Fineberg, Comics, Noll, and C-Haus
Letters: From Our Readers
I had Bink Noll as a teacher. While he didn’t convince me to love “Paradise Lost,” he was an excellent professor and was responsible for turning me into an English major. He cared about his students. He listened when they talked, and he read what they wrote with empathy, understanding, and expertise. I loved the guy. And his family. That picture of his signature in green ink at the bottom of his Christmas poem brought back poignant memories.
I only knew Richard Fineberg as a gangly, brainy presence on the campus. I forgot that he’d edited The Round Table, even though I was selling ads for the paper at the time. I was dumbfounded to learn about his courage and convictions, and his sense of adventure. And the important contributions he made to Alaska, its people, and its environment. I thank Julie Filapek for her profile. He was a hero more people need to know about.
I was also happy to see that dignified official historian of Major League Baseball, John Thorn in Class News. All he needs is an ascot to be mistaken for a British leading man of the 1950s. I still recall him as a bright and friendly freshman who lived across the hall when I was a proctor in the dorm.
And there’s more. A new book by classmate Nancy Wang. A beaming Henry Eckstein who can still button his “B” jacket. And last, but not least, a letter from my brother Tom, class of 1972, recounting how he helped restart the hockey team. I knew he loved hockey, but had no idea of his role in its reappearance at Beloit. I wish I’d had his gumption when I was there.
Thank you for a most enjoyable and enlightening issue.
Arthur C. (Buck) Benedict ’64
Peaks Island, Maine
Fineberg
Thank you for the cover story on my classmate and friend. Rich and I hung out as unaffiliated banjo pluckers in a corner table at the student union. I never realized how much those early college experiences moved us in similar directions, but to very different environments. Love the cover.
Ted Downing ’65
Tucson, Arizona
I would argue that I hold the distinction of knowing Richard longer than any Beloiter. We were about the same age, both lived in suburban St. Louis, went to the same elementary school, and arrived at Beloit the same year. We did not share a classroom or the same group of friends in elementary school, and I don’t recall knowing him by name, but he was a presence. He was a skinny, gawky youngster who stammered when trying to express himself.
Our paths diverged. We attended different high schools. But in 1959 when we were informed that we had been accepted into the freshman class at Beloit, we arranged to meet each other. I went to his house and was finally able to place a name with that skinny, gawky youngster from elementary school. Through diligence and determination, he had overcome his speech impediment. He was still slender and had the same smile that he seems to have had throughout his life.
During our freshman year at Beloit, we both lived in Haven Hall. At the time the folk singing group, The Weavers, was popular among us. Richard was particularly drawn to Pete Seeger, their singer and banjo player. He was in awe of Pete’s ability to tune his banjo on the spot as the group was getting set to sing their next song.
The story mentions Richard “was also infamous for hopping freight trains.” I’d like to take a measure of credit for Richard’s introduction to freight train hopping. One evening he and I joined classmate Patrick Bolles ’62, a veteran train hopper, in jumping onto a vacant freight car in Beloit bound for Dubuque, Iowa. Richard and I disembarked in Dubuque, while Patrick stayed on, bound for a journey farther west. I was determined to see if I could make my way home to St. Louis (I did, after a miserable experience of hitchhiking and Trailways Bus riding). Richard hopped onto an eastbound freight train back to Beloit.
With that, our paths diverged again, until I met him once again in the summer issue. To have seen him as a skinny, gawky kid in the late 1940s, I would have never imagined the giant of a person he would become on life’s stage. The world could use more like him.
John D. Green ’62
Altadena, California
I just learned about Richard Feinberg ’64 in Alaska and his fight to protect the public interest from fossil fuel industry contamination. So a confession: I was a physics major at Beloit and a geology course or two might have made sense for me. But Professor of Geology Hank Woodard had on his door a bumper sticker that read “Build the Alaska Pipeline – America Needs the Gas.”
While I did absolutely nothing to help save the caribou or people affected by the pipeline, I figured then and there that geologists support the oil and gas companies, and that was enough to keep me from even thinking of ever taking a geology course!
Jon Ball ’76
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
I really enjoyed the summer issue! I especially enjoyed the piece about Richard Fineberg’s extraordinary career. It’s always inspiring to read about such principled and talented alumni. Thank you, and congrats on yet another excellent issue.
Joe Skurski ’13
San Francisco, California
I found your excellent article on Richard Fineberg of particular interest because I too am a Beloit alum, class of 1969, lived in Alaska for four decades, and knew Richard.
He is quoted in a book I co-authored, Lost Frontier: The Marketing of Alaska (Norton, 1977). Referring to the extraordinary waste in the construction of the Alaska pipeline, I wrote: “Richard Fineberg, a Fairbanks-based reporter who has probably written more extensively and authoritatively on the pipeline than anyone else, said he knows about 200 pipeline workers and that ‘the amount of theft has been tremendous.’”
Indeed, Richard was an intrepid investigator and lived an extraordinary life. Lost Frontier was read by President Jimmy Carter who told Alaska Governor Jay Hammond that the book influenced his decision to set aside more than 100 million acres of federally-owned Alaska land from development.
Peter Gruenstein ’69
Tucson, Arizona
Thank you for the wonderful story on my dear friend Richard Fineberg. You have made my day on this windy, rainy morning in the Shetland Islands. I met Richard in 1994. He was picking his banjo in the foyer of an Anchorage hotel where we were both attending a conference about the Exxon Valdez. I am also a bluegrass fan and we became friends. The last time I saw him was in Fletcher’s Bar in Anchorage in 2013, after a memorial service for a mutual friend.
I had a memorable trip on the Alaska Railroad with Richard, and two other friends in January 1998, recounted in a chapter in my book Reporter on the Rocks. We had rather too much to drink at a halt called Healey. A splendid evening it was!
Later that year Richard wrote his famous paper “How Much Is Enough?” I mislaid my tattered copy years ago and it was former Alaska Governor Bill Walker who found me another copy last year when I was helping my son, an engineer consultant, to research Shetland’s deals with the same oil companies. It was Tom who found Richard’s story on your website the other day. He’s as persistent a researcher as Richard was, I’m proud to say. I believe Tom’s going to refer to the 1998 paper in a report he’s compiling for the U.K. government.
About a decade ago, I suggested to our local council that they should ask Richard to look at their peppercorn rent deal with the oil companies for the land the council owns at Sullom Voe. He volunteered to do it for the airfare! Needless to say, they’d been co-opted and turned down his offer. They didn’t want to upset their “partners.” Richard always saw through such pathetic groveling, and that is why we loved him. As well as for his stories and his music.
Bless you for publishing the excellent appreciation of one of my all-time heroes.
Dr. Jonathan Wills
Bressay, Shetland, Scotland
Comics
I was delighted to read the most recent issue, especially the article “When Comics Meet Creative Writing.” Lynda Barry in residence was teasing enough, but then there was the class taught by Chris Fink and John Porcellino! My kudos to those two profs. I betcha the student class work was terrific.
I came to Beloit in 1965 from a family in New Jersey that didn’t permit comics in the house. It took me a long and varied career to realize that drawing is a form of embodied writing, as described by the very cool anthropologist Michael Taussing in his book I Swear I Saw This: Drawing in Fieldwork Notebooks. Before the pandemic I started a new writing project called the Ancestry of Friendship which includes a series of condensed comic-style pages which have been in a couple of exhibitions, one in Santa Barbara, one here in Minnesota.
This page refers to a class I took in Old Testament theology at Beloit, circa 1966.
Thanks for your work on the magazine.
Nor Hall ’69
St. Paul, Minnesota
Bink Noll
I’d like to add my two cents to the great reminiscence about Bink Noll that Kevin Fenton provided in the last issue.
Later in my time at Beloit, Bink had all those enrolled in his class on Milton over to his house on Milton’s birthday. We had an alcoholic punch and were in high spirits. Someone said something mildly blasphemous, to which Bink said, “God will get you for that.” Just at that moment the lights in the house flashed off. We all gasped and then laughed loudly with delight. What a time we had, and at a professor’s house! Nothing seemed Beloitier.
Christian Nelson ’82
Deerfield, Massachusetts
In the photo on page 18 of the summer issue, the woman on the top left is Molly Rothenberg, not Diane Lichtenstein. Molly came to the College in 1984, the same year Clint McCown and I arrived. She left after a few years. Diane Lichtenstein came later. The photo was probably taken for the yearbook.
Larry White
Emeritus Professor of Psychology Madison, Wisconsin
The photo of the English department on the steps of WAC was snapped in August 1984, after we had read over 300 blue books as part of the writing placement program of yesteryear! … Otherwise, this was a superlative issue of the magazine!
Tom McBride
Emeritus Professor of English Madison, Wisconsin
Editor’s Note
Indeed, the caption for the photograph of the 1984 English Department on page 18 in the Bink Noll story incorrectly identified Molly Rothenberg as Diane Lichtenstein.
Many readers caught that error (there were over 30 comments on the alumni Facebook page alone, including one from Daniel Lenehan: “Unless I’m mistaken, this is the photo from the back cover of their third album. Quite a lineup.”) Thank you to all the Beloiters who noticed and let us know about it.
Remember This? Heck, yeah!
I can see why the plaid flannel reads 1990, but it’s actually 2008. Here’s my guess, from a C-Haus veteran. The guy in the middle is Sam Bell, tambourine in hand. Right behind him is Leland … Meyers I wanna say? To the right, on the guitar, that’s Ben Mercer. Front of the crowd with the digital camera — Dylan Squires. I recognize the woman in the lower left corner with the curly red hair but I forget her name. Likewise, the man on the drums with the beard.
Sean Hershey ’10
Brooklyn, New York
I’m in the photo! It’s actually 2008, not the 90s but it gave all us millennials a good laugh!
Liz Weck ’08
Chicago, Illinois
My guess is the C-Haus photo is actually from about 2008. I see Owen Bell ’08, Leland Meiners ’09, and Samuel Breslin ’09. Can’t remember the name of the guitarist in the yellow shirt. I see Liz Weck ’08 and Jess Johnson ’08 in the bottom left corner. And Dylan Squires ’09 in the red with the camera.
Jenny Lusk ’10
Chicago, Illinois
I recognize a bunch of the people in that picture of the C-Haus! It looks like it did on many a night spent there! On the tambourine is Owen Bell ’08. On the drums is Samuel Breslin ’09. Behind Owen to the right is Ben Mercer ’09 and directly behind Owen is Leland Meiners ’09. Dancing in the bottom left is Liz Weck ’08. I think in front of her is Stacey Anderson ’08 but can’t see her face! How fun to see this photo!
Elizabeth Starr ’09
Waltham, Massachusetts
I believe the person in the green tank top is Polly Barks ’11, and the person in front of her appears to be holding a digital camera.
Mary Keister ’11
Oxford, Ohio
The C-Haus photo was taken around 2007 or 2008. Members of the band are Ben Mercer ’09, Leland Meiners ’09, Samuel Breslin ’09, and Owen Bell ’08. I’ve forgotten the name of the band, but it may or may not be Stalactite (or was it Stalactight?).
Alex Schwartz ’09
Kansas City, Missouri
That photo was taken circa 2007-2008, not 1990. I know a number of these fine folks — we’re old but we’re not quite that old.
Onstage are: Owen Bell ’08 (tambourine), Samuel Breslin ’09 (drums), Benjamin Mercer ’09 (black guitar), and Leland Meiners ’09 (guitar, glasses). In the crowd: Stacey Anderson (blonde hair, red hoop earring, facing away from camera), Liz Weck (red hair, behind Stacey), Jess Johnson (next to Liz, face partially obscured), Amelia Buzzell ’10 (white patterned dress in the mid-background), Sean Keith ’09 (beard, in the shadows behind/left of Amelia), and possibly me (in the background hands raised, face half obscured). It’s possible that the person in the gray hat at the front is Liv Pollock.
There were so many great shows at the C-Haus. The two big deals who rolled through during my years were Dirty Projectors and Titus Andronicus. I was honored to perform on the C-Haus stage myself a couple of times, with my band Death Falcon (a folk duo with Kate Hermanns ’10) and as a member of Bad Boys Jazz Club (which featured Jack Katze ’11 on drums, Sam Hertz ’10 on bass, Blaize D’Angio ’11 on lead vocals, Corbin Bartell ’10 on saxophone, and many others whose names have been lost to the sands of time). I shared vocals in Death Falcon, played ukulele in both bands, and took lead vocals on one song with Bad Boys Jazz Club (a cover of Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual.”). I have a fond memory of Death Falcon’s show at the C-Haus in fall 2009, which ended with a full crowd sing and stomp along to our cover of The Riviera’s 1964 surf classic “California Sun.”
May the C-Haus stand forever, full of sweat, Spotted Cow, and joy.
Tyler McGaughey ’10
Chicago, Illinois
Remember this?
Credit: Beloit College ArchivesAn historian, an economist, and a sociologist worked the sidelines for Beloit football in the 1970s: professors Doug Nicoll, Emil Kreider, and Menno Froese.
Talk to us
Tell us what you think about this issue, or anything Beloit College related, by contacting belmag@beloit.edu. (We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity.)
