1936*
Many thanks to Norb Hofman for taking over last month's column, and sincere apologies to you correspondents whose letters I have failed to answer this past two months. Have gathered together some of those letters now to write what will probably be my last column for some time. Despite the fact that this is hard work it's good fun and I hope to be asked to write more columns some years hence when the world is saner and we are back at peacetime jobs.
The big interest, quite naturally, now is reunion. Apparently everyone who can possibly make it will be there. Tommy Towers will. So'll Spencer Johnson and Howie Rogers. Jim Gidney hopes to be able to be. Ralph Silverman will be. Pete Wright, and Sev Vass will have their wives. So will everyone else who has one, Bud Titcomb and Mac Rowell among them. Also Morrie Stern and Pete Fitzherbert; Singletons Joe Carson, Ferris Mack, Bob Brenner, Charlie Aaron, and benedict Seymour Sims. If there is a possible way to get away from this sun-baked, dust-swept, dirt-laden, rubbish-heaped section of South Philadelphia surrounding the Navy Yard on that week-end, I'll be there.
Jack Sawyer has just acquired a wife to bring along. She was Nancy Milnes of Oneida, N. Y Dud Wood married Barbara Rose of Scranton, Pa Many others have announced intentions
Charlie Hoffman toward Mary Humphries of Orange, N. J Frank Houlihan and Elizabeth Mullen of Brockton, Mass., have made it mutual Dr. Bob Bennett of Memorial Hospital in Worcester, Mass., will take Rosamond Riley of that town as his nurse-for-life And Gil Cutter plans to step off in the fall with Barbara Young of Boston. Bring her up to reunion, Gil. All these gals need is one chance to sell themselves on Dartmouth.
In speaking of marriages, engagements and such, Phyllis Entenman of Bronxville probably deserves greatest credit, as there is nothing harder to catch than a canny Scot, and there is no cannier Scot than Will (Wilfred C.) McLaughlin. Phyllis caught him and Will is lucky.
Thanks, Harry Miller for your long and interesting letter from Yale, and also thanks for your promise to be. on hand June ao-22nd. Wish that I could print some of that letter, but space is especially limited this month. Harry started a process of boring from within shortly after leaving Dartmouth, having joined the staff of Yale as Assistant to the Director of Yale University Dining Halls. For three years he has managed the Graduate Studies Dining Hall (wonder how those Yales would take a meal of Commons' buffalo balls—there will be none served at reunion) and in addition has devoted much time to the pursuit of a graduate degree in history.
Ed and Ruth Brooks had the most original "birth of a baby gal" announcement yet seen in this corner. If I could find it I'd reprint it, but you know how those things are. Anyway, it had something to do with "strike notice" and my mother, assiduously sorting my mail before sending it on was about to throw this bold-faced card out as some sort of Communist propaganda.
Bob Warren banged out a homely tune a short while ago and added some lyrics calculated to tear the "tear-bags" of the tender-hearted, and sent forth No. 10 LullabyLane to vie with other hit paraders for the popular favor. At present writing father and child are both doing nicely, and Warren has joined the headliners.
The Quo Vademus department finds Private Davy Fox smitten with scarlet fever at an army camp. That means about thirty days in the hospital. It also finds Medical Reserve Lt. Chuck Richards called to active duty, and Bob Button leaving his executive's chair at NBC to take sass 'n stuff from army sergeants. Clay Mellor's with the Air Corps in Albany, Ga.,—is shooting for a berth with the observation squadron.
It's at least encouraging to note that while some step out, others step up. Don Ballantyne is going up in gas; he's been made a district agent for Brooklyn Union Gas.
Joe Cunningham will teach you to speak without an accent if you are tired of being mistaken for a fifth columnist, or a Brooklynite. He's with Alfred Dixon, Speech.
Can't seem to get away from the military angle. Gene Anspach, Ensign USNR, is doing investigating for the Navy. Believe he's putting the bite on boys who want to join Lt. John Bouker of the U. S. Marines is parboiling at Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Dick Rube of the same service is at Indiantown Gap, Pa.
Bill Mack has abandoned pursuit of speeding freshmen en route Hanover to Hamp, or vice versa, and has moved on in quest of bigger game and tougher worlds. After five years as a Massachusetts State Trooper, he has joined the U. S. Secret Service and will be stationed in New York.
Haven't had a chance to see Norb's May column at this writing, and don't know whether Joe Millimet's letter made the deadline or not. If it did, you already know that Brad Chase is the proud father of a future freshman. You also know that Frank Kappler picked up a promotion on the Subway Gazette (N. Y. Daily News) and then resigned to go with Acme News Pictures—"a good thing" says astute lawyer Millimet. Joe reports that Budd Schulberg's well-reviewed What Makes SammyRun? is "good, smart, fast and sincere." Nice going, Budd. Bring along an autographed copy or two to Hanover. Millimet, by the way, will be there.
Bill Niss is back in New York Marty Erdmann is a sergeant at Camp Stewart, Ga Doc Russ Page is at the U. S. Naval Hospital in Philly Ensign Connie Eickham is on the U.S.S. Brooklyn (you can't escape it) with his mailing address c/o Postmaster, Long Beach, California John O'Hare has a fellowship in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Minneapolis General Hospital Doc Clarence Lucas is at the Homer A. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis Johnny Ovitz is a physician with the Army Medical Corps, Camp Grant, 111. It all sounds like 1918 notes.
Paul Cleaveland sends the first returns from the class questionnaire. He had heard from short of 400 people but well over half the mailing list of graduates and non-graduates. Over half are married. Of the married, over two out of every five are pops. The average fellow has had two jobs (exclusive of assignment in khaki). There are more salesmen than any other type of workers Medicine leads the professions, followed by the law, and there are an awful lot of the audit boys. But come on up to Hanover and get the complete story when all the cards are in. Stoney Jackson's going to leave his OPM job as one of Mr. Hopkins' assistants to make it. If minerals and metal priorities can wait, so can your job.
And as a final serious note, brought to mind by reference to Mr. Hopkins, the president of Princeton, Harold W. Dodds, spoke significant words in his tribute to Dartmouth's president, who "has given to undergraduates, faculty and alumni of Dartmouth that unity of spirt and sense ofcommon cause for which she is justly famous throughout the country and which so admirably equips her to meet the difficult days of trial and testing which confront all institutions of higher learning." Let's renew that unity of spirit and revitalize that sense of common cause in Hanover, June 20-22 nd.
Secretary, 143 Sunset Ave., Ridgewood, N. J.
Class Agent, Apartment D-52 §53 East 56th St., New York, N. Y
