CLASS OF 1926
The following letter by Ritchie C. Smith is the fourth of a series written by each member of the executive committee to the class. In the next issue, Doug Everett will give us a touch of old New England atmosphere.
Here I had been planning to write the '26 notes for this coming Alumni Bulletin, using the sunny California climate as the main theme song, and this morning's paper (San Francisco) burst forth with the following headlines:
STORM ISOLATES STATE: AVALANCHE MAROONS TRAINS
and then continues: "California was almost as snowbound as storied New England last night. One of the worst blizzards in the history of this state had piled the snow on the mountains from the Mexican border to the Oregon Line as deep as eighteen feet in sections. At Norden (where we San Francisco Alumni Association hold our annual ski outing) 202 inches of snow was on the level."
Now, on the level, I calls that a tough break for this albeit too honest scribe, and, what with but a handful of Twenty-sixers in these parts, I must admit to being somewhat at a loss for words to fill this column now that my proposed thunder has been stolen. Well, anyhow, it's a fine thing for the farmer, and goodness knows these days I'm for anything that will help the farmer, on account of my having as my own special territory for sales efforts country that is largely given over to agriculture. I use agriculture in this sense to include orange and lemon groves, olives, peaches, cherries, grapes, pears, apricots, apples, rice, wheat, cotton, sheep, chickens, cattle, and combinations of same. Add to this sort of country the redwoods of the coast counties, the deserts of Nevada, the lakes and streams of the Sierra Nevada Mountains plus that most interesting section of early California history, the Mother Lode goldmining district made famous in story by Mark Twain (The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County) and Bret Harte (The Luck of Roaring Camp), and you have a pretty good picture of the kind of environment I find myself in most of the time. Before starting off on a trip, I throw my rifle, shot gun, fishing rod, golf clubs, swimming suit, and a few books in the back of the car and thus fortify myself for any contingency that may arise in connection with the selling of Ginn and Company's books to the pedagogues of Northern California and Nevada. If you must be a traveling salesman, and I seem to like it somehow, I recommend your selecting just such a territory.
In order not to become too detached from civilization, I come down to home in Berkeley and office in San Francisco occasionally, and there my week-ends invariably consist of golfing activities with Don Hoffman, Bill Nigh, and Slim Bauman '25. Modesty forbids my mentioning our respective handicaps. Of course, Don and Bill have good alibis in the form of sleepless nights, getting drinks of water, or whatever babies cry for at four or five in the morning.
Speaking of Hoffman, he has been out here in San Francisco now for about a year and a half, representing the P. and M. Company, dispensers of railroad supplies. Before leaving the East, he hitched up for life with a swell teammate, Emmy by name, and they have started domestic life in earnest at 2210 Jackson St. If you should call on them this week, you would probably find Don playing with six-months-old Don Junior's electric train, that is if he hasn't already worn it out, in which connection I might add that young Don in size and general demeanor looks and acts not unlike his papa did freshman year.
Don and Emmy went down to Hollywood for a week-end with Charlie Starrett recently and came back with glowing accounts of the latter's advent into the movies. Don reports that "Charlie's twin boys (Charlie and Davie, age two and two) certainly look as though they would make fine material for the line in the years to come, and from the way some of the boys are going, it looks as though the classes around 1950 will be pretty well filled."
Because the "Little Colonel," Bill Nigh, has been out here ever since graduation, and, as a consequence, I have seen more of him and know more about him than any of the other Twenty-sixers in these parts, I thought it only fair to give him a break and let him speak for himself, so wrote him a letter a month ago asking him very politely to write up his own story for these notes. With no reply as of yesterday, I gave him a hurry-up by telephone, and this is the result in today's mail.
"Am taking you at your word and using the back of your paper so generously donated by 'Ginn and Company,' but I expect the 'school book trust' is about the only outfit making money these days!
"This is being written in a damned big hurry, as you probably know, but as you don't know by first-hand experience, the duties connected with the upbringing of a four-months-old daughter (Kate Salisbury) are many.
"Trying to sell lumber now that the depression is over and the panic is here occupies a lot of time, and in this connection, were I single again, I might be able to make use of my speaking acquaintance with you and capitalize in the Sacramento Valley, where you are head man.
"My home life is principally regulated by feeding time, bottles, etc., with a slight falling down in the attention given to golf. "Well, here's your damned page filled."
You see he is just as ornery as ever, and how he ever lined up such a sweet-dispositioned lady as Kate Boardman for a wife is beyond me. Fortunately the daughter aforementioned is the living image of her mother. Bill is assistant sales manager in the San Francisco office of the McCloud River Lumber Company, and has book matches with his name on them and everything which he passes out indiscriminately to friends and prospects. He spends most of his time in a swivel chair at his office, but when sales drop off, you are liable to run into him high-pressuring some unsuspecting farmer-lumber dealer into buying California white pine for the real thing most anywhere in the state.
I will say this in his behalf, he engineered a real Dartmouth get-together at his home the Saturday afternoon of the DartmouthStanford game. Further details upon request, but we should prefer to hear no more about it I mean the game. Life is hard enough without that.
Incidentally, Bill Morton is out here now for the Shriners' East-West game to be played on New Year's day. He spoke at our regular Monday luncheon, and made a real hit with all men present. I must admit that Western football would be on a much more healthy plane if it had more men of his football attitude, not to mention ability.
Westwood is a small town, lumber camp, and railroad center in Northern California, and from it came the following letter, marked Walt Armstrong, P. O. Box 163:
"As for vital statistics, I can only say that I am still employed in the engineering department of the Western Pacific Railroad, and the size of my family has not increased any since March, 1929, when Mary Eleanor Armstrong became a member by marriage.
"Please allow me to remind you that the East has no monopoly on 'bleak, icy wastes.' Right here in Lassen county, we are as bleak and as icy as anyone could desire. In place of golfing and swimming we are having plenty of good skating and skiing, while yesterday, instead of daisies, I went out and plucked four Christmas trees, assorted sizes. We are not complaining, however, because we are having gorgeously crisp winter days, and these pine woods are very beautiful in their frost coverings.
"Like all country people, we think longingly of the city, but California mountains are more than worth while in the wintertime, until the spring thaws, at any rate. Ankledeep slush in good old Westwood makes me terribly homesick for Hanover in March. The footing is much the same. When the thaws arrive, we hope to be on the way to San Francisco, for a vacation at least. We came up here to help build a railroad in the summer of 1930, and the job is practically completed now. So the summer of 1932 should see us in the backwoods somewhere else. And I certainly hope that it will be in California from now on."
"Minie" LaFever has passed through San Francisco several times, but always I seem to be off in the woods somewhere. As for his behavior and thoughts, I will, therefore, have to let him speak for himself. If you don't agree with him, you can reach him at 6618 West Sixth St., Los Angeles.
"As for the statistics you wish, here they are: Blissfully single and thoroughly enjoying said condition, the address you already have, children there aren't any to my knowledge, and lastly, I am one of those much talked of, much abused, and much misunderstood traveling salesmen, believe it or not. I have a very nice line up with a man here on the Coast, who represents three New York houses selling leather goods (ladies, miss, and children hand bags) and within a couple of years, at least, I expect to inherit the business and handle the entire line by myself. Such a line up in these times of so-called depression, really is something and I am very happy to have made the connection.
"The people in the East have heard all about our Sunny California, wonderful climate, orange and lemon groves, beautiful desert and mountain resorts, scenery beyond compare, and all the rest of the 'Ballyhoo' that our various chambers of commerce are always talking about. These facts they have come to accept as a matter of fact, and there doesn't seem to be any dispute about the matter. There is another angle which they refuse to see, to accept, to acknowledge, or want to know about, and that is simply our ability here on the Coast to play FOOTBALL.
"In the eight years I have been out here, I have followed that sport and one team in particular, U. S. C., and now, I really have something to crow about. The results of the various intersectional games this year have proven very conclusively to me that the Pacific Coast is beyond doubt the 'King' this year. To prove that statement just recall to the minds of our '26 members the following games: Oregon vs. N. Y. U. St. Mary's vs. So. Methodist Stanford vs. Minne. Stanford vs. Dartmouth (I hate to mention that) U. C. L. A. vs. Florida U. S. C. vs. Georgia U. S. C. vs. Notre Dame. Then to close my argument, the Dickinson award going to U. S. C. for the National Championship, regardless of the New Year's Day game. The real gentlemen sports writers and coaches acknowledge our ability, but the 'small fry,' who talk the loudest and say the least, think that nothing worth while exists west of the Mississippi river, and they make me sick. All of the above games were very disheartening to the various sections of the country represented, and I am glad of it on account of the attitude they all assume. I guess you can gather from the above that I have become an ardent Pacific Coast 'Ite' and am proud of it, but at the same time I feel that there isn't a better school than dear old Dartmouth and will always feel that way."
"Tref," the Herman J., is located in Pasadena, and is doing a rushing business these Christmas days at the S. H. Kress and Company five and dime store. Sorry to have to mention it, but he evidently met that milliondollar baby, and now there is a two-year-old young Tref. If you wish to satisfy that craving for avocado pears, give him a call at 254 East Colorado St.
Bill Gamble has gone into business for himself in a large way, at least if the headlines on his stationery are any indication. They read as follows:
WILLIAM A. GAMBLE
Car-lot Broker and BuyerFRUITS AND PRODUCE 229 E. B. Rivers Bldg. Los Angeles
Although terrifically busy with the Christmas rush in exchanging citrus and deciduous fruits for Cape Cod cranberries, he took time off to report that:
"Up until the fifteenth of this month, I was a representative of the Pacific Fruit and Produce Company at different points, from time to time, moving from one deal to another. I became tired of traveling around the state. You see I have a wife and a baby boy. The boy is just three years old and is just getting to the age when he gets a big kick out of Christmas. Here's wishing you a merry one."
I always thought better of him, but Murray Knowlton ups and confesses from his dive in San Diego that he has gone in for it in a professional and heart-rending way, to wit:
"Plumb in the middle of a true confession you send me a letter from a publishing house! Honest, it ain't right. Here I am not knowing whether I am a blonde with blue eyes or a blushing brunette, and you ask me questions. Now I awsk you, . . ..is that playing fair?
"(My secretary came to the rescue. For the moment I am a flaxen-haired little thing, so sweet, so innocent.)
"Ed's not: 'You know damn well you ain't got no secretary, so what are yuh talkin' like that for!'
"There, you see what a life I lead! . . . What with Ed always butting in and the oranges ready to pick from the trees in the back yard so that they can be sent to the folks back home for Christmas, I don't have a minute to myself.
"By the way, how are those figs you were telling me about? Are they ripe yet?
"(Take that, and that . . . you Eskimos back East . . . and think it over as you fall off the ski jump.)
"I told somebody awhile back that I had a wife. Can't remember who it was that I told though, so I repeat. Produced myself a boy too. Great kid.
"While the rest of you have been busy settling down I have been running around with a typewriter and camera, so at present I have a fine collection of rejection slips as my sole and total asset.
"I think I have done everything except drive a locomotive, and I am receiving bids on that. If any of you railroad presidents have anything to offer please communicate with my agent.
"Don't miss 'Lurid Lips.' I'm a red-head in that one, and even my shaving mirror failed to recognize me."
And now to relieve the situation for a moment, let us turn to Golden, Colo., 1616 Maple St., from whence Babe Allen writes:
"First I came to Colorado in 1925 and like the country so much that I returned in 1926. The mountains and the almost continual sunshine in contrast to the Eastern seacoast were like visiting the Promised Land. Californians take notice! Fooling aside, this is certainly a great country, and Colorado is a fine place to live. Right now I am writing this note under the supervision of Betty Lue Allen, age 23 months, who is quite a bundle of joy and fully alive for ten hours daily. Yes, I married a Denver girl, Laura Graham, Smith '27, so now I am really Westernized. I came to the Colorado School of Mines in 1927-28-29, in 1930-31 director of athletics in addition. I hope to remain a year or two more, as I am studying mining engineering here. I guess that's that, so, old man, I'll wish you a very merry Christmas and a bright New Year."
Just one more thing, and I promise to sign off. The October issue of the Alumni '26 Class Notes carried a paragraph with respect to a Tenth Reunion guarantee fund. What about it? We outhereare already making plans for a real Western Tenth Reunion Special.
We neither wish to add or detract from Ritchie's fine letter. In fact, were it not for his timely epistle we would have been quite lost for news, due partly to the inactivity surrounding the holidays and also because the finishing touches have just been given to the sth Report.
We did hear of one very fine Christmas present in the following form: We take Pleasure inAnnouncing the Appointment ofMr. Charles S. Bishopas Manager of our Newark OfficeNational Newark Building744 Broad Street GUARANTY COMPANY OF NEW YORK
New addresses have been registered as follows:
Dick Major has transferred his domicile to 1 Greenridge Ave., Bldg. 1, White Plains, N. Y.
Tom Needham has migrated to the heart of the city at 240 East 48th St., New York city.
Ralph McClure, as office manager, can be reached at the Buckeye Cotton Oil Cos., Charlotte, N. C.
Million Dollar Cleary is with the St. Nick's amateur hockey team, is keeping training, and as goalie will no doubt appear in print endorsing Spaulding's knee-pads or something.
Secretary, 1060 Broad St., Newark, N. J.
