Some Overtones
Had a letter from Bill Fitzhugh, asking me to find out what I could about the boys in Chicago and telephone any information to Ted Huck in Riverside. Since I'm now living in Vermont and haven't lived in Chicago for two years anyway, I'm afraid that idea is somewhat impractical and I'm sending my pittance direct.
Had a card from Dud ("Radio") Russell, postmarked "Lyme Regis, England." He had cycled from London and was hoping to make Dartmouth in another day. He was having a good time, except that he nearly got removed by some of London's lefthanded traffic. The latter is all right when it's light but when there's an emergency one just seems to go to the right and think everyone else is crazy. Dud claimed to have a job with the N. W. Airways fixed up for his return.
Lowie Haas has been spending the summer as a gentleman of leisure, cruising with the Barbary Coast on the "Volendam." He sent a card, announcing that they had made a recording for Decca, with Sis Mann, Bill's brother, doing the vocals. They have excellent arrangements of two first-rate tunes and both are played smoothly enough to satisfy a pretty exacting critic.
One of our former members, Ray Morgan, is reported to be back at Dartmouth and studying Medicine. Since leaving Hanover, Ray has tried a variety of things, including two other schools and professional acting at the World's Fair.
Al Clark and Ralph Specht are two of the '35-ers who are taking training courses with various of the land's basic industries. Al is in Hines, Oregon, where he will spend two years learning the lumber business from the stump up. Ralph is working for the United Shoe Machinery Co., where they have written examinations after their periods in each department. That calls back the memory of too many dismal weeks in February and June.
My summer started off with a trip to England playing in an orchestra with four other Dartmouths, all of whom are back pursuing learning in Hanover. Going over they kept us playing all the time because when they had intermissions the contrast between music and silence made the latter seem so pleasant that the Pursur, who was a Man of Activity, was afraid the dance would be stopped lay popular request. Coming back we started out playing for tea, dinner and evening dancing but we were told to leave them out one by one, so that for the last two days our only audience was a part of the crew. In spite of that we got there and got back. I had one particularly amusing evening in Ostende playing bass in a Beligan orchestra, where none of the members of the orchestra could speak much English and I could speak no French. They finally took me for a Londoner whose picture they had often seen in London musical magazines and were very disappointed when they found that I was only an American and had never even had my picture in the Defiance Crescent-News.
After going to Chicago, back to Maine, and back again to Chicago, I'm settled down and working for the Vermont Marble Company here in Proctor. Aside from showing a few tourists through the shops, I've spent most of the time pricing tombstones. One of the nice features of it is that we get through in time for three or four sets of tennis or nine holes of golf every afternoon. I haven't had time to wire my room for the usual personalized lighting system yet, but have just put in a baffle board for my radio which baffles the speaker, the landlady, and sometimes myself.
