Class of 1918
A few paragraphs, and then a bit of good news for you. First of all, some address changes. Frank W. Chamberlain Jr. can now be located at 611 Mass. Ave., Lexington, Mass. Gene Markey's address is 1121 Tower Rd., Beverly Hills, Calif. Cyril N. Angell has changed his address to 23 Main St., Gorham, Me. Walter B. Wiley (occupation minister) lives at 136 Hancock St., Auburndale, Mass. John H. Dessau resides at the Hotel Barbizon, 58th St., New York.
Cliff Meredith has recently published a book called "Fire," which presents to quite an extent in pictorial form many of the outstanding human, interest features of the big fires of the past 50 years. Pick it up, maintains Harv Hood, and you can't lay it down until you've finished it Amos Blandin is now speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Congrats! .... George Stoddard has been appointed vice-president and general manager of DeLaval Pacific Company. . . . . Hal Doty has been named liquidator of the American Building & Loan Cos., Dayton, Ohio.
CLASS BOOK ON THE WAY
Your Secretary has been burning a not inconsiderable amount of the w.k. midnight oil trying to get the class record book in shape. Perhaps it will be in your hands before you read this column. Perhaps not —but don't give up hope Now, for the good news. To spruce up this column, make it more interesting and more representative than it has been in the past, we're going to try and turn some "guest columnists" loose on you. Our first guest columnist will be from New York—Ernie Earley. He may get Stan Jones and his gang to help him out; hanged if I know, or assume any responsibility. In fact I won't even see what Ernie writes after this paragraph, until the stuff comes out in print. Then next month we figure on jumping up to Boston or out in the Midwest or somewhere—so before we get through, this column ought to contain more notes of interest (and mebbe more funny kinds of writing) than you can shake a proverbial stick at. Anyway—go to it, Ernie—you're bound to do a better job than I possibly can on this issue, just as you've held down that treasurer's job so ably all these years, with damned little expressed thanks from the class. But the boys really appreciate your work, Mr. Earley, and they'll even read your column to prove it O. K. New York—take it away!
J hanks to Eddie Fergoosen, demon Boston realtor, we received the followingstory about Gene Markey and written by Bill Cunningham, in the January 19 Boston Post. "I can't say as I knew Gene verywell," continued Eddie, "even though hewas taking Math 1 for the third time,along with 12 other KJIS Bean Brummels." We know if Stan Jones were here he'd claim distinction of being one of those 12. Anyway here goes Bill Cunningham's story on Gene Markey.
"All at once I looked across the room toview a handsome and handsomely tailoredyoung man in deep conversation with anunusually beautiful young woman. Theywere laughing about something and hewas holding her hand. They were in abooth all alone, but it faced our way andabout the time I looked, he turned his head,and who in the world was it but GeneMarkey? He blinked a couple of times,then pushed the table back, got up andstarted towards us. I did the same. We 7netin a clinch about half way and started the'Well, well, wells.'
"I hadn't seen him in ten years, but Icouldn't help knowing about him. Possessing the most talented mind of its sort inour Hanover day, writer of college shoiasso bright and unusual that some are stillcurrent, he had no trouble crashing theglazed paper magazines as soon as he finished and became almost instantly established as an author and caricaturist of national standing. From that he went to playwriting and romance with Ina Claire,eventually to zoom into Hollywood, marrythe prettiest (if you ask me) of the Bennetts—charming Joan—and to becomeestablished as perhaps the brightest andmost successful of the Hollywood scenarists, doing originals for Greta Garbo andthe likes of all that.
"Certainly, I'd never looked him up, notbeing much of a looker-upper at best, andwhat could a guy like that be interestedin what I'd have to report anyhow? Inferiority complex? Yeah. I admit it. Ichoked. How'd a sports writer look wadinghis way through the Bennetts to shakehands with a guy he knew years ago before the guy went into butlers, premieres,and a breath-taking income, especiallywhen he wasn't even sure the guy'd remember the name?
"But his memory seemed good enough.In fact it was too good for me. In a perfect smother of questions, he began askingabout almost everybody in school in ourtime. '. . . . Chauncey Hood?' 'I haven'tseen Chaunce lately,' I reported, 'butHarvey Hood's doing all right.' .and Craven haycock, and Harry Hillmanand .. . 'Whoa,' says I, 'let's take itslower.' 'Johnny,' says he, 'this is Bill.'
"Johnny seemed to be the girl he wasivith, the beautiful young person with thebright golden hair, the charming actress,his wife—Joan Bennett.
"We were eventually in his home, oneof those picturesque chateaux nestling in alofty notch of that almost unbelievabletopographical setting.
" 'This is where 1 work,' said, he on anupper floor, as we entered a beautiful roomwhich probably wasn't, but which seemedto me as spacious as a. cathedral. An impressively heavy desk, immaculate in itsorder, stood before the windows thatlooked out across whatever was in backprobablya garden. The room looked likesomething you see in House and Garden. I didn't see any typewriter, and the deskdidn't look like the sort that has one in itsinternals. 'Don't you compose on a typewriter? I asked. 'No,' said he, 'I write inlong hand.' Downstairs somewhere a typeivriter was clicking—a secretary transcribing the day's work into type. I thought ofmy own cluttered corner, looking as if acyclone had struck it, festooned with cigarbutts and glorified with a gobboon, and ofthis swaybacked mill of which Flynn oncesaid, 'You shouldn't swear at that typewriter so. Remember, you'll be old andweak some day yourself.'
"Finally we came to rest on a lower deck,sprawled in deep chairs in front of acrackling wood fire. Very special photographs of all who're famous and beautifulin filmland gazed down at us from thewalls. I wanted to ask, 'ls Joan Crawfordreally pretty?' and 'What's the real lowdown on the Pickford divorce?' But 'No,'said Gene, 'Let's talk about Dartmouth.How're the new coaches? What have theyever done with the Deke House? Whydon't some of you guys ever look a fellowup? What do you know about the gang inChicago?' I told him to the best of myability. I was still telling him hours andhours later. In memory again we went onthe outings of the Balmaccan A. C., attended the telephone girls' ball at theJunk, ate toast-side in Scotty's, and heldone of those ribald and really very funnyrevival meetings on the campus. We traveled to Leb and cruised north to Montreal.We talked about everybody either of uscould remember, and most of the rest thatwe couldn't."
CORROSIVE COLORADOAN IN TOWN
Old Dr. Tom P. Campbell, the Corrosive Coloradoan, recently turned his bilious bifocals on the local scene with scant favor—which the local scene is somehow able to withstand without taking to bed. The Dr. is on catching the shows and getting permanent abrasions of the neck from the tips of a wing collar. He reports that he has been called in as consultant mining or something engineer on the salt mines, by the Armour Boys of Chicago, who are thinking of going into the packing business. The Dr. further reports that Denver is on the upbeat—neglecting to give any credit to Fearless Frank, down there in Washington. "Just Nature's actionand reaction to abortive conditions," is the way he dished it out to the AP men.
Musty Mike Pounds, the flying CPA, is out to Coshockton, Ohio (all right, you spell it then). When Mike gets the call, he don't fool .... and he'd just as soon make it Haiti as Ohio. "In fact, I'd rather," he says, with feeling. Mike recently served as auctioneer for a sale of prints for the benefit of his school up Larchmont way. Bolstered by a shaker of purely medicinal Side Cars in advance, he had 'em hanging from the rafters in no time, pockets wrong side out. The feature sale, as reported by a bystander, went something like this, with Mike presenting the chromo upside down: "Now, ladies and gents, here we got something. I don't know what the hell it is—andit doesn't look like anything you'd want tohang in the out-house, but the gah damnthing has got to be sold! So ... . whatam I offered? Did I hear some half-wit say'One dollar!" (He got ten herring for it, and was promoted to assistant principal in charge of lunch boxes at the next meeting of the board.)
The N. J. Sea Bass Association, we understand, has awarded a classmate, F. Runyon "Pups" Colie, the Order of the Woven Thumb Guard for his piscatorial efforts during the past year. Colie beached more bass, the story goes, than any other two men in Jersey—largely because he forced his entire family to accompany him on his strange pursuits, and to take an active part in surf casting, even in bitter December weather. At the end of each day, according to an eyewitness, Colie would basket the catch of his entire entourage and trudge to market with it, after having panorama photographs taken and forwarded to the Jersey representative of Field and Stream. The inference being, of course, that Colie himself had bagged the basses. (Colie is a lawyer.)
Anyone who failed to be present at the '18 class dinner before the Princeton game (not 1935) missed the delicious French wine of gracious host Gerry Geran as he passed the bottles around. A touch of La Belle France has crept into the boy from his years of hockey promoting on the continent (we said hockey promoting, though his rink may have been the Folies Berges). Good old Fritz Cassebeer, expert crosser of Iris and Gladiolas, and we hear he is hot, no foolin, bemoaned the loss of the lucrative testing business so profitable in the prohibition days, but a good smart grippe and flu epidemic was on the way, and Fred was soon smiling.
AMONG THOSE PRESENT
Among those present at the dinner were Phil Everett, Curt Glover (the Merton psychic and ribbon man), Eddie Butts, one of the star attenders now, MetropolitanLife Champion Christgau, and Antiquer Walter Ross, merchandise Authority Henry Hess, who is studying under the tutalage of John O'Gara, keyman of Ambassador Strauss in piloting R. H. Macy.
Lymie Burgess seems to look hail and hearty along the beaten paths of Wall St. and appears to have gained weight since his arduous duties of attempting to give Montclair, N. J., a new deal in city government. In the opulent atmosphere of Rockefeller City, you will find classmate Francis T. "Untermeyer" Christy, former partner of Murray, Prentice, Aldrich, and Webb, now enjoying the title and heavy responsibilities of vice-president of Rockefeller City. Pay him a visit as Bill Bemis did, and watch him give you the keys to the City. And does anyone know that John Francis Clahane has within the past year entered the blissful realms of matrimony?
In a recent Who's Who of America's Outstanding Young Men, you will find the name of classmate Clarence V. Opper, and after two inches of thick-packed accomplishments, we find his address U. S. Treasury Department, Washington, D. C. We understand that he and Roswell Magill '16, brain truster and head of Columbia's tax department, have been heavily assisting Mr. Oliphant and Secretary Morgenthau. In the same Who's Who, we find H. J. Alderton Collins, and sometime when you have five minutes read the column in which you will find that his hobby is hybridizing broad-leaved evergreens, and its goes without saying he is one of the sturdy entourage of the Honorable Samuel Seabury, Mayor Walker's boy friend, at 40 Wall St. Robert C. Caldwell, known to all old New Hampshire Hall residents as Pete, gave the class the pleasure of seeing him at the dinner before the Princeton game and was seen to be occupying two seats during the game. F. Dusossoit Duke, Ex-Belgian Bulb King, and now advertising manager of Fortune magazine, flits around by plane between Chicago and California, and allots to a few outstanding national advertising concerns the few remaining bleed pages that the magazine will accept. Anyone else in the class in a business that refuses more business?
Professor Robert Fish (and Mildred), longest long-term tenant of G. A. R. Hall at Hanover, took his annual honeymoon to Bermuda recently (was even seen tap dancing on deck, twisting rhythrpically with his accordion—quite a babe too) and discovered aboard Fred Cassebeer taking his honeymoon (with camera), although reports of his Thursday night activities still persist that it won't be long. Eddie Garvey, reliably reported marrying a year ago in France and retiring overlooking the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean, is back at work again here in New York and still single.
Recently A1 Gottschaldt, president Gottschaldt, Humphrey, Inc., annexed the Fitzgerald agency, making them the largest advertising agency around Atlanta. How he still finds time to travel around the company, dig up news of 'iBers, keep the rest o£ us on our toes, and prepare the directory for the class—well, you've got a broad bean anyway, Al. Recently Les Merrill has been appointed in charge of Brooklyn Charities, so between the New Deal Program and Les, 'lB members should always have a full dinner pail. Fred Samuels, ex-conducteur camion on the battlefields of La Belle France, now boasts of a lad that has the whole family standing at parade rest, as she issues commands. Persistent' bachelor J. M. Salisbury, better known as Sal (we hear still exposing himself) is now Doctor Scholl's right-hand man in making new arches for archless feetsomeone should send on Lew Cousens' No. 12 gondolas.
A1 Sibbernsen breaks out in a line to Ex-Prexy Jones as follows: "The businessof not raising hogs and not raising cornhas put in the hands of the Sturdy Mengreat resources with which to drive off theInternatio7ial Bankers and AdvertisingChunkers. The last time I saw Skinner hetried to sell me Nat'l City at $125. Oh! boywhat we aren't going to do to you thisyear; by the time you will be able to layyour jaws into a piece of meat once morethe molars will have long since been useless, a soft diet for you and yours. A greatfellow this F. D. R."
Secretary, Norris Bldg., Atlanta, Ga.
