1934*
It seems that a disease graciously referred to as literary recalcitrance has seized the 1934 block of votes. In the last analysis it is probably a good thing for one M. Dwyer, who has been able for the most part to sit back and occupy the editor's easy chair. It appears at last necessary for your columnist, who, it must be admitted, is himself no great shakes as a correspondent, to deplore briefly the lack of editable material from the cash customers, shake off the lethargy so happily induced by the heretofore willing volubility of his associates, and reach groaningly for the Aegis.
My colleagues in the neighborhood have frequently wondered, I am sure, and a number of them have even been churlish enough to mention it, why in thunder this column so seldom makes literary capital of the home town buddies. With good reason perhaps the issue arises that the Class Noter has completely disregarded his intimates of the bar, the pool room, and the corner drug store, whom he sees every other day in the week, while shouting from the housetops all news from such mysterious parts of the universe as the Canadian Northwest, Guatemala, and the Straits Settlements. And so with a limited amount of breastbeating (and because I have no mail to quote from) I will this time stick close to home plate.
Where's that Aegis?
In Hanover last June, at an unofficial 1936 reunion staged in the Phi Psi House (and bartended by three Dekes from '33, '34, and '35) I ran into Bill Barnet. Sensible conveisation was not the order of the hour, so neither Bill nor I found out anything about what the other is doing, although I am sure there was much talk on both subjects Speaking of Albany people, on his way to that center last week was Alan Hewitt. Al telephoned on his way through New York that he had just completed several weeks on the road with Jane Cowl, that he went through 23 weeks of stock this summer, and that the last year has given him 53 solid weeks of work in the theater.
Ralph Brabbee received his law degree from Fordham in June, then spent a few misguided vacation weeks with the writer, first hitting Virginia Beach on the mobbed July 4 week-end, when it was worth your life to cross the street. Lake Bomoseen, Vermont, was better, and resembled to some degree that fabulous phenomenon which tradition tells us is actually rampant on the Bermuda boats: more women than men. We felt in our element, and settled down for a long stay. Good shot: Brabbee and Dwyer, pantless in the gray dawn and a trifle bleary-eyed, taking a schoolboy bawling out from the housekeeper for using more rooms for a party than the hotel had assigned to us and putting said rooms hors de combat for 24 hours.
Not to be omitted from vacation talk is a memorable golf match on the Rutland course with Happy Jack (now known locally as father of Mary Meade Hinsman, prettiest girl in town). The first nine holes went fine, the next one in the clubhouse went even better, but the match was terminated when Hinsman tried to make us climb the 14th fairway without ropes. The caddies are retired Swiss guides, and wear edelweiss in their lapels.
First New York '34 dinner of the season brought back most of the Old Guard. Newcomer was Bob L. Palmer, who now handles the handkerchief end of Cluett Peabody. Forgot to ask him whether such as he feature propoganda against rubbers and umbrellas in their sales promotion Also present was Nelson Krogslund, down from the Putnam Trust Co. in Greenwich Van Thorne, who went and got married during the summer without as much as a by-your-leave to his closest associates in the copy room of the Times Dave Hedges, now a member of the Greenwich Country Club as well as the staff of the Bank of New York, looks back at a summer of low nineties and high eighties. Golf, I mean, some of it played in Connecticut, some in Jersey with Baldwin, who still has a superstition against crossing the Hudson River
Bill Knibbs left Guaranty Trust a couple weeks ago this writing and joined: the sales staff of Penn Mutual, a move calculated to exercise the bottoms of his feet and rest his fanny and his pencil-pushing finger. We wish him the heights in this highest-paid of business fields. We need more rich friends Guess it's about time to start the Leveen-calling contest again. Hey, Willie, come out of the woods, will y0u?....
Cogswell came to town during the summer, occasioning a gathering of the boys in and associated with the 9K Club. (9K still stands for the apartment inhabited by the Hedger, Bud Fraser, Dick Gruen, Ted Wachs, and a Yalie named Gilpatrick.) First mistake of the evening was having dinner at the Black Cat, where the sepian songstress mistook us for a bunch of young Dartmouth graduates having a reunion, and graded her songs accordingly. Second mistake was breaking up before Cogs had a chance to get half through his new stock of wheezes.
About these football games. Unlike the true scribe, who should go to the spot in the field where the clover is thickest, I didn't visit Princeton last week-end. But next Saturday's cold grim dawn will see the exodus from Westchester of your Cabinet in Charge of Getting Reunion Arrangements Started. Consisting, besides your deponent, of Prime Minister Knibbs, Propaganda Secretary Scherman, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Collins, this body of men will move on to the Hanover plain to survey the hurricane remains, the Brown game, and as much of the Reunion situation as we can get in between short ones.
Some chance bits of mail just came in to upset the whole point of my first paragraph. However, it's happy news. This time it's Louis Marrero who stepped off the deep edge way down in New Orleans. Louis joined forces October 21 with Mary Bernice Badger Mike Joseph, resident buyer in New York for Kaufmann's department store, has established headquarters at the Dartmouth Club.
And Bob Wilmot writes that he and Connie like Chicago, reports that Cogswell is "just as handsome as ever," rides around in a "super-12," and recently lost his shirt to some sloe-eyed female in a crap game. After four years of detective work, Wilmot finally found Maury O'Connor and has this to say about him: "The old horse got through law school in Washington, went to his home in lowa and passed his bar exams there. The corn country evidently palled on him, so he shipped off to California and passed his bars there. He is now flaunting personal stationery, calls himself attorney-at-law, and does business at 1225 Citizens National Bank Building, Los Angeles. He pleads a quiet life, but rather than have my faith shattered I dismissed the thought immediately."
Several weeks ago several of us innocently banded together on a Saturday afternoon for a spot of sailing on Bob Griffin's yawl. Approach of our party to the Larchmont Yacht Club was the sign for the start of what turned out several days later to be the Big Blow. The only sailing we did that day was in beer schooners (ha, ha, ha), and a most enjoyable bull gathering was held on the right side of the shore line. Conversation rocketed between the war scare and the Mohawk Carpet Mills, ably represented by Dick Houck. Others involved in the imbroglio were Callaway, Knibbs, Gruen, Wells, Jackson, self. Gruen told of running into Wyoming Bob Smith during his western vacation, right out there in Buffalo, Wyoming, where Smith owns god-knows-howmany acres of ranch and is a factor to be reckoned with in local politics.
Ray Hulsart moved to another home in New Rochelle, but four days previous he took a last fling at his back yard and threw a very successful beer party. Unbelievably present were Moe Frankel and Bob Douglas, previously thought lost in the Jersey jungles.
From a distance the other day saw Jim Darling wearing a tremendous and sensational walrus mustache, a truly great thing Lunch recently with Dick Compton, who handles presentations and statistical promotion pieces for the New York sales office of the Chicago DailyNews Since May the writer has been doing promotion work on Life, as assistant to the promotion manager. This has to do, if I need explain, with the advertising which Life does in other media, as an aid to selling space in our own publication Bud Yallalee has left Lord & Thomas, expects to spend the greater part of a year and maybe more in experimenting with fiction, possibly on a sailing vessel and in the vicinity of Florida and points immediately east.
Hank Rigby, associated with the Cravath law firm, is frequently seen breezing through the large stockyard sort of space I like to think of as my office, on his way to and from handling some of Life's legal problems Fred Robbe is now in the production department of Young &: Rubicam, with which firm he has been connected for several years Bill Scherman, not content with banging the typewriter all day producing copy for Schwab & Beatty, has taken to slapping the bass evenings, for a limited period of time Occasionally run into Long Bob Smith entertaining Time, Inc., secretaries during cocktail hour Stan Silverman has one of the most interesting jobs I've heard of in some time: working for the Joint Contributions Committee, which is engaged primarily in the movement, relief, and rehabilitation of the world's political and racial refugees.
Sig Stern is interning at New Rochelle Hospital Hank Werner and friend joined the company of Scherman, Wetstein, and Dwyer for a few moments the other night at the Onyx Club, where Maxine Sullivan and the latest find in 6-piece bands hold sway.
Afraid I've shot my bolt on this one. What'm I gonna do next month if no letters come in?
Saw you at Yale.
Secretary, 126 Beaufort PL, New Rochelle, N. Y.
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