Stephen Theodore Bemis – 50th Reunion Essay

Stephen Theodore Bemis

6500 Jennings Road

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

stbemis@gmail.com

734-646-6091

Spouse(s): Judith Bemis (1972 -)

Child(ren): Todd (1978); Nathan (1980)

Grandchild(ren): Christopher, Ariel, Katarina, Sarena, Emma, Leena, Lane, Lee

Education: IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, JD (1975)

Career: Sanitary engineer, personnel manager, benefits manager for 10 years variously for GTE Automatic Electric, Hammond Organ Co. and The Marmon Group; ERISA, litigation, envrionmental, and general corporate law practice for 35 years for Masco Corporation.

Avocations: Hay farmer; small farm and raw milk advocate; amateur radio volunteer with sheriff’s department for extreme weather and other emergency service; local church leadership roles.

College: Trumbull

First, the name. My birth certificate has no middle name, but I was baptized with a middle name after Ted, my only uncle. Thusly middle-named from age six months (except for draft and passport, both of which had required the birth certificate), about 10 years ago I decided to become “NMN” on all IDs, lest I spend hours in an airport TSA interview explaining why my passport and other IDs did not match. Thank God I was “Beam” and not “Ted” during Yale years or otherwise.

Besides name change, upon reflection it seems like I’ve changed in other ways but stayed the same in many. In 1965, fresh off a bang-up high school career, I was a straight-laced geek (not much change here, although it is clear that straight-lacing ties one up with significant self-righteousness which is fertile ground for other stuff). I rolled up solo cab at Phelps Gate. after my first-ever airplane ride (a roaring Boeing 707), limo to Grand Central, and finally train. I was exhausted and scared, having never seen the place after applying last minute at the urging of an alumni interviewer. Scholarships, loans, bursary job up the yin-yang; I was living proof of the admit-first, then financial-aid-will get-you-here policy. I then held a radio amateur (“ham”) license, lapsed during sophomore year, and which I’ve just reacquired almost 50 years later. I’ve always been drawn to techie stuff, an interest manifested at Yale in at least one notable instance early senior year after I bought a nifty battery-powered tape recorder at the Co-op, and by serendipity brought it to Brewster’s announcement of coeducation in the Trumbull dining hall, where I recorded most of the proceedings, now available on our reunion website.

I had a rough time freshman year, my straight-laced self particularly at odds with roommate Frank Knoblauch. Frank was way advanced in Spanish (and in sense of humor), and to my surprise it seems freshman year had been tough for him as well: he spent sophomore year teaching ESL in Colombia. We corresponded regularly, and upon his return into the class of 1970, we again became roommates. A big change. A Minnesotan, he loaned me skates and pads, and several of us gamely skated Trumbull hockey where our opposition often had a power play simply by virtue of our number who suited-up. Frank was my best man, and our friendship (including our wives, Judy and Bette) endured until his untimely death from prostate cancer. Other roommates also remain in contact with warm “friendships formed at Yale.”

Judy, my wife of 47 years, love of my life, has often inspired change with a strategic/timely kick in the pants. We’ve been through much in raising two great kids, enjoying eight grandchildren, and in conquering things like smoking, drinking, maintaining healthy diets and weight, exercising, etc. The most recent and in many ways toughest challenge is with my anger management, which in unexpected ways has benefited from the retrospective suggested by this “most excellent” essay assignment. “Boola Boola.”