Johnny Johnson

Professor adams has written a very complete and splendid account of the career of Johnny Johnson '66, published in the MAGAZINE last month. The Outing Club was his obsession, if that's the proper term to designate a movement which has meant so much to Dartmouth College.

But Johnny Johnson was a character too with peculiarities and foibles which were often ludicrous and always unusual. Whenever he was away from Hanover or the vicinity he always thought of the Outing Club. If he thought any stock of merchandise could be bought for a bargain he would buy it and ship it to Hanover, no matter if it had no practical value. He was stone deaf and always dealt with Leland Griggs for he could read Leland's lips. That's what Leland says but no doubt he recognized Doc's personal charm and sincere interest.

Some of the shipments were highly amusing—loo green neckties of uncertain quality which had to be distributed to those who would accept them; 100 pairs of army breeches, most of them too big to fold gracefully around the limbs of a Tiny Marsans; 100 corn cob pipes suitable for a camp of French Canadian lumberjacks. One of the prize shipments was a keg of Worcestershire Sauce which was delivered to Leland at Butterfield Museum. Joe Berwick spotted it and said it looked as if it might have real exhilarating properties. So he poured out a glass, drank it down and then nearly ruined all the furniture trying to recover normalcy. Thereafter it was considered the part of prudence to investigate any of Johnny's shipments carefully before indulging.

What a raft of secondhand books he .bought and many of them weren't as useful as a Sears Roebuck catalog.

Leland always had instructions to furnish a bang-up Thanksgiving feed and send Johnny the bill. A check would come back promptly for the full amount less the celery which Johnny considered an extravagance. Leland always had to pay for that out of his own pocket.

At Christmas he used to send Leland gold which gradually dwindled down to 25 cent pieces. When Leland married he notified Johnny, trusting to the gold standard, and got back a ten cent piece wrapped in a large newspaper. Accompanying it was a note advising him if he really was married to keep it dark or the news would get into the Hanover Gazette.

Johnny had a rare sense of publicity and never missed a bet along that line, sometimes overstepping the bounds of truth. He liked to tell about the bear constantly seen around Great Bear Cabin. He said it finally got to be such a menace that he had to have a man stand on guard with a rifle so the men could go on building the cabin. No bear had been seen in that vicinity for twenty-five years.

He was a great old chap. No doubt he ran off with the whole Outing Club show but he gave it a big boost which insured its prosperity and standing for all time. He saw its real value and its opportunity and he gave all he had freely and almost recklessly for he finally had to rely on his pension for support. So let's never forget old Johnny Johnson.