1938*
News has been a little slack this month, though there's not much doubt but that the boys are going through the strangest part of their existence to date. If you thought we were scattered three years ago, tap your noggin for that hollow sound, because we were like a flock of sheep, compared to what we look like on the map now. We're in every continent, every state, and in every place that still has the right to call itself a country. And most of the stories we have to tell will have to wait until we're around to tell them, and others until the War Department says so. Al Dickerson's elm is still the same elm, the buildings we knew still look the same, and so do we. But the pang some of us know is new, the way the college feels is new, and the way we talk and feel about our lives is new. There's still a lot of the old bull flying around, but it hasn't got the same frivolous undertone, and it looks as if we've aged five years in the last two. We'll have a lot to talk and think about when we get together next.
As far as getting together in Hanover goes, it will have to wait until the duration plus six months. Quite sensibly, the Alumni Council has recommended and approved the postponement of our reunion, as well as those of the other classes. The number that could get to Hanover would probably fill that southeast corner room in Thornton, and besides, the college curriculum isn't designed to handle even the influx of a few dozen men at that time. So hang up your mug until the time returns when all we have to worry about is our income tax, and if any of us have sons in Clark School then, we'll bring them along too. It will seem like a fitting time for a reunion, and the present certainly is not. Enough said? Some plan for the election of class officers, that normally comes at reunion time, will be forthcoming soon.
I've got an announcement in front of me, of the marriage of Mary Belle Schultz and Dr. Leslie Richard Webb, in Boston, on September nth, and unless some news pops up in the next twenty-four hours, this department will go to sleep with the subtle distinction of having put out at least one issue in which the romantic side doesn't predominate. Out of justice to Keresey and Reno, anyway, we ought to show that none of us are doing any good, either. Keresey couldn't be expected to do well on a PT boat, but since no social stigma has been attached to the FBI, I can't see much excuse for some people. Quoth the Reno, "There are more ugly women per square foot in Washington than anywhere else, including Macomb and Beaver Meadow. Went to NYC last weekend. As a result there was a train wreck and Stalingrad held on. Saw MacDuff, Mays, Soule, and Heath and all their spouses. (Spice to you.) As usual, I didn't have a date but made eyes at all the married women." He made eyes at them when they weren't married, so why should he change.
Archibald is at the Naval Air Station at Pensacola. Kenny Herschel is there too. Arch says Muff Davis promised to get a pair of wings that stretched across his chest from bicep to bicep, and with blinkers, but when he graduated, they were the regular, official ones. Sandy MacLeod is there as a cadet. Here at Fort Benning, Buddha Dick Francis is getting so big around the waist, that if the obstacle course doesn't trim him down, we'll have to transfer him to some desk job. Living up to freshman year form, he's running pretty well on his football forecasts. Dave and Faith Duffy are entered in the mixed doubles tennis tournament. Alex Jones, recently commissioned, has left for parts unknown, and Jim Cooney has gone to the mountain troops.
Paul Barber is with the Lowell, Mass., Ordnance Plant, Bill Bennett is with Colgate-Palmolive-Peet in Jersey City, and Emlen is still running himself nuts on the night shift at Fairchild Aircraft. There are a lot of new address changes, but no indication with them, of what's going on. Most of them are just for mailing, anyway. Jack Huck is at Officers' School at Aberdeen, and Lt. Ed Kirby is at the A.G.O. school. Marty King is a reporter for the NewarkEvening News. What happened to Texaco? Dr. John Merrill is an intern at Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Lt. Bill Norcross is with Headquarters 12th Naval District in San Francisco. Bob Stix is at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville. Bill Heydt is an inspector for Eclipse Aviation at Veeder-Root, Inc., Hartford, and Jim Leighton is with Pioneer Instrument Co. at Bendix, N. J. John Kindergan Jr. was born October 7.
That finishes it for this month. See you in January. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
LT. JOHN D. MEACHEM '58Recently received his navigator wings fromthe AAF Nav. School at Hondo, Tex.
Secretary, 41 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y.
Treasurer, 4226 Elmerton Ave., Colonial Park Dauphin Co., Pa.
