1934*
REUNION IS THIS JUNE!
Chairman Bill Knibbs and his jolly followers are cooking up some good program fodder to keep the welkin ringing over the big week-end. Meanwhile the only things for the rest of us impatient folk to do are to cool our heels, mark off the date on the calendar (it will be the usual mid-June Commencement week-end), and make sure that we don't plan to do any unimportant things at that time, such as get married, have children, or go to Europe. Let's have all things in their proper time. This June is reunion time. Last one to have his reservation in is a rotten egg.
First item on the monthly menu is a correction. Having completely roggered Silverman's story last month I hasten to come in with the facts. In the first place, it is the Joint Distribution Committee with which Stan is affiliated—an organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of the world's persecuted minorities. Although as the title suggests, J. D. C. distributes funds, 90% of the work involved is necessarily in the raising of these funds. Aim No. 1 is to give aid to victims of persecution in their own surroundings: to help them reestablish their physical selves, their businesses, their self-respect. Aim No. a is the refugee problem (which I previously stated was the whole operation), which, although theoretically secondary, is rapidly becoming an emergency of terrifying proportions.
Buried under tons of old rags and broken bottles, in what I boastfully call the "Dartmouth" drawer of my desk, I found a few items which have been neglected through the hot months.
Working on the premise that what hasn't appeared here is still news, I first report the birth, on May 21, 1938, of Daniel Sidney to Mr. and Mrs. George H. Kimball
And the marriage on the very same day of Susan Steele to Robert Utting Brown, in Fredonia, N. Y. (P.S. The bride is very charming—she sat is front of me at the Yale game.)
I wish more of my literate but unliterary audience had sisters like Sylvia Shimberg, who was kind enough to pen this note some months ago: "All our efforts to get Nathan F. Shimberg, class of '34, to write you about himself have been of no avail. Fie has been married since April 15 to Edith Stiller of New York. He's working for the Lily-Tulip Corporation and studying for his C.P.A. degree. His wife—and you may quote his family—is the most wonderful girl in the world; he's not the only one who thinks so."
It is good to be able to quote a letter from John Foley, not only because John wrote it but because it is only once in a very old dog's age that I get the chance to give my brother Dekes their due in this column. For a pretty talkative bunch, the West Wheelock Greeks have become very silent ones since graduation. To get back to Foley, however, here he is in his own words: "On May 24 this year I celebrate my first wedding anniversary, and as long as the Good Wife isn't looking over my shoulder it doesn't seem a day longer than ten. Taking an example from Edwards, who campaigned enthusiastically for the married state, I finally got up enough courage to take the big jump, and so far, unlike most campaign promises, his wasn't far wrong.
"Outside of that not much has happened to me except that I've been transferred to Boston and have become a cliff-dweller for the time being. I see Jim Wendell occasionally, as he works and lives very close to my hangouts ... and the word is around that McHugh is living about fifteen minutes walk from my place, but as there are a lot of barrooms and too little time to canvas them I haven't as yet seen the Ancient Mariner.
"Dave Murphy has recently taken the fatal step after much heckling and threatening by one Philip Augustus Conathan, which only proves that the worm will turn if given time enough. Old Man Spain had a very good year up here with the Boston Olympics, and it sure made me feel good to see the way a fellow as old as I could move around if really pressed. Harry Masterton dropped in on me one day, and the glare of the electric lights reflected off his shining pate reminded me for. all the world of a Japanese sunset.
"One other thing I might pass on before passing out is the positive brilliant development of our fratinary lodge club brother, one Smith O'Brien, as a letter-writer since his incarceration in the School of Law at Boston University. For a fellow who had his troubles with C-A-T at one time he certainly pulled out all the stops when he wrote a passionate appeal for funds in the Alumni Fund campaign. He had me on my feet cheering, and on the way home I stopped every little guy I saw and asked him what he thought of Dartmouth. The only one who didn't think much of it looked pretty tough, and as I didn't have the letter with me I let it pass. However, it certainly shows what being an embryo lawyer can do for a fellow. Speaking of lawyers, Walt Keady is going to law school also, in between spells of haunting innocent 'Little Men' who didn't have the money to go to Washington to meet Sec. Roper. He is working for Mr. X's Social Security Board and going to Boston College Law School, which is quite an assignment.
"Wish you the best until next year, when we may meet under the same table."
Life readers (some 17 or 18 million of them incidentally—largest readership of any magazine in the country—were swept off their picture-loving feet by the October 24 issue (Sid Luckman cover), which housed among its collection of the week's Americana the great Ak-Sar-Ben Coronation Ball at Omaha. Quaint, cosy, and perhaps corny inversion of the word "Nebraska," Ak-Sar-Ben is one of the greatest of the nation's many annual festivals. And on pages 59 and 63 of this 6-page LifeGoes-to-a-Party sits our own Bill Ramsey, first as an escort, then as a boy friend. From other reports about Bill I never learned that he was either of these things; only a hard-working young lawyer trying to make good. We in New York look forward to the day when we will have our pictures taken at the "Kroy-Wen" ball, and then, Ramsey, watch our dust.
Bill Stove sends in his "yearly report," which states that, following one-year stands in Maine and Kentucky, he is now "teaching at Milwaukee University School, nursery of many a Dartmouth lad in the past. There must be Greenery in this town, but coaching duties have prevented my ferreting them out. I've run into few '34 men since graduation, and attendance at the Fifth will be necessary for the purpose of a recount. No gluey reminiscences of matrimoney and babies from this end."
Geographical groups in '34 will be interested to see the trends which appear in the workings of the Selective Process, comparing our class with the last three admitted. I choose three rather arbitrarily, and because it may record the latest thoughts from Bob Strong's office and at the same time allow for single off-year calculations. By states:—New York and Massachusetts still, of course, remain way up in the vanguard, but both groups have been gradually .and considerably whittled down during the last few years to make way for greater numbers from formerly poorly represented states. For instance, '34's freshman class contained representatives of 36 states; present figure is 40, marking a trend toward the goal devoutly to be wished by the Administration—still greater geographic spread with, of course, no lowering of scholastic standards to accomplish it. Notable upward surges have been made by New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and particularly Minnesota .(poorly covered by '34's six members; almost blanketed by a present average selection in the middle twenties). Also up, although still in the comparatively small figures, come the District of Columbia, lowa, Maryland and foreign countries. Illinois and Ohio have taken a big jump downward. 1934 had the largest Illinois contingent admitted over the past 17 years; present results bring the number down to the former, perhaps more normal level.
Another of those desk-drawer hangovers is a letter from Barb (he signs it Barb, and I guess he ought to know) Gallagher, of last June. It isn't really a letter, but a note added to a clever little promotion piece designed and executed by Gallagher and dedicated to the purpose of getting a job. Whether it succeeded I have not heard. Cover was a line cut of a shipwrecked sailor on a raft, content a message leading off: "... adrift on the sea of life, Robert S. Gallagher, Dartmouth graduate, 27 years old, married, successful in promotion (direct mail), consumer's research, and commercial accounting, is seeking new fields of endeavor. Perhaps there is an opening in your concern for a young man of initiative and enterprise." Bob's note: "The circled phrase (adrift on the sea of life) tells its own sad story. Just flotsam on the ebb tide of recession. If my coat of arms (raft with shirt tails rampant) strikes a responsive chord in the heart of any of the 300 executives I am mailing to, I'll see you at the next class dinner. I would like meanwhile to enroll one Roberta Denise Gallagher in the ranks of '34 babies. Seven pounds of feminine pulchritude, she was born May 2, just two days before her old man got canned. This Deanna Durbin of the bassinette will probably matriculate at a girl's school as far from Hanover as possible."
The boys out California way have for some time been planning an immense Pow-Wow to accompany the Stanford game. According to advance publicity many class affairs are to be held, such as breakfasts, luncheons, cocktail parties, and barbecues. Bob Williamson is the '34 representative on the large committee, and we look forward to hearing from Bob about any activities involving the fair name of 1934.
That week-end is, as I write this, still in the future, and the only football matter we can think of at this point is the defeat of the Big Green at the hands of the Terrific Cornells. I listened to that game under the hospitable roof of Helen and Peanut Davies, together with Beth and Bill Scherman, Bill Hartman and friend, and Dave Hedges. The afternoon was a double feature, for it included the unveiling, for most of us, of young Mr. Davies, a stout blond chap with about a year to his credita most friendly gentleman, who objected strenuously to being removed from the room which contained his pappy's Dartmouth playmates in person and by wireless.
Thoughts about football bring us back a few weeks to New Haven, a much more cheery place than Ithaca. It was there that Herb Heston, surrounded by quite a '34 gallery, made the great prognostication of the day. Most of the metropolitan sports writers had called the game pretty correctly, but it was left to our Herbert to really ring the bell. During those hardfought few minutes when it looked as if something like a Yale attack was possibly if not probably forming, Humphrey faded back for a pass. "Watch it, boys," rang out the Heston baritone through the tropic air, "there it goes from Humphrey to McLeod." So we did, and it did.
Portal 30 meetings were many but brief, and the cheerful part of it is that next June's meetings will not be so brief, but will be leisurely and infinitely pleasurable.
Hedges gave a clear and well-received broadcast of the Harvard game, which was heard that Saturday at the Dartmouth Club, over Station DCNY on its own private network. Most of us munched our beer and gulped our peanuts in comparative freedom from anxiety, as the contest grew to be a pretty open-and-shut game for the Green—all except Fred Robbe, who sat continually on the edge of his seat, alternating squeals of joy with groans of dismay, and finally ending up with some pretty grim bellowing and fist-pounding as the final score indicated he had given just one point too many to an opposing bettor.
REUNION IS THIS JUNE!
Secretary, 126 Beaufort PL, New Rochelle, N. Y.
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