Class of 1934
The recent week-end meeting of the secretaries in Hanover was not only very enjoyable in every respect, but it provides me with ample news with which to profitably fill this column. A godsend, no less. For I have before me on this occasion (the occasion being the writing of the last class notes of the season) one letter, and one wedding announcement. I am extremely grateful to Jack Feth for having written, and to Eck Wilmot for having got married. I now have the full name of Wilmot's party of the second part, and need no longer deal in half truths. It is Coniston Elise Roberts, and the ceremony took place in Bethlehem, Pa.
Jack's letter: "My first item is the unhappy news that Don Allen's mother died last week rather unexpectedly. Don is reported as taking it well, but pretty seriously shaken by the tragedy.
"The second concerns Harry Espenscheid. A letter written February 18 came to my attention recently. He was, at that time, placidly absorbing the fascinating life on the island of Bali (see photos, dancing girls, in travel ads) in company with a Swiss chap—painter—whom he'd picked up. Says he'd arrived two months previously, expecting to stay two weeks—and hadn't yet set a date for leaving. Speaks of arriving at the island in an outrigger canoe —of sitting on his bungalow ports with white parrots perched in the banana, papaya, and cocoanut trees in the foreground, while back of them, Old Man Ocean thunders on a coral reef, and over all, volcanoes brood in rather familiarly threatening manner—of moonlight nights when Harry and Swiss and natives take canoes out to the reef, and, mounting a breaker, ride back ashore with torches flaring, paddles flailing, and natives chanting—of voyaging to an island some hundreds of miles distant (again via outrigger) to make first motion pictures of certain ceremonies seldom if ever seen by whites prior to their visit. Gee! says I.
"As for me—l have a young species of travel bug myself—a yen to get located somewhere in the Colorado-California-Arizona-New Mexico area for a couple of years to get the taste of the Atlantic seaboard and New England puritanism out of my mouth. If any of the boys know of leads to a job out West, I'd sure appreciate hearing about it. Teaching, advertising, personnel, news-writing preferred, but I'm really not particular."
I should like to announce at this time that I have recently become another uncle. This year it is to a youngster who is to be named Rowland William Scherman, and whose parents Beth and Bill and sister Betsy are reported well pleased by the turn of events.
Bill Gibson is now listed as a physician, his residence, Scarsdale, N. Y.
Dick Page was married on April 3 to Miss Bertha Elizabeth Straus at New Haven.
John Anderson can't throw any light on the identity of the CAH who reported Andy's engagement last month, but says that CAH did an excellent job, except that his middle initial is still F, not H. The wedding will take place on June 15 in Minneapolis.
For a combination of reasons the May dinner in New York seemed by general consent to be about the most, successful one we have ever had. We counted about thirty present, which is really approaching the high numbers for an event of that kind. Songster tendencies were rife, and after the well-known part of the Dartmouth repertoire was exhausted by the entire group, a small number of onetime Glee Clubbers informally and not too successfully attempted Dartmouth Undying. A certain amount of practice was suggested, and the suggestion welcomed as a compliment. To break up the party, Bill Knibbs sang "I'm Tired of Your Bare, Bare Body-I Want To See Hair on Your Chest."
Notably present was Charlie Armes, who is now stationed in the Boston office of the Association of American Railroads. Charlie was in New Haven for the day, and without the slightest ado came down to New York expressly for the gathering. Fred Rath, temporarily on holidays from graduate work at Harvard, was with us for the first time. Many other notables attended, but Father Scherman and I agreed that he should have prior reporting rights to that evening for his annual scandal sheet, which has been in your hands these many weeks.
With Al Hewitt as fellow-traveler, and a new Chev as transportation, I hit for Hanover on Friday, May 7. On the way up we stopped only to photograph two trolley cars, which, looked as if pranksters had placed in somebody's front yard in Connecticut. Other than that, the trip was a continuous round of Gilbert and Sullivan songs, and we went through the entire repertoire with the exception of a few which we purposely saved up for the return trip. Hewitt, by the way, finished his New York season in late April, when "The Masque of Kings" closed. He is now looking for summer stock opportunities, and seeing everything that Broadway has to offer during his leisure time.
First sight in Hanover was Chief Hallisey, who roused instinctive fear in our hearts, for our car is almost white and could hardly be ignored even in the case of a minor slip from traffic integrity, such as U-turning to park on the left side of Main St., which, however, I succeeded in doing once without detection.
Next came Saia's new store front, in modernistic black, a new development since the fire which gutted the greater part of that particular black; and a double store, half fruit market, half ice cream parlor. Natty, neat, and clean. Then-Chandler down, and men throwing in the last shovelful of top soil-the new ski hut behind the Inn for informal parties—the new upper-class Commons behind the Psi U House, its shell half completed, a tremendous building, I would say, compared to the freshman club.
A crew race on the Connecticut, which attracted a fair crowd, and which Dartmouth took from B. U. by a little over a length. Ledyard Bridge is the tape and grandstand too Still a little snow left at the south end of Occom Pond, well protected by pines from the sun
Unfamiliar sights: Small scattered groups at various spots on campus singing with complete abandon and utter lack of selfconsciousness the barber-shop harmony which in our disgustingly sophisticated day was associated only with sentimental alumni gatherings .... a motorcycle cop, with a broad grin, decidedly not Andy .... a new high school building on the Lebanon St. plain, hard by the old The ancient grade school on Allen St., in which, of late years, Charlie McKenna has stored his oversupply of used furniture, has been mowed down, increasing in incalculable degree the beauty of the offcampus section west of School St
Probably the greatest single change in Hanover since our undergraduate days is the metamorphosis which has overtaken the Inn, under the management of Ford and Peggy Sayre. I slept in an 8-accommodating bunk room, with lowers and uppers. The only drawback of the upper, to which my late entry into Hanover automatically assigned me, was that the highest part of my particular bed was in the middle, and I awoke twice during the night straddling the maple-board siding and frantically sawing the air for support. Then too, the upper berth was quite near the ceiling, and the wide-open window did not offer quite enough inducement to the eight sets of Scotch-and-soda exhalations, which preferred to hover on a level with the chandelier.
However, getting back to the Inn proper .... the lobby has been most attractively renovated and furnished .... the service has been professionalized, in the non-monetary sense of the word But the elevator still gets stranded if some alumnus drives it upstairs and closes the door Such banalities as a remark about improved appearances draws from the help an amusing "We like it, sir," which is pleasantly suited to the necessarily introvert and provincial character of a small hotel. I would prefer it a thousand times to the cold and Dale Carnegiecoined "We're glad you like it, sir."
The Board-of-Directors table has been taken from the Wigwam, and booths put in its place John Piane has enlarged the Co-op, but not so's you'd notice it, because it's just the upstairs inner workings that have expanded The Chimes ring out at some inexplicable times, such as five to one, perhaps someone trying out a new record.
You wouldn't know the Deke house. They've got the living room clock going, the one that stopped running when Eddie Dooley was in school. For some ungiven reason (the whole world must be going screwy) eight copies of Business Week adorn the library table. They even have a coat-hanging system. The only sign of the old regime is that they're still trying to beat the telephone company by using salted pennies.
The terrible dive on College St. which the male force of the Inn used to have to use as a home has been abandoned, and old South Hall reopened as a modern rooming house for such employees The fire horn makes more noise than ever, but everybody takes it with a grain of salt. .... There is a new and huge garage corner Main and South Sts. with architecture rivaling the Post Office.
All these things are physical changes. There is another, and more important, change that has taken place in Hanover, and it awes me. Guys are taking themselves seriously. For one thing, they have taken the fraternity scare to heart. The clubs are having singing contests. And debating teams. In fact, the Dekes won a debate recently. What will they think of next! TheDartmouth's lead editorial on May 8 was entitled "Mother's Day," and I read on to see what kind of muckraking, hardhearted, merchant-baiting crusade the Bugle was engaged in, only to find that the edit was a tremendous plug for the mothers of the country, and it dripped fine whole- some sentiment which I am sure our (1934) editors felt but didn't dare reveal to a public which would have blushed, even with each reader alone in his own room, to scan. I love it. I think it's great, this new attitude. Don't think for a moment that the boys have lost their humor. They've decided merely to put Jack Benny and William Powell in their proper places, and to have a hell of a good time playing college strenuously and earnestly.
And so, as it must to all men, summer comes to your scribe, and the MAGAZINE suspends until October. Have a good vacation! Many thanks for all good cooperation this year and entreaties for enthusiastic continuance.
Secretary, 136 Beaufort PL, New Rochelle, N. Y.
