Class of 1918
Besides affording a wide variety of contacts, diplomatic service seems to have still further advantages, particularly in providing abundant moments of leisure. It is at these times, we hear, that Dusty Rhodes has been doing some vigorous pen-pushing of late, and his literary talents have come to the fore. It is known that he contributes weekly articles to various home town sheets dealing with current events in London and thereabouts, and he handles all the society chatter with considerable finesse. With the Hartford Times our vice-consul is styled "Special Foreign Correspondent", a heading atop a long column of his. He also writes for that far famed favorite of the great "Americun peepul", the New York Graphic. It would not be at all surprising to see Dusty resigning from the consular service one of these days to follow a literary career.
Our perhaps most rising literary light (a rash qualification to make in view of the many who have taken up the fad started by someone (Was it Gene Markey?) has a contribution for this issue. We mean that Stan Jones has some voluble but welcome observations for us. Here are some of them:
According to the veracious Omaha Bee, Al Sibbernsen, of the famous Golden Smile, is shortly to pull a Cincinnatus and return to the soil. By the time most of us are buying a new straw hat or whitewashing the old one, Al will be pushing a plow on a 600 acre farm twenty miles out of Omaha. Al is ready to take in any of the boys who can shuck corn, bathe a pig, or manicure a horse, he says.
Duffy Lewis was recently mistaken for Matt McGrath by the cop at 42d and Sth, according to Tom Tarrant. (Knowing Tom, you can take this or toss it over your left shoulder.) Duffy says that Frank, the Grand Old Man and Erstwhile Boulevardier, has been recalled from Texas by his publishing firm and stationed in Philadelphia for a few months. It seems that he went to church down there one Sunday, and came out with five bulletholes in his fedora. Being too valuable a man to lose simply on a difference of religion, he was wired home for the nonce.
It is rumored in club circles that Joe Flo Dusossoit, whose Flemish name has driven countless letter-carriers and telephone operators to the boobyhatch, is shortly to arise from Philadelphia and pursue his shady duties in connection with Time in New York.
Driven to a frenzy by reading bale after bale of Earley's misleading literature, Ev Young, late of Peekskill, has cast his plaid cap into the life insurance arena. To show you how far some of them will go, Ev has enrolled in Earley's own company and will gumshoe, we understand, in Westchester. All we can say is this: if he embarks on a wholesale mail order business to the extent of his famous prototype, there will be two deaths in the near future, instead of one.
Advices from the West indicate stormy times for Denver. Al Johnson, co-hero with Fat Hardie of South Mass's most famous conflagration, is contemplating settling there. Sioux City's gain, it would seem, is most certainly Denver's loss. And Tom Campbell was just telling us—it seems only yesterday of the lofty moral tone which the city solons had achieved after years of strife with the undesirable element which somehow creeps into the life of every city, a one time or another. It's an ill wind, they say, which blows nobody good, but this seems to be it, all right, all right!
Your correspondent, between bursts of machine gun bullets in Chicago, interviewed Dave Skinner in his new apartment on the local Gold Coast. We were planning on spending a week with him, in fact, but Mrs. Dave explained that the furniture company had not moved in the beds as yet. An explanation which was not accepted, but since it was the first time we had encountered it, we had no ready counter-suggestion. Bots Young, considerably more portly than of yore, was at home in the most approved bent-elbow fashion in his apartment around the corner. We are figuring on another whirl in the Windy City as soon as Skinner installs those beds.
While rushing through Brooklyn on the way to the roller coaster at Coney Island last week (only to find them closed) we were amazed to see a short, rotund little man diving into a subway opening with what appeared to be a feather boa around his neck. Bidding the chauffeur wait, we darted in pursuit. Imagine our surprise when it proved to be none other than Blimp Morey, Brooklyn's inimitable lighterthan-air Falstaff, in sore need of a haircut. "I guess", he said, fingering the luxuriant curls on the back of his neck with a sheepish air,' "that I'd better see a barber, at that. The way things are going in this country to-day, there's apt to be a law against it next week." He was roundly cheered by a grinning circle of hangerson.
This same incomparable Morey has come across with a clean sweep of practically all the remaining news there is to be had hereabouts. His stories read something like this :
"Laundryman Weds" says October 29 Albany, N. Y., newspaper headline. And below it states that Harold Killip Ross, Esq., has been caught in the wringer of matrimony with Miss Margaret Adele Williams (now Mrs. H. K. Ross) turning the crank. Rumor has it that Rossy is still pursuing his regular duties by day, to wit, mismating socks and wrenching buttons from shirt fronts. But at night his job is reversed. Seated in a comfortable chair by the fire at 39 Elk St., Albany, he can be found most any night, darning away at his little socks or sticking buttons back where they belong. Oh, well, we can't be boss everywhere.
The Erie Railroad has lost a good customer. Paul (T. A.) Miner, who has bolted his breakfast in a single gulp every working day morning for over three years in his effort to catch the 7 :02 out of Ridgewood and then to subway to 59th St., Manhattan, has finally moved to within striking distance of his job. Paul has relinquished his title "New York's longest distance commuter" in order to be home occasionally before it is time to go to bed. He still graces the 59th St.. branch of the Chase National Bank (which also boasts of the services of Wart McElwain and Andy Ross, in the main office). But his home address is now on West 83rd St., New York city.
The official jury of 1918 medal pinners recently called at the home of Musty Pounds in Larchmont, N. Y., and awarded him the palm for "1918's most educated man." Mike's registration at the Pace and Pace school of accounting ended the long wrangling of the jury over the status of other contestants, such as Tom Campbell, Bob Munson, and Harry Collins. Karl Hutchinson was considered for a time because he was going to school at the Vacuum Oil Company's training class for engineers. But he was thrown out on the grounds that he certainly needed it. Mike's coup came by starting in long after everybody else had turned their backs on education and had found some other way to pass the time. They say that Mike has become a real factor in the University Club at Larchmont. Hence he cautioned us to keep this high school news quiet, as it may injure his good standing and his presidential prospects. We are doing our best by him.
You can imagine the furor at the Martha Washington Hotel, New York's fashionable hostelry for females only, when Andy Ross and Wart McElwain arrived bag and baggage, stamped through the lobby and announced that from now on the hotel was to be their permanent residence. After much polite explanation on the part of the room clerk and the manager, and much jostling and umbrella waving on the part of irate room-holders, Atidy and Mac graciously consented to take a room next door. This was only accomplished after the manager had signed an agreement to permit these bold boys to pay their room bill and collect their mail in the hotel lobby. Despite the apparent protests of inmates, it is unofficially rumored that the Martha Washington is now doing the largest volume of business in the history of the hotel. Andy and Mac can be found, sometimes, in their room at 33 East 29th St. Their telephone number? Look up the Martha Washington.
The opening of the new Dartmouth Club House in New York has had a magnetic influence on 1918-ers. There have already been staged three class dinners in the new quarters. The first, late in November, drew out some twenty-five of the boys, and the subsequent ones during Christmas week and on January 25 proved equally successful. A short description of the first affair is typical of many that follow.
Little Stump Barr arrived early, chaperoned by Dave Garrett. After discovering, to their chagrin, that the club did not boast of a bar, they disappeared and returned considerably later in considerable fog. Roy Howland, Cliff Daniels, Tom Bryant, Ed Mader, Bob Morriosn, and Ru Hesse went over the club house from cellar to garret and announced that it would do.
King Root and Stan Jones swapped stories at the end of one table, and swapped their olive pits for other members' fresh rolls. Ernie Earley was on hand with his regular allotment of oil, and greased everybody that came within shouting distance. His pocket bulged with his regular supply of blank insurance applications.
Larry Pope, the Brooklyn recluse, was seen for the first time in 1918's New York history, —an example which should be followed by some of the other boys who are playing hide and seek with their classmates.
Andy Ross, Paul Miner, Danny Shea, Syl Morey, Bob Fish, George Davis, Pete Caldwell, and divers other epicures partook of the club's mutton chops and pronounced them excellent. What more can be said?
We have the news that Red Hulbert is now in Japan. For the past two years he was stationed in Antwerp, Belgium, where he wrestled strenuously with exchange in the interests of the General Motors Company. Recently he was assigned to Bombay, India, for a month, and is at present settled in Japan as an agent of the company.
In reply to the Christmas greeting sent to him at Saranac Lake by the class, Joe Philbin in a letter to Ernie Earley writes as follows:
"Let me tell you how happy the class of 1918 made me at Christmas by the magnificent gift and greetings which I received. It is heartening to one has so many wellwishers.
"The going has been tough for the last couple of years, but there's a lot of fight left in the old boy yet, and the friendly thoughts of my classmates have added to it.
"Will you let them know for me how much I appreciate what they have done? And, I am certainly grateful to you, Ernie, for your part in the greeting. A happy and prosperous New Year to you and all 1918 is my wish.
Cordially, Joe Philbin
P. S. Count me in for the 10th.
It develops that the reason for all the quietness of Harvey Hood's matrimonial affairs is that the supposed wedding never took place, at least, not yet. This momentous slip made in the notes of the December issue was due to carelessness on our part in not checking up the source of our information on the subject before printing it. What is there left for us but to tender our profuse apologies to Harvey, to the young lady, and to all those who have been misled and inconvenienced by that premature notice published in these columns?
The saddest event that has been our lot to chronicle is the unfortunate and sudden death of Robert P. Reese on December 11th. The class of 1918 sympathizes deeply with Bob's widow and family, and feels that it, too, has suffered an irreparable loss.
Secretary, 953 Madison Ave., New York
