Class of 1919
Earlier in what is generally winter we saw an advertisement headed Modem SkiTechnique by Otto Schniebs and J. W. McCrillis. No doubt you all know that Professor Schniebs is winter sports coach, but did you know that his co-author is our own John McCrillis, leading insurancer of Newport, N. H.?
As we threatened last month, we went to Hanover to get a breath of fresh air and see if we couldn't get a word or two of news. We saw Otto Schniebs doing his stuff on skis, and if John can be mentioned in the same breath he must be pretty good.
You fellows who have been posing as ski experts just because you went to Dartmouth, better go back and learn the story over again. Things have changed. Going off the big jump looks to these copy-reading eyes like so much child's play compared to the things they do now. We saw the college championship down-hill and slalom races, and we don't believe it even yet. They started on one of the steepest parts of Moose Mt., where the trees are so thick you can't see more than twenty feet in any direction, they jumped off a precipice and turned to the left, corkscrewed their way in and out of the pines with hairpin turns every twenty yards or so, and finished poling for all they were worth between the two cabins. We can't make it sound anywhere near hard enough, but we appreciate what it was, because we had all kinds of difficulty the day before getting down the same place on the good old feet. And of course this is only small potatoes to most of them. There's really nothing anywhere around Hanover that makes a good ski hill. When they want some just plain skiing they go up Mt. Washington and run down the carriage road. The real test, however, is something like Tuckerman's Ravine, which we are told is a perpendicular wall about two and a half miles high. They come down by zigzaging across the face, with a fancy turn at the end of each zig. It is so steep that the wall of the ravine is only a few inches from your elbow on one side, but as near as we can figure it's a couple of miles on the other.
Tuckerman's is considered fairly sporting and not to be undertaken by old alumni who used to do the golf course hill in three falls, but judging from the reports we got they have now found one even better. A few weeks ago they ran a race down Cannon Mountain, which is practically overhanging. One of the contestants confided in me that any idea he had of racing left his mind before he left the top and his sole purpose was to get to the bottom alive any time before Tuesday. Fortunately, we managed to find people who advised us that the snow was not just suitable for our style of skiing, and we contented ourselves with a few workouts in the Occom Pond hockey rinks.
We saw Cottie, and Max, and Bill, of course, and we were royally entertained by them. Bill and Ruth are living across the river in Norwich. Max has become one of the town fathers. He is police commissioner, a position of considerable responsibility, besides being treasurer of every organization in Grafton county. On top of all this he has become an ardent stamp collector, specializing in United States stamps. If any of you boys find a stamp with Lillian Russell and Grover Cleveland riding in a Victoria or anything odd like that, send it to Max. He'd be mad about it.
Cottie has got his old room in the Howe Library back, and is as comfortable and contented there as a cat on a hearth. We gave up our last hope of his ever getting married when we found him so ensconced with two lovely birds in two gilded cages. One is a demonstrative little cuss named Charlie, who sings on the slightest provocation and can get up quite a volume when you're playing a small slam in spades doubled. The other is a dumb thing called a finch, which looks like a robin and sings only while Cottie is shaving. While we were there he was trying to teach them to take baths, a real knotty problem. We suggested showers be installed, but he said no—too messy.
While we were about town we saw Jock Murray, who spends two days a week looking after nervous cases in the undergraduate body. Ken Huntington went through town on his way to Orford, where his father has a large farm. He said the business in New Rochelle got so slow he felt he'd better get in a little holiday. He got it just in time, as did we.
Secretary, 87 State St., Framingham Center, Mass
