Class of 1933
In spite of the heated controversy in re the 1932 Class Baby which is being waged in the neighboring column by the wily Owsley (who in his college days, I might warn you, was known as "Gentleman Charlie"), life in Salem, Mass., goes on as usual. Mr. and Mrs. Archie Gordon probably haven't even considered consulting the "books" about this maddening and nice question, what with the care and cogitation incidental to the possession of Stanley Irwin, 8 lbs. 7 oz., who arrived at 34 Loring St. on the ninth of November at 6 A.M. Archie has this to say: "Still trying to getstarted in business. Not a bad start, ehwhat? One year out and it's 'Good-byeMontreal, hello Wolf.'"
The gay holiday season brought with it a pleasurable influx of brightly tinted greeting cards.
Bill Gibbons sent me one from Youngstown, Ohio, with a note that he has been with the Republic Steel Corp. there for the past seven months.
Henry Pierpont's offering contained an invitation to settle in gusty, youthful Omaha among the red Indians, the blockhouses, and the prairie schooners.
The sparse-haired Smart's addition to the pile contained a picture of an athletic couple whizzing down a snow-covered slope which suggested Hanover, but which probably was intended to recapture those memorable days of the long vac spent among the Tyrolean Alps. He couldn't prevent a .slip into the Oxford argot with a note about me good lad and your flat. He must have been reading Jeffrey Farnol.
And we might as well say here and now that this problem of sending our good '33 men out among foreign-speaking peoples is beginning to worry us not a little.
Perhaps it is a problem for the future, but it is becoming more pressing with every week that passes. Picture the miniature Babel of the fifth reunion, when "me good lad Smart," fresh from the petrol-waggons and lifts of perfidious Albion, meets Br'er Hagan, newly poured into Hanover from the Spanish moss-covered French quarter of N'Awlans, Looosiana.
Mayhap they meet at the side entrance of Baker, whither Smart has cycled to examine. the barbarous, New World frescoes, which he would have read about if he had subscribed to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, but which he has heard described by a compatriot who has pronounced them "QuiteQuite."
Hagan, with a mint julep in hand in the approved manner, is rather befuddled by (among other things) the mass of strange Georgian architecture—its harsh, strong lines suggestive of storied, bitter winters. In fact he is looking for the example of early neo-Shollenberger snow sculpture in front of the Deke house which a bewitching maid in crinoline, a guest among the rebels at the previous Carnival, has pronounced " cunnin'
They recognize one another.
This is rather strange, since Hagan is dressed in the grey dress uniform of Stonewall Jackson's staff, and Smart wears the shorts, blazer, muffler, etc. of a Brasenose toff who has just returned from a spell of punting either on the river or on the footer field.
Smart drops his cycle. Hagan drops his mint-julep—rather regretfully, but it is the only white thing to do under the circumstances.
They rush toward each other, each babbling madly in his own peculiar language. The spirit of each is willing. The attempt to convey the warm emotions which stir each, but the medium of communicating them is inadequate.
Frustration.
Kimball Flaccus just at this moment drives madly around the corner in a jaunting-car in headlong pursuit of an elusive anapestic tetrameter. He looks at the disconsolate pair, and then with an accent reminiscent of a Kerry stone-thrower who tends bar at "Tocco" Sullivan's in Waterbury, Conn., he roars, "Sure it's a couplemore iv thim quare bastes an Orangemen.Ye can't git away from thim. Bejabers,bedad, and begorry, and the back av mehand to ye."
One morning last month in the cloistered quiet of the law library, while puzzling over a rather dull, but nice problem of liability for tortious conduct, we heard a voice pitched in a key somewhat above the accepted and customary one observed by us legally minded chaps.
A form whipped around the corner. A hand was stuck out. Eyes gleamed and snapped. A voice thundered "Hello, John."Slapping Harry Rabinovitz!!
All about us heads snapped up. Eyes glared in disapproval at this barbarous person who intruded so blithely upon their ghastly privacy. I ushered him out into the hall where we could be alone and pleasantly noisy.
He had given up boxing and taken up law among the Elis. Then, for the nonce, he had given up the law and taken up Han over. He was now in Hanover, where things were popping. Fraternities were going to be abolished, and all sorts of new and interesting things were happening. He had news of hundreds of '33 men. In fact he had so much pertinent information that he couldn't bear to tell us about it at that moment. He didn't have time.
He was returning to Hanover immediately, but he thirsted to express himself, to give this long-awaited news to waiting subscribers.
He promised to write a column for this month on '33 men in Hanover and NewHaven and points intervening. He didn't.
Secretary, 64 Cooke St., Waterbury, Conn
