AC_1965_Web

166 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K T R A N U M TRANUM JOEL Joel and Catherine, Lake Michigan, 2013. THEN AND NOW 4 B.A. History FAMI LY 4 Sons, David and Sam 4 Stepson and stepdaughter 4 Two grandchildren ADDRESS 4 984 Memorial Dr. Cambridge, MA 02138 CONTACT 617 873-0850 or 781 856-0000 jtranum@aol.com I G R A D U A T E D I N the spring of 1965 with a degree in history and an indifferent academic career al- ready a distant memory. I recall that the world was bright and young and that I was starved for “reality.” Vietnam was seething half a world away; the shame of the Tonkin inci- dent loomed less than two months hence. Along with the rest of the class of ’65, I launched, invincible and clueless, into a world alive with almost limitless possibilities. And yet, by the end of the sum- mer of 1965, America was march- ing into one of the greatest mili- tary and diplomatic disasters since the founding of the Republic and it was clear—even to a newly minted Antioch graduate—that our options were drastically narrowing: Canada, graduate school, or Vietnam. Canada seemed—to cite an antique term— a “cop-out”—and thus, without the talent for graduate school, Vietnam seemed unavoidable. I’d always loved to fly and thus, with a letter from my draft board in the mail, and having concluded that returning each evening to an air conditioned BOQ beat the hell out of slogging through the Delta, I joined an Air Force desperate for cannon fodder, received my commis- sion, and departed for Laredo,Texas, for pilot training. In the process I married my beautiful fellow classmate,Henrietta Whiteside (henriettawt@hotmail. com), and together we launched into the great roller coaster adven- ture of life with joy and optimism. Discharged after a year’s tour flying combat reconnaissance over Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, Henri and I settled on Cape Cod and I en- rolled in the graduate writing pro- gram at Brown. The following year, still with no marketable skills (hav- ing turned down the opportunity to fly questionable cargo into and out of deep South America, and loath to sign on for the boredom of flying for the legacy airlines), we decided to replicate one of the joys of our Antioch days: the LittleArt. I mean— we reasoned—how difficult could it be? Marching through the ’70s and into the ’80s our Little Art project became one, became two, became 35 art and classic cinema screens scattered across New England un- der the banner of the Nickelodeon Cinemas—the Landmark Theaters of their day. Two wonderful sons arrived as Henri and I lived in the deep Cape woods, raised pigs, chick- ens and guinea fowl and staked our claim to the ecologically commit- ted future by building an active so- lar home. By the mid-’80s Henri and I had migrated north into the west- ern suburbs of Boston in search of better schools for the kids, sold our small theater empire and, in 1990, af- ter 25 years, agreed to pursue our separate dreams. Now fast forward yet another 25 years and, having made and lost sev- eral (very small) fortunes, married and divorced again—and again— explored vast swaths of this glori- ous world, successfully launched two wonderful sons, a stepson and a stepdaughter, now respectively in their late thirties and late twenties Joel with Grace and Elliot in Colorado, 2014. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z