VOLUME 12, NO. 3     MAY 1999

Letters

More on the Boyntonians

Two alumni wrote about the photo of the 1937-38 Boyntonians that appeared on page 12 of the January 1999 Wire.

"The third player from the left was Milton Seligman who entered WPI in the Class of '36 and stayed for two years," says Morton Fine '37 of Bloomfield, Conn., who played saxophone with the group. "Although he was not a student when I was in the band, he continued to play with us. The person identified as 'Turk' is Frank Raphael, who graduated in 1938 in M.E. The name was really 'Turkey,' which we called him affectionately as a tribute to his voice, since he also sang with the band.

"The picture was taken at a Saturday night dance at the ATO fraternity house. As an adjunct to the great engineering education I received at WPI, some of my fondest recollections relate to the Boyntonians. Thanks for the memory!" Fine adds a P.S.: "I still play the clarinet, with the Simsbury (Conn.) Community Band."

Fred J. Burg '38 of Bellerose, N.Y., also identified Seligman and Raphael and added the following tidbit: "Before Fred Bean became the drummer, my French instructor, Professor J. Edward Fitzgerald, played the drums. Thought you might find this interesting, though I am sure none of this will ever appear on Jeopardy."

Editor's note: Perhaps not on Jeopardy, but maybe in a game of WPI Trivial Pursuit at Reunion!

Mazur story "alarming"

I enjoy The Wire. It's nice to hear about what's going on back home. I even get lucky once in a while and recognize a name or two from the past. The January 1999 issue contained an extremely alarming story about Michael Mazur and his experience with liquid nitrogen (LIN).

I am responsible for the LIN Demonstration program at Air Products & Chemicals. In the last 20 years we have done over 2,000 demos in the Allentown, Pa., area and well over 6,000 worldwide. We have never had any sort of an accident-related experience over that time period. I would like to think it is due to a very strict set of rules imposed on everyone handling LIN. If anyone at WPI is actually putting this stuff in their mouth, they're crazy.

I sure hope everyone treats LIN with the respect it deserves from this point on. Please don't let something like this happen again. Michael was more than lucky. He has to have an angel sitting on his shoulder.

- Don Bucci '74, Kutztown, Pa.