1934*
OBSERVATION POST—4 A.M.
Eight foot snow drifts all around this cabin take me back a few years. Don't like to count them, though, because they have slipped by too fast. But I can't help remembering a few Carnivals back when Carnival was a big show and a bunch of green guys raised hell and their dates went back to various corners of the Northeast and talked about the thrill of the season, the greatest party they ever saw, maybe, and all that. Well Carnival has changed. And so have all those guys and girls. Some of those couples are now married. All of them are looking at things a bit more seriously. There's a bigger show on now, and when it's over, we'll all be changed again. But while we are working at more important jobs, it doesn't do any harm to look back at those lighter days and try to see how they add up with what we have now and what the sum equals for the future.
A driving sleet makes this cabin rattle, but it also keeps planes in hangars. My reporting job is a matter merely of sitting and writing this weighty stuff. There is some news, though, so I'll pass it along.
Herb Heston is working hard in the wool business in Philadelphia. He writes:
"I have no news as I am still a civilian, at least most of the time. Due to the fact that both my brothers axe in the service and our business is tied up with the making of uniforms I guess I'll have to sit this war out. However, I have been in the Pennsylvania State Guard since July of 1941 and have moved up from private to Ist lieutenant. I'm at the armory about three nights out of every week and what with the increased pressure of business, I keep pretty damn busy.
I see Watts occasionally and hear from Klinefelter and Bob Brown. None are in the service yet."
Art Nissen is up in Damariscotta, Maine, but we could use a more complete story of what he is doing. Same for Don Mahoney who now reports from Detroit. To BillBaird, I'm fine, thanks, but what is going on in Omaha. Mark Young has moved out to Los Angeles. Maybe that isn't a scoop, but the new address was news to me. How about a story from someone in Los Angeles? Have you been invaded yet? We don't get all the inside dope up here in the mountains. Ray Ely is purchasing agent for the U. S. Radium Corp. in New York City. Herb Hawkes is in the Metals Section of the U. S. Geological Survey in Washington. Bill Gay and Neal Richmond report with an AUS at the end of their new addresses in Los Angeles and Pasadena, respectively. There's more to it than that, but the secret may be let out soon.
Deane Howland is back on the continent after several years in Hawaii. He reports:
"Sorry this is so late, but much water has passed under the bridge! Have moved my family to the mainland and have bought a house in Berkeley. Am now working for Hood and Strong, Public Accountants in San Francisco. Like the Coast very much and am getting along very well for an Hawaiian 'evacue.'
P.S. Incidentally they elected me Ass't Sec.Treas. of Dartmouth Club of Northern California last May."
From Rome, Georgia, comes a two by three announcement of the arrival of Susan Elizabeth Sulzbacher, born December 13, 1942. Looks as though father "Susie" is passing the name along to the fairer sex where it first came.
Incidentally, the papers are all reporting a big boom in this family business. What ever became of '34, that virile class? Don't hold out. Let us in on this important news. We're not getting our share of the statistics.
Last month I made a rush trip through Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Cedar Rapids and Davenport. I phoned all '34's for whom I have recent addresses and couldn't connect with a single one. I did have the pleasure of spending the evening with Charlie Mills' new in-laws and was reasonably successful in convincing them that they'd better not rent that extra spare room. Captain Charlie is still poking needles into new men at the medical reception center in Des Moines. I talked with him by phone and he sounded a lot more jovial than his usual surly self. Two days later I was talking to two sergeants on a train for Baltimore. They both had been stationed at Des Moines. After a little prodding by the Haig brothers, they confessed, with the usual Army respect for superior officers, that Capt. Mills was getting a little heavy. A more complete report will be mailed upon request.
Willie Scherman has taken on the colossal job of shipping you a weekly news report. All information on men in the various branches of the service changes so fast it is hot hardly longer than a couple of weeks. As you move about, get promoted or see other guys from '34, ship the news to Bill or to me as fast as you can. He'll get it right out. And we could use some pictures for this column. Send them along. We'd like to have a picturcof every man in the service. Not that we're interested, but Dartmouth wives and daughters sometimes read these columns when they see a picture of a man in uniform.
Secretary, Upper Terrace St., Montpelier, Vt
