A new feature of the annual meetings of the Secretaries Association is the award of a prize to the best class and to the best association secretary of the year. Twenty is proud that the first award for association secretaries should go to our own ABE WINSLOW, secretary of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of the Pacific Coast. Congratulations, Abe, and many thanks for the second installment of news of Twenty on the Coast, which we print in our column this month. A full report of the meetings which your Secretary attended will be found elsewhere in this issue.
In my letter last month I promised you more news from our Pacific Coast gang, especially a report on the "Cherry Convention" that fruit enthusiast, DICK KIMBALL, was going to attend. True to form, Dick writes:
"Guess I had better give you a line on the barbecue before it slips my mind.
"Last Saturday, March 5, well, what a day that was. About the middle of the morning a group of eight congenial souls, all cherrygrowers, set out for the Santa Cruz mountains just ten miles west of San Jose. The host of the party owned one of the mountains, and we all had a lot of exercise tramping around sampling the water from the various springs. At noon we had a delicious lunch, which consisted of one pound of steak, properly barbecued, and one quart of wine per man.
"Now, just why wine should make me think of VINC BREGLIO and SAL ANDRETTA, I do not know, but as I was inhaling the beautiful aroma of good Italian wine, I wondered if we could not have a line about their doings in the next issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE.
"Old man SONNENBERG is another, Abe, that we might get for some news. He showed some of us out here last fall how to use the flying tackle as a weapon of defense. Since his return from the Islands, though, dope about Gus has been meagre on this Coast. "Sincerely,
"DICK"
The barbecue that Dick mentions is not unusual in California. Our Alumni Association has enjoyed three such events in recent years—twice at the ranch of Bill Wright '18, Carmel, and once in Sonoma county at Stillman Batchellor's '05. "Breg" and "Sal," where are they? Come West, young men, come West!
Every time I see Dick he further impresses me the importance of eating more cherries; he claims that the California cherries are going to be finer .than ever this year. Don't think that Dick is merely a fruit distributor. He told me yesterday that they had just sold a carload of green peas for eastern consumption. That should make you New Englanders feel bad.
I find that The K(imball)ew Company, San Jose, Calif., distributors of fresh fruits and vegetables, is competing with another of our classmates, ED MALING, who will interest you in "petrified" fruits and vegetables. He writes from Hillsboro, Oregon, in part as follows :
"Abe, stop hoarding. Spell it out—CALIFORNIA. And you must not associate the words 'business conditions' and 'worse' with CALIFORNIA, where things are better. It cannot be that CALIFORNIA would have better worse conditions.
"However, if you want to be a help to the good cause, ask Mrs. Abe to look around the grocery stores until she finds a carton of frozen fresh vegetables, preferably peas, distributed by FROSTED FOODS, INC., of San Francisco, CALIFORNIA.
"Take this home and cook the contents as the directions direct. If you do not like fresh vegetables on your table, call in your neighbors and let them sample the peas in the kitchen. They will comment favorably, and then you can tell them what your Dartmouth friend is doing up in Oregon. "Sincerely,
"ED"
Thanks, Ed, for prompting me on the use of the word California, and also about the "worse" business in our state—it is getting better.
BILL DUBKEE writes as follows from Los Angeles:
"During the past six months I have been steadily sawing wood at routine work, and nothing exciting one way or the other has happened to me.
"The end of 1931 we sold our business to the Shell Oil Company, and consequently it has kept me stepping quite lively to get all of the details worked out for my new bosses.
"I get to San Francisco quite often, and the next time I am there I shall make it a point to get together with you, when we can hash over the doings of the various fellows in '20.
"With kind personal regards, I am "Sincerely yours,
"BILL"
I am looking forward to that date, Bill, for I know that you can tell me lots more than you have written.
There is no question about Bill's "sawing wood and stepping quite lively to get all the details worked out for his new bosses." Shortly after receiving his communication, I was reading the financial page of a San Francisco newspaper and came across the following announcement:
DURKEE TO MANAGE LOS ANGELES DIVISION OF SHELL OIL
"William Durkee, formerly vice-president of Shell Service, Inc., has been appointed manager of the -Southern Division of the Shell Oil Company with headquarters in Los Angeles, it is announced . . ."
Congratulations, Bill. The following from another Southern Californian, S. F. CALHOUN, is appreciated:
"I hope you will excuse my not answering your friendly note before this, but I really haven't any news that would be of interest, I'm sure.
"I do enjoy the luncheons that are held down here, and Dartmouth men have been instrumental in securing my last two positions, so I have a feeling of gratitude for the Association, and it is a big regret that I was not able to continue with '20 and secure a Dartmouth degree.
"As far as personal news of myself—I have been in two receiverships in the last two years and have been working as an auditor with Lybrand, Ross Bros., and Montgomery through the busy season. Now I am spending my leisure (which is all the time) hoeing around the roses and amusing my five-year- old Native Daughter, Nancy."
Thanks, Fred, for the newsy letter. Along with a "no response" from KIRK CHARLES and PAUL SAMPLE, I must admit failure in stirring up news from ERIC HAUSER and JOHN BERANEK, up north. I added as a postscript to them, "If conditions get no worse, a letter in March will reach me at 140 New Montgomery St., San Francisco." Evidently they took for granted that conditions got no better—nevertheless, I am still here co-ordinating sales efforts for the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company.
I have news for most of you about the MILLER family, at least it must be news to people in the East if it is to me, living only a mile from "Vert" in Berkeley. I learned only the other day that they have a new baby girl, now about four months old.
I have thought that long field trips were taboo for 1932, but the American Optical Company representatives are evidently not involved. Who should call me last Monday but KEN SPALDING, who claims to be here on a business trip. Had lunch with him today up the alley—quite a come-down from the "hotel" lunches of 1929. If he stays over until Saturday I will demonstrate further how he can make an impression on the boss, when he reluctantly forwards his voucher for approval, by taking him over to another of San Francisco's finest eating places, where you get all the dinner you can eat for seventy- five cents—and buy a box for 5 cents in which you carry away all that you cannot eat.
Come West, young men, come West!
Secretary, 774 Great Plain Ave., Needham, Mass.