THE WAWONA POW WOW
When we unlashed the old portable to bang out this story, what should fall out but a handful of pine needles. Shades of Wawona! Atmosphere enough to start us retrospecting to the tall pines, where the Western Wah-hoos pow-wowed on the White Man's Labor Day.
As we collected the pine needles—we are saving them for the fireplace in Dartmouth Room—our thoughts were as tangled as Main-and-Wheelock Street traffic at the Cornell game. How Buicks can boil! . . . How long was that mouth organ of Semp Smith's? . . . Those guys should have put their napkins on the dining room chairs before they stood on them . . . Wah-hoo-wah for Tom Flint 'BO, for Hoppy, for Exeter, Yale, and Wawona Chamber of Commerce . . . These co-ed alumni associations are great stuff . . . "Maggie, where were you at the bridge party?" . . . Bill Washburn's poem was almost as good as Roy Frothingham's skit . . . almost . . .You can't play good golf in that altitude . . . Too bad nobody was thrown in the pool . . . Any one of those trees would make a Lone Pine . . . Those Los Angeles boys certainly put life into the party.
We have had easier jobs than trying to pick the high lights of the Pow Wow. One of the best things, we think, was the fact that George Stoddard's program committee was bright enough not to have any program. Everyone did what he wanted; there was something to do all the time, and if you didn't want to enter the tennis tournament or the golfing contest or the ladies' bridge fight you didn't have to. But the Lumberjacks' Dance Saturday night saw plenty of stomping by young and old, and some of the really old grads tried to do the Virginia Reel with Semp Smith playing the sharps and flats. Whoopee was given and received by everyone at the official meeting of the Pow-Wowers Sunday night in the Lodge Hall of the Wawona Indians. It was especially fitting that our Sachem, Elmer Robinson 'l4, should have come from Pawtucket, which is also an Indian town. It was a joy to hear from so fine a Dartmouth man as Jim Townsend that the Pow Wow was as successful a Dartmouth party as he had ever attended. It was rare privilege to hear from Hoppy a special telegram to the Western Indians, and to realize that our activities are watched in Hanover with unceasing interest. And it was delightful to listen to so polished a speaker as Walter Gibson 'll, head of the Los Angeles bunch. He pulled out of a nasty bunker in good style when he told that joke. And we'll say here that if it hadn't been Walter amusing us, it would have been Jimmie Norton 'OB or Vic Salinger 'OO or Dolly Gray 'OB or Eddie Seward 'l9. These four boys from the Sunny South (advt.) probably did more amusing than any one else.
The cup for outdoor and indoor athletics went to Los Angeles. The points they did not get in tennis, golf, and riding, they made up in indoor sports such as eating, sleeping, and throwing quoits. And it was fitting that Vic Salinger should have received the cup for the South; he was the best sport of us all. A number of other rewards were awarded: Mrs. Bill Washburn 'l4 and Mrs. Tom Flint 'BO took first and second prizes in bridge; Web Evans 'OB and Dave Smith (son of Semp Smith '97) were finalists in the tennis tournament. Tommy Tomfohrde 'l5 was given a Frigidaire for his auto radiator, which boiled all the way from the city.
No Pow Wow is complete without statistics. We have them, with all the fixings: Total number of attendants was 122, of whom 52 were actual Dartmouth men, 37 from the San Francisco Bay District, and 15 from Los Angeles and the South. The class of 'OB had five men present; 'l9 had four; 'l4 and '26 each had three. The oldest class represented was Tom Flint's, 'BO, and the youngest 1927. F. P. Cleaves 'B7, and E. J. Bodwell 'BB, representing the second and third oldest classes, met at the Pow Wow for the first time since their undergraduate days forty-two years ago.
No man present was in college during 1889, but with that exception those present represented 52 continuous years of undergraduate life, from 1876 to 1927 inclusive. An interesting freshman-senior tandem covered the years 1891 to 1903: Jim Townsend entered college in 1891; when Jim was a senior Semp Smith was a freshman; when Semp graduated in '97 Vic Salinger was a freshman, and Herb Follett entered in 'OO, the year Vic graduated.
The largest single party was Tom Flint's with seven people. Bill Washburn was second with six.
One trial was enough to convince everyone that the Pacific Coast Pow Wow should be an annual affair. No one could suggest a better place to hold it than Wawona. During the winter months, when we gather round the fire and fill the pipe and bowl, through the haze of friendly smoke we can think and plan of the next trek of the Indians to the valley where the pines are tall, where the majesty of the hills suggests the stillness of the north country, and the scent of the woods recalls the hill winds of New Hampshire. Skoal!
The fifty-two Dartmouth men at Wawona were: From Los Angeles, G. C. Barnes 'll, Harry Dunham 'l2, W. B. Gibson 'll, J. H. Gray 'OB, R. E. Gresley '26, C. C. Hitchcock 'l6, G. H. Luten '25, J. J. Norton 'OB, E. L. Pratt '24, J. L. Richardson 'OB, V. R. Salinger 'OO, R. E. Seward 'l9, A. W. Shiels, Jr. 'l7, R. B. Thieme 'l6, H. J. Trefethen '26.
From San Francisco: H. P. Almon '22, K. B. Baldwin 'l9, Stillman Batchellor 'O5, W. R. Baumann '25, E. J. Bodwell 'BB, F. P. Cleaves 'B7, A. T. Clifton, Jr. '27, R. B. Collerd 'l7, R. S. Danforth 'OB, W. B. Evans 'OB, Thomas Flint 'BO, Tom Flint, Jr. '24, H. C. Follett 'O3, R. S. Frothingham 'l2, J. Garfein '2l, H. J. Gridley 'l4, L. I. Hewes '9B, R. L. Howes '27, A. C. Livingston 'l5, F. H. McCrea 'l9, W. A. Mudgett 'lB, W. H. Nigh '26, A. B. Patterson '9B (Napa, Cal.), W. H. Patterson 'O9, P. J. Reed '25, Elmer Robinson 'l4, S. C. Smith '97, G. C. Spokes- field 'lO, G. C. Stoddard 'lB, A. H. Tomfohrde 'l5, E. S. Townsend 'l9, J. A. Townsend '94, W. W. Washburn 'l4, W. D. Whittemore 'O4, W. D. Wilkinson 'lO, L. S. Wilson 'l3, B. L. Winslow '2O.
