1909*

Eliot Howard has been in the insurance business in Concord, Mass., for the last twenty-seven years. His older boy, Richard, is a sophomore in Hanover, and he expects his other boy to enter in the fall.

Howard Spalding has left the A. B. See Elevator Company, and has been with the Johns-Manville Sales Cos. since the first of the year. Howard reports that his sales, particularly for insulating purposes, are exceedingly good, business is distinctly on the upswing, and Howard feels very happy over the change.

As a member of the faculty of the School of Medicine of Boston University, Sandy Hooker has been actively interested in their endowment drive and plans for new buildings to be erected.

Earle Rogers has been elected president of the Vermont State Retail Grocers Association.

A 1 Hearne has moved from Kittery to 101 Dudley St., Medford, Mass. He is still purchasing agent for the Arlington Mills, and a very efficient one.

Art Buxton is now living at 14 Garden Place, Cincinnati.

Hal Prescott has been doing lots of hard work as class agent on the Alumni Fund. If you haven't sent in your check yet, why not do it now?

Harry Buchanan is now living at R. R. 3, Kansas City, with offices at Room 720, Southwestern Bell Telephone Bldg., Kansas City, Mo.

Arrangements for reunion have been practically completed in accordance with the copy of the tentative program sent you. But where are the pictures, snapshots, etc., you were going to send me? We want them now. Men should bring a dark coat and white trousers to wear in the parade.

The tax, in other words the expense, will be 17.00 for each member of the class returning, plus $3.00 each for the wife and children that he brings back with him. This additional amount is to cover the cost of the dinners, etc., for the wives and children, for which no allowance has been made in the class tax out of consideration for the permanent and temporary bachelors who will attend. Tickets for the ball game ($1.10); dormitory room rent ($4.00 a head); green fees, etc., at Hanover and Lake Morey ($1.00 per head) will be additional and you will have to pay for your own dinner Friday night and for your breakfasts, unless you can pass the check to somebody else. You should have received a post-card bill for the class dues, and if you haven't already paid it, please send me your check by return mail. We have kept the expense at the lowest possible figure and have avoided listing any expensive events, in order to make sure that no one is kept away because it is too expensive. As a matter of fact, we have been helped somewhat on our budget by the generosity of some of our more fortunate classmates, who will provide anonymously certain pleasing extra touches to the official program. But this does not mean that we are supplying any class liquor, so bring your own if you want any. Otherwise, you will have to go to the June if you want anything more than beer. Get plenty of sleep and be ready for the best time you will have for another five years. We're going to have our largest attendance on record. We'll be seeing you next week.

Comments of Marjorie Mills Burns: "Bobby, you ask me to comment on reunion plans, and you start off your little piece with news about 'THE TAX.' You stick on a plus tax for wives and children and let the 'permanent and temporary' bachelors off without one. Rise, wives of '09! Attend reunion if only to smite Holmes.

"Where's your old sales instinct, Holmsie? We're all going back to reunion to forget things like taxes. Wives and children especially are ASSETS. (As Holmes should know, having his quota.... of CHILDREN, we mean of course.) Many a proud '09 father is going back with the brood just for the pleasure of sticking out his chest and showing 'em off.

"All this harangue about checks, taxes, dues, and fees is what we're trekking to Hanover to forget. As I understand it (Ed.—correct) there'll be long comfortable lounge chairs out under the trees, where the wives can snatch a rest and dish a little (Ed.?) gossip, brag about their families (Ed.—must mean children), and swap notes on the past five years. (Ed.— how candid?) Husbands will revert to perennial sophomores—and love it; who wouldn't pay one of your darned old taxes to feel young again? And going back to Hanover can always do that for a feller or a girl. .. even with grown-up kids tagging along.

"You concentrate on how much those meals are going to cost. . . or how little. Why don't you say there'll be swell meals (Ed.—They certainly will be), snatched hither and yon maybe but seasoned with the sauce of being eaten with old friends you haven't seen for ages? Why don't you play up the cheerful hubbub of reunion? The slaps on the back and the wild whoops when 'old grads' meet someone they haven't seen for ages? That's the way stout fellers express the kind of warmth around the heart the right reunion engenders. (Ed.—And the girls?) And an '09 reunion is ALWAYS a RIGHT REUNION.

"Lizzie Arden and La Rubenstein promise to make people young in 12-week courses. Reunion in three days makes 'em young around the heart, and only saps miss that pleasant sensation. (Ed.—Moral —Don't be a sap)."

Comments by Bob Burns:

"After reading the comments on our reunion plans made by you and Marjorie, it is my opinion that if you would stick to your law manipulations and Marjorie to her broadcasting, more of our members might return to reunion.

"I haven't had much experience in selling reunions, but I have had plenty in selling milk, and it seems to me that both activities parallel each other in that both milk and reunions are good for you, healthy, and most satisfying. (Adv.)

"And speaking of taxes, after all, most of us have lost everything except our waistline, so why should another tax have any bearing on this subject whatsoever. The facts are, we are going back for a good time and want to be quite comfortable while we are doing it. Why argue? We'll be there." (Ed.—So will 90 more fellows! 'O9 up!

Secretary, Room 922, 10 Post Office Sq., Boston

* 100% subscribers to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, on class group plan.