full day of spring! The weather forecast is for the low 50s and to be sunny. Dogs on leashes, spouses, and friends are welcome. We will be meeting in the first parking lot on the left directly off of the South Avenue entrance road and across from the baseball field. There will be no lunch afterward.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Bob Plunkett

Twelve hikers along with two dogs walked the trails of Waveny Park in New Canaan this morning. It was a great way to get outdoors and celebrate the first full day of spring. We enjoyed our conversations, the mild weather, and abundant sunshine.

SimplifyCT – tax help

January 27, 2022 /

 

About SimplifyCT: This is an organization founded and directed by DMA Member Pat Gentile as a no cost, full-service AARP/VITA/IRS Volunteer Tax Assistance Program. The group of more than 50 volunteers is sponsored by the IRS, and has for many years helped its clients to prepare all relevant tax forms and to file completed tax returns, as well as offering assistance with all government support programs. This is done via both on-site personal counseling and virtually through a secure internet site. While this financial services program is focused on seniors and low-to-moderate income households, there are no limitations on either income or age. All counselors are fully IRS-certified volunteers, and services are provided free of charge.  See: SimplifyCT.org

How you can participate:

Become a volunteer by completing the IRS/VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) Program offered by SimplifyCT in the Fall, and finish the certification requirements in January. Volunteers work designated hours at the Public Libraries and Senior Centers of Darien, New Canaan, Westport and Norwalk during February, March and April of each year. Volunteers work within a team of dedicated individuals and with customers who truly appreciate your help. Of course, you can also become a SimplifyCT client at any of these locations. Need more information? Contact any of the current DMA members below!

Current DMA Volunteers:

  • Patrick Gentile  – Founder and President
  • Bert von Stuelpnagel
  • Charles Hurty

Hike Greenwich Point Park, Thursday, Feb 24, 2022, 10:00

January 25, 2022 /

HIKING GREENWICH POINT
OLD GREENWICH, CT
FEBRUARY 24, 2022
10:00 AM

We will meet in the first parking lot on the right after you pass the gatehouse and walk around the perimeter of the park, about 2.5 miles. If the weather is good, the hike is on. If it turns out to be a day that you would not go out on a walk, don’t come and I won’t either. There will be no announcement but you can call or email me as below to check to see if the hike is on.

Greenwich Point is a special place and we non-Greenwich types can only go in the winter. Wonderful views and a solid walking surface but it can be very windy. Layer up!  No lunch after. Dogs on a leash welcome as are guests as always.

We had 18 hikers at Sherwood Island last month, let’s beat that number!
GPS and Waze for directions off either Exit 6 or 5 of I-95.

Dave McCollum

 

Recap:

“An enthusiastic group of 16 braved cold and windy, but bright conditions…”. That was the start of our report after the December 9 tour of Greenwich Point. Copy that for today! Sixteen of us, including three new hikers plus two dogs encountered the very same weather on this trip around the peninsula. If we get the same weather this coming December, we’re going to send the data to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Once they print it, we’ll pick another day!

Despite the cold, all had a great time with only one slight mishap when Tom Igoe tripped but was rescued on the way to the ground by Charles Salmans. Teamwork is what the DMA is all about!

We’ll have one more winter hike at Waveny Park in New Canaan on Monday, March 21. In April we will return to our traditional hikes in area forests.

Dave McCollum and Bob Plunkett

2022 Super Bowl Pool

January 20, 2022 /

Super Bowl LVI Contest

Next Tuesday, February 1, the Wanderers will be at the DCA building, in the vestibule at some card tables, selling entries to the 2022 DMA Super Bowl Contest. David Mace, Greg Glashan, Taylor Strubinger and Joe Spain will be there on duty from ten o’clock to noon on Tuesday. If all the entries are not sold that day, they will be there again at the same time on Friday morning, February 4 to sell the balance. The Super Bowl Game itself will be on Sunday February 13.

We have had this traditional DMA event during the Wanderers’ off-season for more than ten years now. It is a pool lottery; and, prizes will be awarded based upon the actual final score of the Super Bowl game for the Grand Prize winner, and, for the runner up winners, based upon the actual score of the game at half-time, as well as at the end of the first and third quarters.

Members can enter by picking their boxes on this year’s ten-by-ten chart of one hundred boxes, and paying two dollars for each box chosen, with a limit of two boxes per member. The boxes are set up on a large sheet of poster board (see photo of this year’s chart by clicking on the link below); and, as each box is sold, the member writes his name in the box(es) he has chosen.

When all boxes are sold and entrants’ names entered on the chart, the numbers zero through nine will be randomly assigned to the ten horizontal rows in the grid. These row numbers are set to be matched against the second digit of the NFC team’s game score.  Another set of the ten numbers will be randomly assigned to the grid’s ten vertical columns, and those column numbers are set to be matched against the second digit of the AFC team’s game score. These two sets of random numbers will be picked out of a hat and will define the two numerals assigned to each of the one hundred boxes on the contest grid.

The AFC numbers along the tops of the columns of boxes and the NFC numbers along the left of the rows of boxes give every box a pair of single digit numbers that are designed to correspond to the points that will be scored during the Super Bowl game by the AFC Team and the NFC Team. Prizes in the contest will be awarded to the box in which its two numbers match the second or final digit of the points scored by each of the two teams at four designated times during the game: end of 1st quarter, half-time, end of 3rd quarter and end of game. At each of those four breaks in the Game, the second or final digit of each team’s score will be noted, and the box having those two numbers will be the winning box for that prize.

For example: if, at the end of the first half, the AFC team is ahead by the score of 28 to 14, then one of the boxes that is in the column that has the number 8 at its top will be the winner of the half-time prize. Also, one of the boxes that is in the row that has the number 4 at its left end will be the winner of that half-time prize. This is because it is the second or final digit of each team’s score that is used to determine which column and which row contain the winning box for that score. The NFC team’s score final digit determines which row has that winning box, and the AFC team’s score final digit determines which column contains that winning box. Each box, as a result of the random choice of that box’s row and column numbers, thus is assigned a fixed pair of numbers. And it is the scoring during of the Game, and the final digits of the teams’ points at the four key measuring times during play that will determine which specific box is the winner at each of those times.

The apparent winning box changes as the score changes. And we simply need to look at the score at those four stopping points in the game to determine each winning box, using the attached ten-by-ten chart. So, staying with the example, if the NFC team were to come back in the second half and win by a score of 35 to 31, the Grand Prize winning box would be at the intersection of the “5” row (finding the NFC score final digit 5 among the numbers along the left side of the chart) with the “1” column (finding the AFC score final digit 1 among the numbers along the top of the chart).

So, each contestant will have his name in one of the boxes of the chart, and can go to the top of his column to get his AFC team’s score number; and then look at the left end of his row for his NFC team’s score number. We will circulate a copy of this year’s completed chart, so all can see what the numbers are for each column and each row and, therefore, for each box. Contestants can make a note of both numbers for their reference while watching the Game on Sunday, February 13. If you are a winner, we shall announce that and the prizes during the DMA Wednesday meeting on February 16.

As indicated, there will be four places in the Game when one of the boxes is designated as a winner based upon the Game score at that time. The box that wins on the basis of the score at the end of the Game is the Grand Prize winner, and his prize is $100 dollars. For the half-time winning box, the winner receives $50 dollars. And for the boxes that win based upon the Game score at end of the first and the third quarters, each winner receives $25 dollars.

If anyone has questions, please contact  Greg Glashan or Joe Spain by phone or email, and we shall be happy to assist.

Good Luck to all in the 2022 DMA Super Bowl LVI Contest!

Winners!

The winners were Matteo Harding ( represented by his grandfather Dick H. ) who won the first quarter prize. Tom Taylor, who won the half-time prize. Carol Hooper ( represented by her husband Bryan ) who won the third quarter prize. And Tom Taylor, who came through again to win the Grand Prize based upon the final score of the game.

 

 

 

 

Ted Aldrich, “The Partnership: Marshall and Stimson in World War II,” May 25, 2022

January 19, 2022 /

Ted Aldrich is the author of “The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary collaboration that Won World War II.” On September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland to launch World War II, Gen. George Marshall was sworn in as chief of staff of the U.S. Army. Ten months later, Roosevelt appointed the prominent elder statesmen Henry Stimson secretary of war. For the next five years, from adjoining offices where the door between them was always left open, Marshall and Stimson headed the army machine that ground down the Axis. Their effort, one of the greatest feats of management in the history of the world, was also one of the most consequential collaborations of the twentieth century. The Partnership tells the story of how they worked together to win World War II and reshape not only the United States, but the world.

Ted is a Rowayton native and son-in-law of DMA member Pete Scull. He majored in economics and political science at Colgate University and received an MBA in finance from Boston College. He has a career in international finance, primarily in commodities, and has held senior positions at UBS, Fortis, and Mizuho Bank and is now with Auramet Trading, one of the world’s largest physical precious metals merchants. He has long had an interest in history, leading to his decision to write a book about these two key figures in World War II.

Arranged by Pete Scull

 

The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration that Won World War II

On September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland to launch World War II, Gen. George Marshall was sworn in as chief of staff of the U.S. Army. Ten months later, Roosevelt appointed the prominent elder statesmen Henry Stimson secretary of war. For the next five years, from adjoining offices where the door between them was always left open, Marshall and Stimson headed the army machine that ground down the Axis. Their effort, one of the greatest feats of management in the history of the world, was also one of the most consequential collaborations of the twentieth century.  The Partnership tells the story of how they worked together to win World War II and reshape not only the United States, but the world.

The general and the secretary traveled very different paths to power. Educated at Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard Law, Henry Stimson joined the Wall Street law firm of Elihu Root, a future secretary of war and state himself.  He went on to serve as U.S. Attorney for his friend President Theodore Roosevelt, secretary of war under Taft, governor-general of the Philippines, and secretary of state under Hoover. A 73-year-old wise man and internationalist Republican with an excellent track record, Stimson ticked the boxes for another Roosevelt, who was in the middle of his third reelection campaign at the time. Thirteen years younger, George Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, then began a very slow, climb up the army ranks despite having a nearly flawless service record (during World War I he performed brilliant staff work for General Pershing). After a string of postings, Marshall ended up in Washington in the 1930s and impressed FDR with his honesty, securing his appointment as chief of staff.

Marshall and Stimson combined with a dazzling synergy to lead the American military effort in World War II, in roles that blended business, politics, diplomacy, and bureaucracy in addition to warfighting. They transformed an outdated, poorly equipped army into a well-equipped modern fighting force of millions. They identified soldiers and civilians, from Eisenhower, Bradley and McNair to McCloy, Lovett, Patterson, and Bundy, who were best suited for high command or sparking the industrial machine that shocked the world. They helped develop the worldwide strategy and logistical feats for battles from North Africa to D-Day. They collaborated with Allies like Churchill, Stalin, and the U.S. Navy.  The two men made decisions, from the atomic bombs to the recovery of Europe, that would echo for decades. There were mistakes and disagreements, but the partnership of Marshall and Stimson was, all in all, a bravura performance, a master class in leadership and teamwork.

In the tradition of group biographies like the classic The Wise Men, The Partnership shines a spotlight on two giants, telling the fascinating stories of each man, the dramatic story of their collaboration, and the epic story of the United States in World War II.

Video Presentation

Micki McElya, “Arlington Cemetery: The Politics of Mourning,” May 18, 2022

January 19, 2022 /

Micki McElya | American Studies

Micki McElya is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut. In 2017, her book, “The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. It is a luminous investigation of how policies and practices at Arlington have mirrored the nation’s fierce battles over race, politics, honor, and loyalty. Prof. McElya graduated Bryn Mar College in 1994 and received a PhD from New York University in 2003. Before joining the faculty at UConn, she was an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama. She is currently working on a book entitled, “No More Miss America! How Protesting the 1968 Pageant Changed a Nation.”

 

 

Video Presentation 

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