1972-1974 Connecticut: Social Life

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Mike

Events and activities in the Hartford area. Continue reading →

Shortly after my arrival in Hartford I, as well as all of the other actuaries and actuarial students, was invited to a party at the home of Don Sondergeld, Vice President and Actuary of the Hartford Life. In those days everyone in the corporate world knew that parties thrown by actuaries rapidly morphed into raucous bacchanalia. They were rivaled only by accountants and undertakers in this regard.

In my whole life I had attended only a few parties, and I had most certainly never been to a fairly elegant one sponsored by my boss’s boss. I was clueless about behavior at such functions. I definitely made at least one gigantic faux pas. Mrs. Sondergeld asked me where I was from, and I answered, “The Kansas City area.” She then asked me if we could see the Rocky Mountains from there.

Having suppressed a chuckle, informed her that KC was about six hundred miles from the Rockies. So far, so good. I then asked her if she thought she would be able to see from Hartford a mountain range in the Detroit area. I don’t recall her answer, but Ithe expression on her face is indelibly etched in my memory.

In my defense, I had not yet come to appreciate how geographically challenged people in the northeastern United States were. When I arrived in Ann Arbor, I had been shocked to hear Michiganders referring to themselves as Midwesterners. When they asked me where I was from, I said the southeast. After all, I lived all my life in the Kansas City area, which is east and a little south of the geographic center of the contiguous states (a couple of miles north of Lebanon, KS).

In 1972 I had not yet seen Steinberg’s New Yorker cartoon, which makes it clear that from the perspective of residents of New York (and, I would add, New England) Kansas City is no farther from the towering Rocky Mountains than Jersey is from Manhattan.

Also, let the record to show that my societal debut in New England was not an abject failure. I spent the entire evening in the Sondergeld abode without spilling any wine on the carpet. I also did not break any precious china or figurines. I started no fights with other actuaries, and I set no fires.

My dad visited me in the Fall of 1972. He had been in New York City for business, and he took the Amtrak train to the Hartford station. It must have been on a Friday. I picked him up in the evening, and he stayed at my apartment for a night or two. I remember that I tried to fix Steak Diane for him. It was not horrible, but I was a little disappointed.

This photo is from 1957. One would expect me to remember that snazzy jacket, but I don’t.

I was often nervous around my dad, but so was everyone else. He had many habits that made people uneasy, including looking at his watch every ten or fifteen minutes—usually while someone else was talking. If you asked him, he would deny it, but he also seemed quite judgmental to me.

I knew about this visit ahead of time, and I had been dreading it. I took him for a ride in Greenie in order to show him something. Maybe we went to a restaurant for lunch. I stopped at the Gulf station on Main St. in East Hartford. After the attendant filled the tank, I swear that I carefully looked both ways before attempting a left turn while exiting the station. Nevertheless, Greenie plowed into the left side of a passing grey sedan that I had somehow missed.

I had handled a few automobile accidents as an MP in the Army and had filled out the paperwork on dozens of others. I knew that in a minor situation where no one was hurt, the first priority was to get the cars pulled over to allow traffic to flow. I made sure that the road was clear before I called the police. The collision was clearly my fault, but the officer who handled the accident did not even issuee me a warning. I was grateful but shocked. The policy of the MP Company at Sandia Base had been to issue at least one ticket in every accident. I have no idea why this cop let me slide.

Somewhere in this photo is at least one bent tie rod.

I had insurance, of course, that paid for the body work on both cars. However, when, a few months later, I brought Greenie to the DMV for the inspection required to transfer its registration from Kansas to Connecticut, it did not pass. I never experienced a problem, but the machine reported that something was wrong with the steering.

I drove Greenie to a local garage on Christmas Eve. I don’t remember whether I had an appointment, but I know that for several hours I waited for my car to get to the front of the line. It was past closing time, but the manager was aware that I had been there for a long time. All the employees had gone home when he put Greenie on the lift and determined that the tie rod on the right side was bent. The people who fixed the car originally evidently did not notice this. He informed me that he would have to order the part.

I told him that I needed to get this fixed quickly to get my car registered, and I needed my car for work. He said “OK. Give me a minute.”

When he came back he told me that he had carefully hammered it back into position. He also told me not to tell anyone what he did. I was greatly relieved. When I asked him what I owed him, he just replied “Merry Christmas.” It definitely was.

Commuting to and from my apartment in East Hartford to work at the Hartford was very easy. In the morning I just got on the Governors St. entrance to I-84, stayed to the right¹, and got off at the Asylum St. exit. Parking was free (or at least cheap) at the Hartford, and it was rather easy for early arrivals like myself to find a good spot. The return trip was almost as easy as the morning drive, but sometimes the traffic would back up on Broad St. near the entrance to the highway.

The Greaseman was 6’2″ and only 150 lbs. when he was in Hartford.

On February 1, 1974, my morning commutes became a lot more pleasant. I really enjoyed listening to the Greaseman on WPOP for the last six months that I was working at the Hartford. I tried to interest others in his morning show, but he never became a big star in Hartford. WPOP changed its format to news/talk in 1975 and sent the Greaseman packing.

If the pair is playing western cue bids, the 3H bid in this auction *asks* partner to bid 3NT if he/she has a stopper in the opponent’s suit. If they are not playing western cues, it *shows* a stopper. There is a BIG difference.

Most of the time that I was in Hartford I had quite a bit “on my plate”, but I definitely would have preferred to play more bridge. As I recall, the Hartford sponsored a weekly sanctioned game in the evening. John Sigler and I played in it once or twice. I think that we finished second once. The director played in the game. When we played against him, I asked him about one of his partner’s bids, he said that it was “probably sort of a western cue bid.” This explanation would not suffice in the twenty-first century, but what was my recourse? Call the director?

The Hartford Bridge Club² existed in 1972. Quite a few actuaries played there, but I never found out about it. Donna Feir, the club’s manager in the twenty-first century, assured me that I would not have liked it because many players were quite rude. I am not sure that that would have deterred me at all. If I could have found a place to play with high-level competition and a partner who was willing to work with me to develop a bidding system, my subsequent life may have changed drastically.

Most of the social life among my friends in the Hartford area revolved around sports. These activities are covered rather thoroughly here and here. There were also regular gatherings at a few local watering holes³ . I remember a few of them pretty well.

The bar at the Shoreham Hotel was the default gathering spot every Friday after work. Its main attraction was its convenient location right across Asylum St. from the Hartford. They served strange little puffy things to munch on. They came in various colors, none of which was commonly found in nature. Occasionally one of the bosses, Don Sondergeld or Don Francis, would join us. I remember that Sondergeld once regaled us with a tale about a group of actuaries on a expense accounts who ordered an outlandish meal in New York City. I don’t recall the details, but the punchline was, “Why such a niggardly tip?”
The White Swan Café on Park Street was another favorite hangout. Every table was provided with an endless supply of free peanuts. Customers were required to throw shells on the floor. If you set any down on the table, the waitress would unceremoniously brush them off.
I can only remember going to Fast Eddie’s on the Berlin Turnpike a few times. The most memorable one was August 17, 1973, my twenty-fifth birthday, which is described here.
I went to the House of Zodiac (a.k.a. the “Zoo”), a nightclub on Farmington Ave. in West Hartford, exactly once. Herget and a few other guys liked to go there on Fridays after the mandatory appearance at the Shoreham. On the way to the Zoo Tom generally stopped at a liquor store (locally called a “packy”) to purchase some cold beer in bottles. He always chose a brand that they sold at the Zoo. When he arrived at the club, he bought a bottle of the same brand at the bar and asked for a glass. Thereafter he refilled the glass from his private supply stashed in various pockets. This place was noisy and crowded. The only reason to go was if you were hoping to pick someone up. Conversation was impossible.

I was never at the Zoo when this band was providing the music, but you can listen to their version of “Six Days on the Road” here.

The other major social activity that I remember was helping people move from one house or apartment to another. I am pretty sure that I helped Chris and Carolyn DesRochers move into a new house. Those organizing the moving were expected to provide beer and pizza to the laborers. I seem to remember that the DesRochers set the gold standard for treating the helpers right.

I don’t remember how big Scott’s truck was.

I also helped Scott Otermat when he moved from Andover to Bristol. I was in the U-Haul truck when Scott picked it up. Our first stop was at a Dunkin Donuts drive-through window where Scott bought some donuts. The truck scraped against something—a sign or concrete awning, I think—before we got one stick of furniture into it. I confess that my first reaction was relief that Scott had been driving and not I. It also brought to mind the “Adventures in Moving” slogan, which I have long thought was the worst catchphrase of all time.

Scott hardly ever got upset, and this was no exception. I don’t know how much he had to pay for the accident. Maybe the U-Haul place did not really care. Would you care if a truck you were moving furniture in was scratched? I wouldn’t. It’s not as if you plan to take it to the prom.

I have twice been accused of putting scratches on passenger cars that I rented (once on Maui on vacation and once in Pittsburgh on business), but in neither case did the rental company insist on me or my insurance company paying. In fact, Avis wrote me a letter to apologize about the accusation in Pittsburgh. On the other hand, I am pretty sure that Sue’s friend from her dancing days, Sandy Tsiartas, told us that she was charged several hundred dollars when she got in an accident with a rental from an off-brand company in Florida.

I probably attended several parties after the fiasco at the Sondergeld home during those two years in Connecticut, but I only remember a couple. One was a fête sponsored by a female actuarial student who passed the last exam to become a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries—Barb Bednarz or Pat Adams (I don’t remember which). The honoree lived with her husband way to the East of Hartford. The only thing that I remember is that I led a game of Scissors⁴ which went on a lot longer than one would think among such smart people.

In August of 1973 I moved into the house at 345 Middletown Ave. in Wethersfield—the legendary 345 Club. Tom Corcoran and Tom Herget were my housemates. I had my own bedroom on the second floor. Somehow I obtained a used box springs and mattress that, thank goodness, had no bed bugs. I don’t recall that my bedroom had any other furniture.

At that point in my life I could still pack everything that I owned into Greenie. I didn’t even ask for help in moving. So, one Saturday morning I resided in East Hartford. By noon that day I was fully moved into the 345 Club. It was the best possible place for three young guys to live.

There was plenty of yard space for parking cars. Corcoran had “parked” his yellow Barracuda fastback on the right side not far from the front door. I don’t know what was wrong with it. Although it was not drivable, its gigantic rear window made it a great greenhouse. Herget planted gourds in it, and they thrived, even in the winter.
The entire front yard was considered a parking lot. It was not unusual to see six or seven cars in it.
Tom C. had a pet beagle named Cory. While Tom was at work or just out, Cory stayed on the back porch. Tom laid down papers for him in case he had to do his business, which was every day. Everyone but Tom avoided that porch.
Each of us had a bedroom upstairs with a door that had a working latch.
There were at least two refrigerators, one in the kitchen and one upstairs. Each was reliably stocked with beer. The one on the second floor had been painted by Tom C. in the manner of a lusty adventure featuring swordplay and sorcery .
On the first floor were a living room, a dining room, the kitchen, and maybe another underused room or two. Tom H. had furnished the place from second-hand stores on Park St. Except for the TV and stereo, the style might be described as Early Grandmother.
The back yard was pretty large. A railroad track that was no longer used. There was a shed back there that made for some interesting shots in the obstacle croquet games.
Best of all, the landlord was blind!

There was one small drawback to living in the 345 Club. For some reason the electricity would fail for short periods of time. Since it seldom went out long enough for the beer to get warm, it was not considered too big a deal.

The one problem was the electric clock in the kitchen. I wore a watch at all times, and I was obsessive about keeping it accurate. So, the state of the clock was immaterial to me. The other guys were more dependent on it, but it was a nuisance to take it down, reset the time, and remount it. So, Herget simply made a sign that gave the formula for the necessary adjustment: “Add 12 minutes”, “Add 31 minutes”, “Add 2 hours and 10 minutes”, etc. He then taped the sign to the clock—good as new.

You can pick up one like this on eBay for less than $16,000.

One day Cory was on the loose in the house. Somehow he got into my bedroom and made a beeline for the closet. I can’t remember if the closet had a door—probably not. Cory found my posters of the Russian revolution. His capitalist upbringing impelled him to desecrate them. He also found a baseball that my dad had given me that Ty Cobb had signed in green ink. I don’t accuse Cory of disrespect for Cobb’s batting and baserunning skills. He probably would have chewed up a ball that was signed by Honus Wagner or Cy Young just as readily.

I did not get upset. I must have been careless about keeping the door completely closed. Besides, material things have never meant that much to me. Aside from when I lived in Detroit, I did not worry too much about the security of my belongings.

At the end of the summer of 1973 Tom H. invited me to join a group of people for tubing on the Farmington River. By the twenty-first century this has become a highly organized activity. A company rents large inner tubes at a spot pretty far upstream. They also have a downstream location where the renters return the tubes. From there a van driven by a representative of the company takes everyone back to the starting point.

They now charge $25 per person for this service. I cannot imagine Herget paying anything close to that amount. I suspect that he rustled up some inner tubes from a farmer or trucker somewhere, and we just parked one car at the ending spot. I am pretty certain that our tubes were plain black and had no handles. I also don’t remember life preservers. The river was only a few feet deep where we were tubing.

I had a really great time. The sun was out, and in those days I could sit and bake in the sun all day long with no repercussions. For most of the journey we just sat on our tubes and drank beer from cans balanced on our bellies while moving very slowly downstream. The whole trip can take up to three hours, depending on the strength of the current. I only remember one rather scary “rapids” near the end. My knees got a little scratched up, but that did not detract much from my enjoyment.

Neither of my housemates at the 345 Club cooked much, but at some point in the autumn I felt like fixing my mother’s recipe of chicken breasts with bacon, mushrooms, and a sauce made from cream of chicken soup. It would be senseless to do this just for myself, and so I informed the two Toms in advance that I would be cooking dinner. All three of us enjoyed the meal, which also included rice and cauliflower. The chicken, mushrooms, and cauliflower were all consumed that evening. Five or six strips of uncooked bacon went back into the refrigerator, which normally contained only various beverages and a wide assortment of condiments, with a lot of duplication.

The next time that I looked in the fridge I did not see my bacon, but I thought nothing of it.

I don’t remember eating out very often. There were lots of cookouts in the warm weather. I remember being invited to Mel’s family home in New Britain, where I met her father, the chef du jour. I think that we probably had hamburgers, but the main attraction was the sweet corn. Mr. Majocha did not husk the corn. He soaked the ears and husks in water. Then he threw them on the coals. They taste OK this way, but a few edges were scorched. Boiling the ears in a huge pot would take longer and would not have been as festive, but I think that the result would have been tastier.

On the whole I was not impressed with New England food, but the sweet corn in the late summer is to die for. Both Silver Queen and Butter & Sugar corn are much better than anything that I have tasted elsewhere. The famous golfer Tom Watson, who also grew up in the KC area, scheduled himself to play in the Hartford Open just to eat the corn.

After being stationed in Albuquerque I craved some decent Mexican food. Taco Bell was all right, but I wanted something a little more authentic. Tom Corcoran found a pseudo-Mexican restaurant in Manchester called the Tacorral⁵. The food was passable. The establishment had no liquor license, but they allowed customers to bring their own beer. Eventually the quality of both the service and the food went downhill. The last straw was the night that they ran out of beans. A Mexican restaurant with no beans!

If I had owned or managed a Mexican restaurant, I would never have admitted to being out of beans. I would have crossed the street and entered the Taco Bell there, bought a few hundred orders of refritos, carried them back across the street, and sold them as my own.

One of my favorite restaurants was Howard Johnson’s on the Silas Deane. Most of the people went there for the fried clams, but I had a different preference. On one night per week they had a special. You could get one-half of a fried chicken at an unbeatable price. $1.29 sticks out in my memory. That may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that it was less than $2.

I could usually talk people into joining me, but if no one was interested, I went anyway.

Just before the fall actuarial exams in November of 1973 the 345 Club hosted a big “spaghettifest”. Herget did most of the preparations. He even somehow constructed a very long table. The evening was not particularly raucous, but it did go on for quite a long time.

Herg also led a pub crawl after the exam was over. We spent a brief amount of time in some really nasty spots near the train station. They all seemed to have a large jar of eggs on display on the bar. As usual, I was among the first to abandon the group. I definitely could not keep up with those guys.

I am sure that it was probably a coincidence, but Tom Corcoran was, as I recall, the only person in attendance at the spaghettifest who passed his exam, Part 5, the same one that I took. At least five or six of us failed.

The weather on the night of December 16-17, 1973, was memorable. It started with snow, and then for several hours we were treated to several hours of ice and freezing rain—the dreaded “wintry mix”. All the branches and power lines in our part of the state were coated with an inch or so of ice. The power went out almost everywhere. Then the weather turned bitterly cold.

When the roads became passable, I brought some clothes to Sue’s place in Andover, which somehow avoided most of the ice. I think that the Toms sought temporary shelter elsewhere, too. Our power was out for, as I remember it, eleven days.

When we moved back in, I cleaned out the refrigerator. I offhandedly asked who owned the unopened (but now rancid) pound of bacon. Corcoran told me that it was mine. He had bought it for me to replace the leftover strips that he had eaten. He didn’t bother to tell me that he had done so. Since neither he nor Herget ever bought anything more complicated than hamburgers or hot dogs, I should have figured out that the bacon was mine.

No, I did not eat the bacon.

Herget had returned earlier to help the landlord clean up the fallen branches and other detritus. He marveled at the nonchalant way that this totally blind gentleman wielded a chain saw. He made short work of the fallen branches. To this day, Sue strictly limits my access to power tools, and she will not let me near a chain saw.

I am not sure, but Tom may have even reset the clock this time.

We formed a car pool. Tom C. had a blue Volkswagen; Tom H.’s Volkswagen was a sort of sickly beige; Jim Cochran drove a Pinto; I had Greenie. Four strapping adults was the most that any of these cars could hold. Greenie was probably the most comfortable.

The heat in Corcoran’s Volks did not work very well, and the defroster was pitiful. He used what we all called a “hand defroster”. He placed one of his hands on the windshield to remove the fog or frost there. Then he moved the hand to an adjacent spot and peered out through the spot he just abandoned. When that hand got numb, he switched to the other hand.

Did Tom C.’s car have automatic transmission? Of course, not.

Herget’s Volks featured a fairly large hole in the floorboard in the back. Whoever sat there repeatedly had to adjust a small log that was stored there because it was roughly the same shape as the hole. Since leg room was at a premium, the rest of us were quite annoyed by this.

Jim’s Pinto seemed to be fine. It wasn’t until a few months later that the gas tanks on these models started exploding around the country.

The car pool continued after I moved to Andover. Jim Hawke, who had broken up with Leslie, took up residence in the 345 Club and assumed my slot in the car. His car was a suitable replacement for Greenie, a Chevy Nova (popularly known as “No va” in Latin America) with three on the tree.

At some point in August or September of 1973 I decided to grow a mustache. I wasn’t really too concerned about covering up the scar on my lip. Like everyone else, I was experimenting a little with my appearance. I soon realized that it made my face look more lopsided than before, and I shaved it off.

After I broke my kneecap (details are here), I let my beard, such as it was, grow. That was my look through all of my time coaching debate in Michigan and for a few years after that. History will probably call this my Jesus (with glasses) period.

I developed my famous fashion sense during my time in Connecticut. Unless I was playing a sport, I wore the cowboy boots that I had purchased in Albuquerque. When I headed outside in the winter I wore my cowboy hat and a big brown suede coat that was lined with fleece. It weighed a ton, but it was very warm.

I had to buy clothes for work. Because of the boots the pants had to be flared or at least baggy. I favored corduroy, but I also acquired one polyester sports coat. I don’t know why I bought it. Sue made me a grey wool suit. Really! I wore it once or twice, but it was too small in every respect.

That is obviously a mannequin, NOT Choo Choo. You can watch this commercial on YouTube here.

For shirts and ties I usually went to my private tailor, Mr. Ruby, who selected the merchandise for my favorite retailer, Railroad Salvage. The big store on Route 5 was one of my favorite destinations. I particularly liked their selection of dress shirts. They had quality brands like Arrow, but the styles were nothing like you might see at a department store. People still wore coats and ties to work, but nothing required the attire to be overly somber. Tom Corcoran wore a string tie most of the time. Larry Abbott did not even wear a coat to work; he kept one near his desk in case he needed to go to another department.

At Railroad Salvage I also purchased several ties, including two that looked furry. The blue one was OK (although it was close to six inches at the widest point), but the brown one was obnoxious. When I wore it, it climbed around my neck until the knot was buried under my collar. I still have thirty or so ties, but I think that all that I purchased from Mr. Ruby have been discarded.

I bought a white belt from Ruby and gave it to Scott Otermat to wear to meetings with people from the Sales Department. I wanted to bring out his inner Herb Tarlek.

I never bought any tennis shoes from the big bin at railroad salvage. The shoes relegated there weren’t matched up. If you found one that you liked, you still had to hunt for its mate. You also had to be careful that you did not take two lefts or two rights.

1. It is ordinarily critically important to move to the left on this highway when you cross the bridge from East Hartford to Hartford. If your vehicle is in the right lane going west, you must start merging as soon as you cross the Connecticut River. If not, you will find yourself in an exit-only lane.

The vehicles that are exiting off of I-84 (both northbound and southbound) hoping to go west on I-84 must move to the left one additional lane. Furthermore, the drivers who have crossed the river in order to go to downtown Hartford must, at the same time, move several lanes to the right. All of this lane-changing takes place in a tunnel beneath Main St.

As bad as this design is, it was even worse in 1972. Eastbound drivers on I-84 who wanted to go north on I-91 were required to exit the highway and drive several blocks through downtown Hartford.

2. Mark Horton and Eric Kokish published a book about a famous bridge player who frequented the HBC, Leonard Helman. The title is The Rabbi’s Rules: Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Bridge Game. The most famous rule is “If the opponent’s king is a singleton, play your ace.” A singleton king in a bridge hand is often called a rabbi.

3. All four have long since dried up.

4. The object of Scissors is to learn how to play. All players are seated. The player with the scissors must pass them to the player on their left and announce whether they are passing them “crossed” or “uncrossed”. The leader then announces whether the pass was successful or not. If not, the player must sit on the floor. Correct answers must coincide with the passer’s own legs.

5. A Tacorral in Manchester may still exist, but Google says that it is permanently closed. It moved to a strip mall at some point. The pandemic might have been the death blow.

1972-1974 Connecticut: Sue and Mike

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Mike

Could a relationship between a preppy lad from Kansas and a country lass from Connecticut last? Continue reading →

For the few weeks that I worked in the Variable Annuity area of the Life Actuarial Department at the Hartford, my desk was behind Sue Comparetto’s, and we shared a phone. She was the head clerk in Bob Riley’s section. This meant that she was the only person there entrusted with an electronic calculator. Those silent marvels would soon replace the gigantic noisy Fridens, but they still required an AC connection and cost about $1,000.

I am pretty sure that Sue’s first impression of me was negative. Our only noteworthy interaction was when I was called upon to talk with someone on the phone. My desk had no phone; I had to use hers. I never called anyone, and most of the calls that I received were nerve-wracking; I perspired all over the receiver. I wiped it off before I gave it back, but it was still rather gross.

I did not know Sue well, but what I heard about her was somewhat disconcerting. She lived in East Hampton, CT, with Diane DeFreitas and, I think, another young woman. She did not have a car. A “Cuban plumber” sometimes gave her a ride part of the way to the Hartford. She hitchhiked the rest of the way. She had picked up a black Labrador puppy at a flea market and named him Siddhartha. At some point she must have realized that this situation was not sustainable, and she took the dog to the pound. Someone else may have catalyzed the decision.

I remember that one day both she and Diane decided to dress slutty for work. Sue did not like dress codes. She told me that she had been suspended from high school for vigorously protesting the dress code. Her parents were not amused by this behavior.

Oh, yeah. One other thing—Sue smoked. My dad smoked, but hardly anyone else with whom I had ever spent much time did. John Sigler also spoke, but he hardly ever lit up in my presence.

After I was assigned to the Individual Pensions area I only saw Sue in passing and at the Friday evening gatherings at the Shoreham Hotel’s bar, situated very conveniently between the Aetna and the Hartford. At some point one of the most important events of my life occurred, and yet I have no clear memory of the details. For some reason Tom Herget set me up with Sue for some event. I don’t remember when it was or even what we did. I have a vague recollection of the Aetna Diner (Sue liked their moussaka) on Farmington Avenue, but maybe that was on a different occasion. I am pretty sure that Sue told me on that occasion that I reminded her of her husband, and she was astonished to learn that my middle name was Dennis. She explained that her husband’s name was Dennis, and his middle name was Michael.

I don’t think that I previously knew that she had been married. This explained why she did not look even vaguely Italian. I certainly did not know that she was still legally married. I had to make a snap judgment whether being with her was a mortal sin or a venial sin. It was a tough call, but I was pretty sure that any further contact would move the needle over the line. For twelve years I had attended Catholic schools, and I had never missed going to mass on Sunday. Not once. I probably confessed more impure thoughts than I actually had. You have to confess something.

I somehow quieted my conscience and had a good time that night, and Sue and I started “seeing each other.” By this time she had moved to Rockville and rented a room in the basement of a house owned by a female employee of the Hartford named Jackie. She also had somehow persuaded a bank to finance her purchase of a 1972 Dodge Colt.

During this period Sue was also, at least in theory, studying for Part 1 of the actuarial exams. She was at a huge disadvantage compared with others taking the test in Hartford. Most of them got study time and took classes in the subject. She did not pass.

It must have been on an evening in October that Sue offered to fix a steak supper for John Sigler and me. Jackie must have let Sue use the kitchen; Sue’s apartment barely had room for a bed and a couple of chairs. We all sat around after dinner drinking Mateus, talking, and listening to Leonard Cohen records. Finally John departed. I spent the night with Sue on her small waterbed, a totally new experience for me.

Over the next few months Sue and I went to numerous places together. A bunch of us walked down to Constitution Plaza together to attend a noontime rally for George McGovern. 1972 was the first time that I was allowed to vote in a national election. In 1968 the voting age was twenty-one, and I was only twenty. Sue, who was born in 1951, was barely old enough to vote this time. I really hated Nixon. I suspected (correctly, as it was later revealed) that he had deliberately scuttled the peace talks in Paris about Vietnam. Never mind his secret war in Laos and his part in the overthrow of the democratic government in Chile. I never had to serve in Vietnam, but I blamed Nixon for stealing two years from me when I was in my prime.

Sue and I both voted for McGovern. I even put a McGovern-Shriver¹ sticker on Greenie’s bumper. I felt as if I had gotten McGovern one more vote than he would have otherwise received. Of course, it made no difference. Most Americans believed Tricky Dick really had a “secret plan” to end the war, they were afraid of the godless communist menace, and for some reason they did not like McGovern.

Sue and I attended a couple of movies in theaters. I seem to remember that there was a theater in West Hartford that showed older movies. I am pretty sure that we saw Blow-up together and at least one Marx Brothers movie.

We ate at a few restaurants in Rockville. I am certain that we shared a ham and olive pizza a small restaurant on Main St. near Route 83. It must have been part of a chain. It had a number after its name. Sue liked to go to Friendly’s. At the time their menu consisted of overpriced hamburger, overpriced cheeseburgers, overpriced “Friendly Franks”, and ice cream. Sue focused on the ice cream.

I cooked a few meals for us in my apartment. For example, I fixed a sirloin beef roast using McCormick’s Meat Marinade², a trick that I learned from my mother. Sue was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. She said that she had never liked beef roasts. She explained that when her mother cooked them she left them in the oven until they were grey, dried out, flavorless, and chewy. I tried to fry a chicken, but it did not work out too well. I had to put it in the oven before serving because some parts were not done. Microwave ovens existed, but I did not have one. After that we stuck to extra-crispy chicken from the colonel. However, I bought at least three cookbooks, and I developed a few very tasty specialties.

I took Christmas very seriously in 1972. It was only the second holiday season that I had spent away from my family, and this time I was really on my own. The feeling was much different from any previous Christmas. I spent a lot of time shopping for little gifts and writing personalized Christmas cards for my friends. Sue and I attended the Carol Sing at the Hartford Times Building in downtown Hartford. The Times³ published a half-page photo of the huge crowd that was assembled. My off-white cowboy hat and fleece-lined suede coat made it easy to spot us in the photo. We showed the clipping to all of our friends.

My first New Years in Connecticut was also memorable. I decided to roast Cornish game hens for supper, and we invited Tom Corcoran and Patti Lewonczyk to join us. The four of us were also invited by Tom Garabedian and Gail Mertan to a party at Tom’s house in East Hartford. The meal was a big success. I think that Sue cooked some kind of vegetables, maybe her famous carrots Lyonaise. Of course, we also served wine.

We all probably ate too much. No one felt like going to a party. However, it was less than a mile to the Garabedian house. So, we all piled into one of the cars and drove there.

The only two people in the house when we arrived were Tom and Gail. Evidently Tom had persuaded his parents to make themselves scarce. Tom and Gail had laid out a cornucopia of food and beverages—enough for several dozen people. No one else ever came. It was not much of a party, but if we had submitted to the lethargy induced by the supper, it would have been a disaster.

Over the holidays I got to meet some of Sue’s family. Her parents, Art and Effy Slanetz, and siblings all lived in a farm house on North Maple St. in Enfield. Sue was the oldest child; she had two sisters, Karen and Betty. They were nothing alike. She also had a brother Don. I met Effy’s dog, Queenie, and a bevy of Sue’s uncles, aunts, and cousins, all of whom lived within a few miles of the Slanetz’s house⁴. Many of them seemed to make a living by driving trucks in one way or another. Their favorite sport was NASCAR. I did not contribute much to the banter.

Behind the house was a fairly large field that was actively farmed by the Polek family that lived in the house that was between the Slanetz’s house and a warehouse in which Art stored all kinds of old mechanical junk. Sue told me that that the field was their family’s land at one time. When she was little they raised potatoes.

The winters in the seventies were brutal. Early in 1973 (I think) I was driving Greenie, and Sue was riding shotgun after a snowfall of a couple of inches. We were headed south on I-91 through Hartford. I was driving at a very reasonable speed in the right lane, and, thank God, there were no cars nearby. All of a sudden my car’s rear wheels began moving to the left, but the front wheels did not. The car performed a spin of about 315°, and my left front bumper whipped into the guardrail on the left, which brought us to a halt.. Neither of us was injured. We were both wearing seat belts—I never let anyone ride in my car without a seat belt. It was amazing that my car suffered only a negligibly small bump, and the vehicle was positioned so that I could quickly steer back onto the highway. This scary event made me realize that I had to be very careful with this car in dicey road conditions.

Sue had a very large number of friends. My favorites were Bob and Susan Thompson. Bob worked in a small factory. He complained about the smell of the chemicals there. His job might have had something to do with linoleum. I think that Susan was a teacher. They had a house in Coventry and an extremely amorous dachshund. Once he gained purchase on a pants leg he was difficult to detach. Bob owned a Plymouth that saw its best days in the Eisenhower administration, or maybe earlier. In snowy weather he liked to take it into an empty parking lot and make it spin donuts.

When we had not seen Bob and Susan for a few months, I asked Sue why. She said that she had loaned them some money, and she was pretty sure that they were avoiding her because they could not afford to repay her.

On Valentine’s Day 2013 I bought Sue a present and a card. She had forgotten about it, and therefore she did not reciprocate. I took it a little hard.

Eventually I learned that Sue and time just did not get along. She regularly forgot holidays, birthdays, and appointments. She also could not gauge the passage of time. She might think that events occurred a week ago actually happened two months earlier. If she said that something would take fifteen minutes, it usually took an hour or more. If any food (e.g., beef or lamb) needed to be cooked for a specific amount of time, I had to do it. In retrospect I marvel that she had chosen to grill steaks for John Sigler and me. I cannot remember how they turned out. I was not paying too much attention to the food that night.

Sue was always late. I adopted the habit of carrying a book around with me for the inevitable waiting periods.

The fridge that we moved wasn't wrapped. — The fridge that we moved wasn’t wrapped.

I recall that in February of 1973 Sue and I helped one of her many friends move to a new place. The woman who was moving might have been one of Sue’s roommates in East Hampton. I remember that I was one of the people assigned to get an old refrigerator up the staircase. We succeeded, but I could not describe what technique was employed beyond brute force. At one point the woman who was moving asked what day it was. I said that it was Saturday the 24th (or whatever it actually was). She said “No. I mean, what month?”

I decided that Sue’s twenty-second birthday on March 2 should be Sue Comparetto Day. I offered to buy her anything that she wanted. She wanted to shop for a camera. We drove to a camera shop of her choosing, and she selected a thirty-five-millimeter camera with a leather case. I would have inserted a photo of it here if I knew where it was. I guarantee that it is in the house somewhere. Sue would never have thrown it out. I did find the case, which still had one of her combs in it.

We went to two concerts together in March. The first was at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford on Tuesday March 6. The headliners were Loggins and Messina, whose only real hit “Your Mama Don’t Dance” was very popular at the time. Sue and I must have attended in hopes of seeing the advertised opening act, Jim Croce. Neither Sue nor I can remember him appearing. Apparently he canceled for some reason. Almost everyone in the audience was at least five years younger than we were, and they enjoyed the L&M performance a lot more than we did. By the end of the show we really felt like old fogeys.

The other concert was at the Palace Theater in Waterbury. Pink Floyd had just released “Dark Side of the Moon”, which is widely considered their masterpiece. There were huge speakers blasting out sound from all four corners of the theater, and there was an abundance of strobe lights and other dramatic flashes. The crowd went crazy, but I was definitely ready to leave after fifteen minutes. You can listen to the whole two-hour concert here.

On April 1, 1973, Sue’s husband Dennis committed suicide. Sue went to the funeral. He had attempted suicide at least once in the fall. Sue had visited him in the hospital on that occasion.

When the weather got warmer Sue and I enjoyed a very pleasant trip to Gillette Castle, a bizarre structure that overlooks the Connecticut River. It was built of local fieldstone by the actor William Gillette. He is most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes more than 1,300 times on the stage, once in a silent film feature, and twice on radio programs. The estate is now a state park. I found it to be a very interesting place. The grounds were very relaxing. There was even a small train that had been used by Gillette himself. We had a very nice picnic.

We also spent some time in the interior⁵ of the castle. The extremely ornate inside was at least as fabulous as the grounds and the view. This was one of my favorite days in my first trip to Connecticut.

At some point Sue decided to quit her job at the Hartford. She found a new line of work at Travelers Equity Sales. She had to take a test to become a registered rep. She passed on the first try and worked there through the spring and most of the summer. While she worked at the Travelers she became a close friend of Diane Robinson, who originally came from Passumpsic VT, and Karen Peterson.

Around the same time that she changed jobs Sue moved to an apartment on Jefferson St. (or maybe Washington St.) in Hartford. I don’t remember much about it. My only clear recollection is of the only time in my life that I ever ran out of gas. I was about two blocks from her house and perhaps one hundred feet from a gas station. Even though it was slightly uphill I was able to push Greenie up to the pump all by myself. I was only a little stronger then; Greenie was very light and easy to push.

During her time at T.E.S. Sue and I started to grow apart. She was a whirlwind of activity, and I often felt left out. She had a gazillion friends of both genders, and sometimes I became jealous. She probably started to think of me as too clingy.

When I met Sue, she already had a boa constrictor named Puca, but he was barely six feet long and skinny. She did not feed him much, and when she did, all that he got was a dead mouse heated over a light bulb to fool his heat-detecting senses. One evening we visited her friends Stan and Pat Slatt in Marlborough. They had a ten-foot boa constrictor that Stan fed live rats and a thirteen-foot python that regularly ate a full-grown rabbit. I had no fear of Puca, but these two monsters gave me pause.

In the summer of 1973 Sue moved to an apartment complex on Wales Rd. in Andover. Her apartment was right across the street from the one that Scott and Cindy Otermat lived with their huge dog Cinders. I saw her only a few times before her big trip.

Sue, Diane, and Karen decided to quit their jobs and drive to Alaska. I am not sure that their plans were any more specific than that. I don’t know what they used for money. Maybe they knocked over a bunch of banks in those states along the Canadian border, or they might have found a big nugget of gold in the Klondike. They did not take Sue’s car. She left it at her apartment, which she “sublet” to a guy who worked on roofs for a living. I am pretty sure that they were “involved” before she left. He also was supposed to take care of Puca, but the reptile escaped from his cage either just before Sue left or just after.

This was the greatest adventure in Sue’s young life, but I was absolutely miserable. I felt sorry for myself. It was hard for me to face all my friends. I took a lot of long walks.

During the trip the three ladies all hooked up with Air Force guys stationed in Alaska. Diane ended up marrying Phil Graziose. They lived in a trailer park in northern Vermont for a number of years and then bought an old house in St. Johnsbury with a storefront in which Phil ran a locksmithing business.

On the trip Sue became seriously involved with an Air Force guy name Randy, who came from, of all places, my home town of Kansas City. I refused to listen to the stories of her adventures, but I could not help overhearing that there was one incident in which someone nearly drowned.

This matchbook cover is the only trace of Fast Eddie’s that I could find on the Internet.

Meanwhile, back in the lower forty-eight Friday, August 17, 1973, was a memorable day. Since it was my twenty-fifth birthday, I invited everyone to help me celebrate. At least eight or ten of us went to Fast Eddie’s bar on the Berlin Turnpike. I had never been drunk in my life, and I had no intention of overindulging that evening. The problem was that we were drinking beer by the pitcher, and people kept refilling my glass without asking me. I never asked for a second glass. My mother had drilled into us that if there was food on our plate or beverage in our glass, we were expected to consume it. If there was a possibility that we might not want it later, we were not to put it on the plate. Once it was there, however, …

At any rate, this was the only time in my life that I have driven a car when I definitely should not have done so. Fortunately, Greenie pretty well knew the way back to my apartment, and there were no incidents. The next day I awoke with my first hangover and played my epic tennis match with Jim Kreidler. It is described here.

Tom Corcoran and Tom Herget had been living in a large old house at 345 Hartford Avenue in Wethersfield. The third housemate had been a guy named Monty. Herget had furnished the house from items he picked up at second-hand stores on Park St. in Hartford. In August of 1973 Monty had to leave for some reason. They asked me if I wanted to take Monty’s place. It was a no-brainer. The rent was less, and life would surely be more interesting. In addition, I would be rid of a lot of scenery that connected with memories that now seemed bitter to me.

In August of 1973 I bought and read the popular book I’m OK—You’re OK by Thomas Anthony Harris. It described the research on hemispheric separation in the brain that showed that under certain circumstances people clearly have two (or more) relatively independent decision-making mechanisms. We identify with only one of them, the one that can read and talk. When something happens that this portion of the brain did not order, we are likely to say “I don’t know why I did that.” Understanding that the first “I” and the second “I” in that sentence are largely independent agents really helped me to understand people, including myself, better.

During this period I was being paid to study for Part 5 of the actuarial exams. The subject matter was indescribably boring. Can you think of anything more tedious than studying the history of mortality tables? I liked my work, and I had made some great friends in Connecticut, but there was one aspect that I really missed—debate tournaments and the thrill of competing at the highest level. I began to think about going back to college to coach debate. I wrote to Bill Colburn at the University of Michigan to inquire if that was feasible. He replied that I needed to apply to graduate school. He thought that he could arrange for financial assistance for me. I also did a little bit of research on my veterans’ benefits.

I heard that Sue had come back from Alaska, but I did not see her for quite some time. Finally she came over to the “345 Club” one evening. For some reason I was up in my bedroom. I think that the two Toms tried to talk her out of it, but she came up to see me. I don’t exactly remember what happened, but she ended up staying the night with me.

I learned that Sue had landed a new job at the “Little Aetna” section of Connecticut General. When she returned from Alaska she discovered that the roofer had not been paying the rent. My recollection is that her car was also repossessed. She eventually found Puca—alive—between two towels in a linen closet.

So, Sue and I began what I think of as the “toll bridge” section of our relationship. In those days the Charter Oak Bridge and the Bissell Bridge had toll booths in both directions. The fastest way from the 345 Club to Sue’s apartment was via the Charter Oak Bridge and I-84⁶. One could save a little money by buying a book of prepaid tickets, and that is what both Sue and I did.

The worst ice storm that I have ever seen hit central Connecticut on December 16-17. More details are provided here. The storm affected Wethersfield much worse than it did Andover. So, like my housemates, I abandoned the 345 Club, brought some clothes to Sue’s apartment, and stayed there for a while.

One morning during that winter—I don’t remember if it was before or after Christmas—I was driving from Andover to Hartford. Greenie was headed westbound on the portion of I-84 between Manchester and Bolton. It was early in the morning; the sun had just come up. The road conditions did not seem too bad, and I was going a moderate speed in the right lane. This time my rear wheels decided to go to the right. My car did a 180° spin before coming to a stop in the breakdown lane on the right side of the highway. I waited for traffic to clear and then, taking advantage of Greenie’s extremely small turning radius, executed a tight U-turn. I then continued on my journey. My mantra was the same as that of every male in his twenties: “No harm; no foul.”

I had decided to fly to Kansas City at Christmas to visit my family. Sue was somewhat shocked when I asked her whether she wanted to come with me, but she said yes⁷. We were only there for a few days, but she got to meet a lot of my family, including Fr. Joe and my grandfather, John Cernech, who by then had become very nearly deaf. She must have slept on the roller bed in Jamie’s room. My recollection is that Jamie had a date on most of the evenings while we were staying there.

Mad Murphy’s was in this building on Union St.

Another event that I remember clearly during the subsequent few months was the night that Sue and I and a group of friends grabbed a table at Mad Murphy’s, a bar near the train station in Hartford. We came there to listen to Sue’s neighbor, Carl Shillo, and his band. We stayed until the closing time, and we had a great time. The highlight was when they played “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” just before closing. Everyone marched around in a long conga line and sang along.

Passumpsic is an unincorporated village in the town of Barnet. The community is located 3 miles south of St. Johnsbury, the last civilized outpost on I-91.

By April or May I had arranged to coach debate at U-M. I asked Sue if she would come with me. She, who was in those days always ready for an adventure, agreed.

Sue and I drove up to Passumpsic to see Diane and her many siblings at least once. I don’t remember when. Tom Herget came with us. I don’t think that Phil had arrived yet. The Robinsons held a barn dance, which I cannot say that I enjoyed much; dancing is definitely not my thing. My favorite memory of this trip was when Diane’s father claimed that he had always wondered why he and his wife had so many more offspring than the other couples until someone explained to him what caused it.

I am pretty sure that Sue made other trips without me. She considered the three-hour drive an easy one, and she was enthralled by the simple lifestyle of Diane’s family.

In 1972 the Hartford recruited three single guys named Tom. The next year two married actuarial students named Jim were hired—Jim Cochran and Jim Hawke. Their wives were Ann and Lesley respectively. The Cochrans were from Wisconsin. The Hawkes were from Texas, although Jim had a bachelor’s degree in math from UConn. I don’t know how they ended up in the Land of Steady Habits.

I remember at least one evening spent at each of their houses, although I cannot say when either event happened. The Hawkes lived in a house in Manchester and a son named Ethan⁸. Sue and I had supper with the Hawkes and spent most of the evening enjoying Jim’s renditions of rags by Scott Joplin.

A short time after that Jim and Ethan joined Sue and me on an excursion to her property on “Bunyan Mountain”⁹ in Monson, MA. We parked well below Sue’s property and climbed up. I think that we had some sandwiches and toasted marshmallows.

Sue took photos of this occasion. If she can locate any of them, I will post something here.

Jim and Ann Cochran lived in a house in Glastonbury. They invited us over to play the state card game of Wisconsin, Sheepshead. Neither Sue nor I had ever heard of it. I don’t think that anyone outside of the state of Wisconsin has ever played it more than once. Jim and Ann patiently explained all of the rules to us. Then on the first hand something—I don’t remember what—occurred. As a result both Jim and Ann triumphantly yelled out “It’s a leaster!” They then introduced a whole new set of rules as to how this particular hand would be played.

A brief glance at the Wikipedia page for this game lists some of the “variants” to the rules and hints at many others. Even though tournaments of games are allegedly held in Wisconsin, I suspect that the real purpose of this game is to lure unsuspecting non-cheeseheads into playing the game under a small subset of the rules. The Wisconsinites can then introduce new rules often enough to make the foreigners so confused and frustrated that they leave. Then the Wisconsonites can enjoy their fondue in peace.

Sue’s family played a trick-taking game called Setback or Auction Pitch, which has the benefit of far fewer rules. I played a few times, but there did not seem to be much to it. When someone in Sue’s family asked if anyone wanted to play cards, they meant Setback.

In June of 1974 I broke the patella (kneecap) on my right leg playing pickup basketball. The event itself is described here. I had to miss a few days of work, and I was unable to drive at least until the cast was removed. I decided to move in with Sue in Andover. This also seemed like the best time to tell my parents about that she would be taking care of me in her apartment. They were not thrilled by the idea, but at least they did not commandeer a plane and come to rescue me from her clutches. They weren’t too surprised when I told them that she was going to accompany me to Ann Arbor in a few months.

The rest of the summer was rather blissful for me. I could not play softball or golf, but I attended all of the Mean Reserves games and all the other get-togethers. I cannot remember any unpleasant occasions.

1. Senator Tom Eagleton was nominated for Vice President at the 1972 Democratic Convention. Shortly thereafter he resigned from the ticket when it was discovered that he received psychiatric treatment for chronic depression. The Republican Veep candidate, Spiro Agnew, was a crook, but his crimes did not come to light until after the election.

2. Sue and I returned to the castle in the summer of 2020, but because of the pandemic the interior was not open. We had another nice picnic, and I took some spectacular snapshots of the river beneath the castle.

3. For some reason McCormick’s discontinued this wonderful product in 2019 or 2020. Someone has started a “Bring Back McCormick’s Meat Marinade” Facebook page.

4. The Hartford Times was a moderately liberal paper owned by Gannett and published in the afternoon. In 1972, however, it endorsed Nixon. I wrote a letter to the editor in protest. They published one or two of the hundreds that they received about the endorsement, but not mine. The paper was sold in 1973. In 1976 it accepted the fate of most PM papers and ceased publication.

5. I did not realize at the time that I had only met the Lockes, Effy’s side of the family. The Slanetzes were not homebodies at all. They were widely dispersed. Only one Locke had moved away, Sue’s Uncle Bob, whose family lived in western Michigan.

6. Prior to 1984 the interstate highway that runs from Hartford to the Mass Pike just north of Sturbridge was called I-84 from Hartford to Manchester and I-86 east of Manchester. The never completed road that led from Manchester toward Providence was called I-84. Since 1984 the former highway has been called I-84, and the latter I-384.

7. Sue helped with the production of her high school’s musical Oklahoma. She strongly identified with the character of Ado Annie, the “girl who can’t say no”. I hereby affirm that I have hardly ever heard her turn down an invitation to do something, although she will sometimes cancel later when she realizes that it would be impossible for her to be in two places at once. This may be the biggest difference between Sue and me. I have almost never committed to anything unless I was certain that I was willing and able to do it.

8. The youngster grew up to be Ethan Hawke, the famous actor.

9. Evidently this “mountain” is actually part of Chicopee Mountain. Sue obtained this property as part of an agreement with her father-in-law, Chick Comparetto. There is a nice view of the valley from one spot that is either on or near her land.

1972-1974 Connecticut: Actuarial Exams

Posted on January 14, 2021 by Mike

Studying and taking. Continue reading →

The official title of my job at the Hartford was “actuarial student”. I had two responsibilities—helping with the actuarial work assigned by my bosses and studying for the actuarial exams sponsored by the Society of Actuaries (SOA). It is more complicated now, but in 1972-74 there were ten exams (called “parts”). To become a Fellow of the SOA one needed to all ten. Passing the first five granted one the title of Associate.

I can hardly believe than an associate (ASA) would have the temerity to sell advice to other test-takers.

For actuaries advancement at insurance companies depended much more on success on the exams than on performance at the workplace. Becoming a Fellow was a big deal. At least one person at the Hartford immediately after passing the tenth exam got a vanity plate for his car with his initials and “FSA”. Some people hired tutors for difficult tests. It could easily be worth the expense; at the time surveys ranked actuaries as the highest-paid occupation in the United States. For decades the number of actuaries increased by over 6 percent per year, and in the seventies demand still exceeded supply.

The actuarial exams were held twice a year—in May and November. The first four were offered both times. Some of the other six were offered in May; the rest were scheduled for November.

Everyone who has taken them agrees that the exams are very challenging. A few people have taken more than one at a time, but most thought that one was enough. Less than 50 percent of the people pass each test. Many people, myself included, dropped out along the way. The ones taking the higher level exams were by no means a random sample; they had shown the ability and determination to outdo some really smart people again and again.

The Hartford, as well as most other insurance companies, granted actuarial students time during work to study for exams. I think that we got thirty hours for each exam period. Most people took the hours in increments of an hour or two at a time. I always studied in the morning. I came in early and then used an hour and a half of study time. My recollection is that to maintain this privilege one needed to pass at least one exam per year.

The study room on the twenty-first floor was between the elevators and an exterior wall. It consisted of a conference table and, if memory serves, six or eight chairs. For the most part everyone took advantage of the time to study silently and diligently. Occasionally, of course, someone (usually Tom Corcoran) would doze off. We just let them sleep unless the snoring got too loud.

I remember two unusual occurrences. The first involved Pat Adams, an exceptional student who never made any noise in the study room. [This is a good story, but it would be better if I could somehow act it out.] One morning Pat clearly needed to sneeze. She inhaled sharply and then let the breath out. She inhaled sharply again and then emitted something much closer to “Pfft” than “Ahchoo” (or, in my case, a Category 5 blast of AHCHOOOOOO repeated up to eight times).

Upon hearing Pat’s timid sneeze I felt compelled to break the monastic silence of the study room in order to declare that hers was the most pitiful sneeze that I had ever witnessed.

The other occasion of note occurred when Mike Swiecicki and Damon Panels became embroiled in an argument over who was on third base in the ninth inning of a baseball game from a decade or so earlier. It was the kind of dispute that could be solved with Google in less than a minute, but, of course, that was not possible in the seventies. Mike and Damon went on and on, each adding details from his own recollection to try to persuade the other to cede the point. I don’t remember if either of them was ever proven right. It is important to not that no one reported them for breaking the vow of silence because everyone judged that the strictures of l’omertà applied.

UConn offered evening classes at its Hartford campus for the first four exams. I took two of these classes, and I seem to remember that the Hartford paid the tuition.

Marking C for every question is a bad strategy.

Over the years I took the first six exams. All the questions on the first five tests were multiple choice. The multiple choice questions were very carefully designed so that all of the answers seemed reasonable. To discourage guessing, a percentage of wrong answers was subtracted from the number of right answers.

Each exam was scored on a scale from 0 through 10. The minimum passing score was 6 on each test. Here is a description of my experience with each exam:

Part 1: The topic was “general mathematics”. Most of the questions involve algebra and/or calculus. I took the exam in my sophomore year at U-M. I did not study at all. My score was a 6. I thought that I had done much better than that. I probably guessed too much.

Sue Comparetto took this exam several times, but she did not pass. Of course, she also did not have the benefit of study time or free classes.

I took a chance when I was young and answered only the probability questions. It worked out better for me than it did for Og Oggilby.

Part 2: The topics were probability and statistics. The first time that I took it was in November of 1969 right after I had taken classes at U-M in both subjects from Cecil Nesbitt. I was too busy with debate and other extracurricular activities to study. More details can be read here. I was not worried about passing, but I should have been. I only received a 4.

I took the test again in May of 1970 in Ann Arbor. Once again I did not study even for a minute, this time out of ennui and disillusionment with the world in general. I was especially shaky about statistics. As the tests were being distributed, I decided to skip all statistics questions except the ones that I was absolutely certain of. In actuality, I answered every probability question and no statistics questions at all. I assumed that I had flunked, but I somehow squeaked through with a 6.

Part 3: The topics were finite differences (about which I remember absolutely nothing) and compound interest. I took this exam in November of 1972 in Hartford. During the previous few months I had attended classes in these subjects at UConn/Hartford. The subject matter seemed rather simple, and I used all of my study time, but I still only managed a 6.

Jordan's textbook was our bible. — Jordan’s textbook was our bible.

Part 4: The topics was life contingencies. I took the test in May of 1973. Many actuaries considered this the most difficult exam. Once again I attended the classes in Hartford. This time I supplemented my study time with some additional time, but the weather was starting to get very nice in late April and May. By then I also had something of a social life. I counted myself lucky to score a six.

Part 5: There were four exceptionally boring topics: 1) demography (the study of individuals moving in and out of groups over time); 2) principles underlying the construction of mortality and other tables; 3) elements of graduation of mortality tables and other series; 4) sources and characteristics of the principal mortality and disability tables. If the choice had been mine, I would never have considered studying any of these topics. I hated every second that I spent in all four areas.

I took this test in the fall of 1973, a very bad period for me. There were no classes. I studied as hard as I could at the Hartford, and I tried to make myself study at home. However, there were many distractions, and by then I had pretty much decided that I wanted to abandon the world of insurance and return to U-M if possible to coach debate. At the end of the exam, I was pretty certain that I had failed, and I was right. I got a 4.

Part 6: There were three topics: 1) actuarial aspects of life insurance accounting; 2) valuation of liabilities; 3) investment of life insurance funds. I took this test in the spring of 1974. By then I had already been offered the coaching job at U-M, and I accepted it. I planned to leave the Hartford forever in August.

I really wanted to pass this test. I knew that I would never use any of the knowledge that I was cramming into my skull, but I did not want people to think that I was quitting because I could not pass the exams. As it happened, however, my social life had improved by that point. That factor, my excitement about the adventure that awaited me in the fall, and the fact that the accounting aspect was insufferably boring made it difficult for me to keep my nose to the grindstone.

The first part of the exam was short answer/essay. I felt pretty good at the break about my performance. However, I did not feel at all good about the multiple choice questions in the afternoon. I was therefore not surprised when I received another 4.

The investment part of this exam was ludicrous. The Society still used a horribly dated textbook that recommended that companies concentrate their investments in downtown real estate properties occupied by department stores like F.W. Woolworth and S.S. Kresge. A few typewritten pages were provided to students to replace these comical suggestions.

After I left the Hartford area, the thing that I missed the least was studying for and taking the tests. The math was not as difficult as what I encountered at Michigan, but at least half or the material was, for me, horribly boring.

1967-1969 Part 1: U-M Classes

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Mike

Classes in the middle years. Continue reading →

To the best of my recollection this was my undergraduate academic schedule at Michigan:

Freshman	Fall 1966	Math 195	Russian 101	Chem 103	Latin 350
	Spring 1967	Math 196	Russian 102	Chem 106	Greek 101
Sophomore	Fall 1967	Math 295	Comp Prog	Econ 101	Greek 102
	Spring 1968	Math 296	Comm Sci	Sp Persuasion	Greek 201
Junior	Fall 1968	Math 395	Econ Intl	Sp Debate	Greek 202
	Spring 1969	Math 396	Topology	Homer	Thucydides
Senior	Fall 1969	Probability	Statistics	Psychology	Euripides
	Spring 1970	Sp Study	Linguistics	Russ Lit	Anthropology

The classes for the first semester of freshman year (fall 1966) are discussed here.

The classes for the second semester of freshman year (spring 1967) are discussed here.

The classes for the second semester of senior year (spring 1970) are discussed here.

Here is what I remember from the middle years by subject:

Math: The three-year basic sequence (195-6, 295-6, 395-6) started with a review of calculus. The last semester covered, I think, the calculus of several—more than three—variables. It was during this last class that I realized that I had absolutely no interest in being a mathematician. I could no longer visualize what was being talked about. I am sure that it is valuable for things like string theory, but it was not for me.

In fact, I was lucky to last that long. These six classes were all taught by professors, as opposed to graduate students.¹ We were expected (but not required) to do the problems at the end of each chapter of the text. I looked at them, but I never did them. Our tests asked for proofs rather than solutions to problems. The material became more and more difficult as the course numbers got higher. I familiarized myself with the concepts, but I did not actually learn them. That was not my goal; my goal was to pass the tests.

I developed several techniques for pretending to prove that formula A is equivalent to formula B, which is the format for most, but not all, mathematical proofs. It would be best to come up with an actual proof, but this is not like horseshoes or hand grenades. Coming close can count for a lot. I thrived on partial credit.

The first technique is known as proof by induction, a legitimate and powerful method absolutely essential for proving some mathematical concepts. It even has its own Wikipedia page. Any time than something countable—an integer or even a rational number—was mentioned in either formula A or formula B, I would used proof by induction. It was always good for a half-page of paper, and I never got less that seven out of ten points. Occasionally, it actually produced the required proof.

The technique that I invented and perfected was the Wavada Squeeze. You will not find it on Wikipedia yet. Here is how you do it: Start with formula A, and in a column beneath it make as many manipulations of it as you can think of. For example, you could multiply and divide by something: A=((x+3) x A)/(x+3). After ten or so manipulations, you end up with something quite different from what you started with. On a separate sheet of paper perform a different set of manipulations on formula B. Once in a while one of the two will actually show the way to a proof, and that’s great. However, even if neither does, you can maximize your partial credit by writing the the manipulations of B in reverse order beneath the manipulations of A. This will give you a “proof” that A=B with twenty or so legitimate manipulations, and one horrible leap somewhere in the middle. This was usually good for at least five out of ten, which was much better than nothing.

I made the mistake of taking one graduate-level class, Topology. I ended up with a C, which is a terrible grade in a graduate class. I remember entering the classroom on one Monday after a debate tournament. Everyone was busy writing their names on “Blue Books”, which meant that an exam was about to take place. This was news to me. Evidently, it was announced in a class that I had not attended. Usually I tried to make sure that I had a friend in classes to warn me about such events. This class, however, was composed of graduate students in math. None seemed approachable. I got one right out of nine. Showing up clueless in a classroom full of people with Blue Books appeared frequently in nightmares over the decades.

I am embarrassed to say that not only have I forgotten the names of these teachers, but I also have only vague recollections of any of the concepts, never mind the details, of what I supposedly learned. I never considered graduate school in math.

Actuarial Science: I passed part 1 of the actuarial exams in May of 1969. I took two classes from Cecil Nesbitt², a very famous actuary, in the fall semester of 1969 with the half-hearted purpose of passing part 2—probability and statistics. I was not a bit impressed with the quality of the other students, when compared with the guys (and girl) in my math sequence.

My attendance in both classes was extremely spotty. I did not do any of the assigned problems. Nevertheless, I thought that I had passed part 2 in November, but i was wrong. The exam was offered again in May, but I was not upset enough about this failure to study more in the spring session. The result is described here.

Cecil Nesbitt’s Wikipedia page is here.

Greek: For the first two Greek³ classes the teacher was H.D. Cameron.⁴ I can clearly visualize the professor who taught the 200-level classes as well, but I am embarrassed to report that I cannot remember his name. He also taught the Thucydides class.

My clearest recollection of those last two classes in the sequence involved the final exam. With less than one hour remaining before the Greek final, I realized that I had misread the exam schedule and studied for a different subject. The exam for that subject was a day of two later. So, I ended up taking the Greek test with practically no cramming.

Thank goodness it a Greek course was the one to which I gave insufficient attention; I got an A anyway. If I had neglected the other subject (I forget what it was), I would have been in a world of hurt. This kind of thing was also a subject of many future nightmares.

In all honesty the university should not have allowed me to take these four classes. My high school Greek class was good enough that I could almost certainly have placed out of Greek. However, there was no placement test for Greek at U-M. I am thankful for the lack; I received four easy A’s.

The Homer and Thucydides classes were more difficult. All of the other students in both classes were graduate students who took nothing but Greek classes and spent all of their daylight hours in the classics department. I was lucky to survive.

I enrolled in a course that translated the plays of Euripides. I had to get special permission from the professor to join. However, after a week or two I dropped the class. It was just too demanding for my schedule.

If I had applied to graduate school in 1970, I would have tried for a masters in the classics. These were the only classes that I enjoyed the most.

Speech: I took only one real speech class, persuasion. It was taught by Bruce Gronbeck.⁵ The other two speech classes were gift A’s to compensate for the time that my participation in debate consumed.

I went to the persuasion class every time that I was in town. I gave all the speeches and turned in the assigned paper. I found the material presented boring, but the speeches were quite interesting.

I have several vivid recollections. We talked about some of the speeches as a class. In one situation I remarked that I thought that the speaker had seemed sincere. Prof. Gronbeck asked me why I thought that, and I was stumped. Nobody else really had a better answer. As Jean Giraudoux famously noted, “The secret of success is sincerity. Once you fake that you’ve got it made.”

Jim Pitts, the captain of the basketball team, was on the roster for the class, but he never attended, not even for the assigned speeches. Prof. Gronbeck told Dr. Colburn about this, and a few days later Jim appeared, and he was prepared to give a speech. No speeches were scheduled for that day, but he was allowed to deliver his speech, which was about abortion.

Jim took the floor with about twenty 3″x5″ cards held in very large hands. The use of a deck of cards in a speech is always a bad idea unless you plan to demonstrate how to throw them. Jim’s first line was “The chances of getting an abortion in this country are 1. Slim and 2. None.” On the fourth card he could not read the handwriting of whoever wrote the speech. A few cards later the cards were in the wrong order, which always seems to happen. When he finished the speech, Prof. Gronbeck thanked him, and no one else said anything. The class then continued as usual.

That was Jim’s last speech, but he never missed any basketball games that year.

Prof. Gronbeck wanted to hold a one-on-one debate, and I volunteered. My opponent, who was from Germany, chose as the topic the reunification of her country. She was against it. It wasn’t much of a debate. I had to go first, and we only got one speech each. She made no attempt to refute anything that I had said.

Communication Science: For some reason in those days the academic department at U-M that dealt with computers was called “Communication Science”. I took two courses. The first was the introductory programming class. My instructor was Господин Muchnik, whom I already knew as a student in my first-semester Russian class. We learned to program in MAD, which stood for Michigan Algorithm Decoder, a programming language used nowhere else in the world.

There were no terminals. We had to record our programs and our data on eighty-column IBM cards. This required use of a machine to punch the cards. Each card corresponded to a line of code or a row of data. There was no backspace or delete key. If you made a mistake when you punched the, you had to eject the card and throw it away. The university had a dozen or more of these machines for students, and they were located on the other side of campus. If they were all in use, you just had to wait or come back later.

When you finally had your program and data punched, you inserted the deck of cards into the pre-compiler, a small machine that found syntax errors in MAD programs. When you fixed all of the errors that it found, you were ready put a rubber band around your deck of cards to submit a job to the computer. The operator would accept the job, assign it a number, and give you a card with your job’s number and a phone number for a recording that announced the number of the job that the computer was currently on. It might be hours or even days befor the announced number was greater than the number of your job. When it finally happened, you walked back to the computing center to retrieve your output and your deck.

The first few times that you did this, the output consisted of a list of errors. If there were only a few errors, you would wait for a keypunch machine to be available, fix the errors, and resubmit the deck. This process went on until you either despaired or were euphoric when you finally got some results.

For our final project we could do any program that we wanted. The only requirement was that it be at least one hundred lines of code. My project read in a bridge hand of thirteen cards and output the opening bid using the standard American system taught by Charles Goren. I did it over the Thanksgiving holiday when there were no lines for the keypunch machines, and shorter waits for the jobs. I got it to work well pretty quickly.

Needless to say, I really liked programming, and I was good at it.

The other Comm Sci class that I took was a strange amalgam of language theory and the history of computer languages back to the Turing machine. I did not get a lot out of it.

Economics: You cannot debate as much as I did without doing quite a bit of research into economics. By the time (sophomore year) that I enrolled for the introductory class at U-M I had already read hundreds of articles and several books on economics. The format for the class was lecture plus recitations. I enjoyed the lectures, although my memory of who gave them cannot be correct. I found the recitations tiresome and overly simplistic.

I studied for the final with my debate partner, Gary Black, a senior. I helped him more than he helped me. I was more than a little peeved when he got a low A, and I got a high B.

I took one more economics class. I did not like anything about the way the course in international economics was taught. I put in as little effort as possible. I think that I got a C.

My enduring impression about the field of economics was that it was 99 percent unproven theories. I was right. The next fifty years proved conclusively that most of what I was taught was just wrong. In fact, Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for demonstrating that the basic behavioral assumption underlying all economic analysis is nonsense.

Psychology: As a senior I signed up for the introduction to psychology in the honors program. I was allowed to take one class pass-fail, and this was the one that I selected. Grades lower than C were unheard of in honors classes. So, I correctly determined that I could pass this class with virtually no effort.

The teacher was a female graduate student, and she insisted that we understand the principles of feminism. Most of us had never heard of the word. I remember very little else about the class, except that it was full of freshmen with first names like Hill or Twink. Twink told us that in the home in which he grew up no one ever questioned Freud’s teachings. I found that astounding, but I suppose that it is no more astounding than believing in the Book of Mormon or, for that matter, the Bible.

Twink was a fairly big guy, maybe 6’3″. Once I was walking somewhere with my friend, Tom Rigles, who had already heard me tell stories about him. Tom said that he did not imagine him being so big. I casually remarked that I could take him. Rigles scoffed at me. As God is my witness, I could take Twink then, and if he is still alive, I could take him now.

I don’t think that the psych class had a final exam, but we were required to write a paper. I had picked up a book called Games People Play by Eric Berne. The night before the papers were due, I skimmed the book and wrote and typed the paper. It was the third and last paper of my entire undergraduate career

I disliked all the “social science” courses that I took. If you had predicted in 1970 that I would voluntarily take almost nothing but social science courses for six years in graduate school, I would have told you that you did not know what you were talking about.

1. Ted Kaczynski, the notorious Unabomber, was a graduate assistant in the math department at U-M during the sixties. The offer of the teaching position was the main reason that Ted chose Michigan over Cal Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

2. My best friend since 1972, Tom Corcoran, worked as an actuary. One year I was shopping for a birthday card for him. I looked through about twenty humorous cards until I found one that actually mentioned Cecil Nesbitt! I was absolutely astounded.

3. I learned classical Greek in high school and college. Decades later I tried to teach myself modern Greek in preparation for a Hellenic vacation. The alphabet was the same, and the grammar was similar. However, the vocabulary and pronunciation were drastically different.

4. Professor Cameron in 2020 is emeritus in the classics department and curator of the university’s Museum of Zoology.

5. Professor Gronbeck died in 2014. A very lengthy obituary can be read here.

1970 June-October 5 in Leawood

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Mike

Home waiting to be drafted. Continue reading →

I flew home to KC. In those days the airlines had student-standby rates that were very affordable. My parents picked me up at the Municipal Airport, which is right across the river from the downtown area. Landing from the west was a terrifying exercise in dodging skyscrapers, but it was actually more dangerous to land from the east. If you overran the runway even a little, you might end up in the Missouri River. All my records and my AR speakers also made it home, but I don’t remember how.

I had nothing scheduled for the entire summer. My parents lined up one task for me—painting our house. I planned to just hang around until I got drafted, and I also hoped to play a lot of golf. I also watched the mailbox closely.

My report card for my last semester at U-M (the first time) arrived shortly after I did: I got an A (speech self-study), a B (Russian lit), a C (anthropology0, and a D (linguistics). I was greatly relieved not to see any E’s or I’s (incomplete). Michigan issued E’s where everyone else issued F’s. So, as expected, my very first semester’s average was my best, and my last semester’s was my worst. But it was good enough.

My diploma arrived a few days later. I finally got a chance to look at my transcript a couple of years later when I applied for jobs. Nothing on it indicated that my excess hours in math would have affected my graduation. Maybe I could have dropped the Russian and linguistics classes and still graduated. I needed to enroll in four courses to be a full-time student, a requirement for intercollegiate debate, but nothing prevented withdrawals. Of course then I would have had to explain to the parental units why they had to pay for four courses when I only really took two. That might not have been too pleasant. I think that it all worked out for the best.

I wondered to myself how in the world I managed to get a B in that Russian lit class. Clearly those papers that I saw people turning in must have been voluntary and clearly not much attention was paid to attendance at the recitation sections that I completely avoided. I must have also aced both tests.

There was one other possibility. Perhaps the professor was both a caligrapher and a Detroit Tigers fan. Maybe he really gave me a D, but it was misinterpreted as a B.

I also received an envelope from the Society of Actuaries with my test results. I was astonished to see that I scored a 6, which was the lowest passing score. I somehow passed the probability and statistics test without answering a single statistics question!

I received nothing from the Selective Service in June, July, or August.

As a freeloader I could hardly complain about painting the house or any other mundane chore—mowing the lawn, trimming bushes, weeding the roses, etc.— that I was asked to do. I probably grumbled to myself while I was doing them.

My dad’s company provided him with a membership in the Blue Hills Country Club, well to the south of us and on the Missouri side. Dad was a VP in the sales department and was expected to entertain agents and other business associated. The club had a swimming pool and a golf course, but the only feature that interested me was the golf course, which I was allowed to play on for free. I took advantage of that feature as often as I could. I sometimes played with my dad on weekends and with my mother on weekdays. A few times my dad took a day off, and all three of us played.

Occasionally I played by myself. I was very careful not to impede or hurry anyone. I was a courteous guest.

Summers in KC are hot. On one such day I was playing by myself, as always carrying my clubs. I finished the front nine with an indifferent score and bought a coke. I then walked over to the tenth tee, from which point almost the entire back nine was visible. I was surprised to discover that no one at all seemed to be playing. This was puzzling. There was no indication of a special event.

With the course to myself I played three balls. This was strictly prohibited, but if I saw anyone approaching I would just stop doing it. I certainly would not be holding anyone up. Even playing three balls, I could play faster than any twosome in a cart.

I finished the round and walked past the clubhouse and the putting green. The assistant pro, Rick, was doing some maintenance on the putting green. I called to him and asked where everyone was. He said, “Are you kidding? It’s 106° out here.”

I honestly had not really noticed. In those days I had almost infinite tolerance for heat. I almost never wore shorts.

My sister Jamie had just finished the eighth grade. She was a lot more socially active than I ever was. She could also play the guitar. She had a book of Bob Dylan songs, and I could do a passable imitation of the Nobel Prize winner. When I sang in my own voice I always went off-key at the break, but I could pull off the songs in her book pretty well using my Dylan voice. I remember “The Times They are a-Changing” and ‘Mr. Tambourine Man” in particular.

The letter from selective service came in September. It did not begin with “Greetings,” as was commonly reported, but with “Greeting:”. I had to report for my induction physical at a building in downtown Kansas City on Monday, October 5, a day that will live in infamy. My mother drove and dropped me off. I did not see her again for eight weeks.

The exam was a complete joke. There were a few dozen of us. About 30 percent of the guys were carrying briefcases or satchels with documentation of some real or imagined ailment. All (or at least nearly all) of these people were declared 4-F. I suspect that fifty years later not many people realize how widespread this practice was. More than a few doctors were willing to attest to very questionable ailments like bone spurs.

The rest of us passed. Some people found out that they were color blind. Other than that, the doctors (or whatever they were) basically counted our limbs and stamped us Grade A if we were not missing any.

A common misconception was that they rejected men with flat feet. If I had amputated my toes (some people did!), mine would have resembled Donald’s or Daffy’s. Here is how the foot examination went: We all lined up facing away from the doctor. He called out “Raise your left foot; right foot; thank you.” The pause for the semicolons was no more than two seconds. Many guys never even got their left foot raised.

Arlo Guthrie and the movie Stripes claim that they asked about ever being arrested. If so, I don’t remember that.

They measured me at 6’1″, 145 pounds. I told you that I was skinny.

There were maybe twenty or thirty of us. I expected to be taken to the nearest training location, Fort Leonard Wood, about 200 miles from KC. Instead they flew us to Fort Polk, LA, which was 680 miles away. The base had an airfield, which was where we landed.

I remember that one guy announced that he wanted to be a butcher. He thought that this would be a good way to avoid going to Vietnam. The sergeant who was escorting us advised him that that would be terrible duty, and he should try for something else.

Heretofore I had led a quite comfortable existence that was rather easy to comprehend. The next eighteen months and five days would unquestionably be the most bizarre of my life.

Wavablog

Memoirs, bridge, popes, travel, and other stuff

Tag Archives: Actuarial exams

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1967-1969 Part 1: U-M Classes

1970 June-October 5 in Leawood