1930
It was the first New York class dinner in over six months, and it was a relatively small one, but there were those who loved it. Especially because Al Dickerson was as surprised as we were to find himself in the Dartmouth Club on the night of a 1930 gathering. Twice this semester the professor has had to leave Hanover. Once to go to Boston, once to New York, and on each trip he happened to coincide with infrequent class meetings. Al was able to relate the latest news of the college before dashing off to a meeting pertaining to the coming Alumni Fund campaign. The other seventeen who remained to listen to Charlie McDonough's stories and discuss 1930's 25th Reunion Gift to the college were: Frank Wallace, Art Browning, Dick Tilt, Bob Chittim, Kirk Jackson, Shaw Cole, Sam Stayman, Rannie Hobbs, Wallie Wasmer, Bud French, Wallie Blakie, Fred Page, Ave Raube, George Simpson, just back from a couple of years in New Foundland, Bob Keene, Dick Blun, and Charlie McDonough.
The 25th Reunion Gift topic brought forth an immediate pledge of one hundred dollars from Wally Wasmer and a consensus that a class like 1930 should top all others in a momentary expression of loyalty and devotion to Dartmouth. Some felt that now would be a good time to start soliciting contributions from those now in a position to give generously. Others, thinking of the Alumni Fund and those of us caught in a squeeze with frozen incomes, suggested that ten dollars per year per man between now and 1955 would provide a magnificent sum to turn over to the college at our 25th. The matter is getting active consideration from your class officers and you will hear more about it in good time. Meanwhile, all suggestions will be welcomed and very much appreciated.
Ed Jeremiah wrote an interesting letter from Ft. H G. Wright, where, he writes, he has been stationed "since August, after a five-month period at Fort Story, Va., twenty miles south of Norfolk, where I saw a great deal of Al and Barbara McGrath. I miss them because they are swell company. I guess everyone going through Norfolk looks up Al, and boy, he is well liked by those who work with him, and that goes for men above and below him. They really love him and he's doing a remarkable job, yet he hasn't changed a bit. He's the same old wise-cracking Al who gets just as much kick telling a joke on himself as on someone else. Bart McDonough is also in the Navy and is teaching navigation out in Kansas. This fort is on Fisher's Island just off New London and existence on an island isn't too good. Fortunately I get home occasionally and see my wife. So help me, when I get off the island I feel like a hayseed going to town."
Tom Peirce is at Quonset Point and says he surely enjoys the respite of a trip to Boston whenever he can make it. Tom is in the Supply Corps and anticipates a move to the West soon. Carl HafFenreffer sat down to write us a Christmas
note, but it developed into one of the best letters we have received in some time. We're sure he won't mind our quoting most of it here, for it contains an appeal to the civilian classmates to organize. "I find one has to try awfully hard these days to be merry (and I'm not referring to the whiskey shortage). That is, except when you sit down and count the blessings we have to be thankful for—like having Chandler and Nimitz cooperating in the Pacific theatre; Bottome coordinating like crazy in Venezuela and the Lord knows where else; then we have Shawsie Cole around to fix your leaks if you've got one, and old black magic Dickerson instructing those utterly unsuspecting Hanover .admirals in the mysteries of cartography— a truly secret weapon if ever I saw one.
"These thoughts give me courage to carry on. I feel like that poor little heath-hen felt on Martha's Vineyard as she watched herself become quietly extinct. Do you ever stop to think that you and I and very few others, according to the class notes, are the few remaining survivors of that ancient tribe called plain-clothesmen,' or the "Legion of Mufti"? Think of the living hell we will go through at the next class reunion! Those terrible, awful lies we'll have to endure. Those lies will beat any post-Easter vacation Bermuda stories even Pat Weaver could dream up in his balmiest days! The submarines sunk—the Japs surrounded— the Zeros shot down will be astronomical. Now is the time to prepare our counter-offensive. But, Bud, what have we to build on? As I periodically pound the Providence pavements replete in my great white glistening dome.-like helmet—looking for all the world like a Co-op bridge lamp (unlit, of course), and bully my kindly neighbors into Polling down their shades or turning off a light while the sirens wail, I try to fabricate some story— some feat of heroism that I can pull out when the going gets too tough at reunion. Of course, we can always take a powder, or maybe you will join me in a "rich, creamy" hemlock at the Villa Clara! Thank the good lord we heath-hens can still call a bath- room a bathroom and not a "head." .... "Now Bud, as for the tapeworms, _ Andy in- cluded. Webster says a tapeworm—that is an adult tapeworin—is parasitic when it gets into one's in- testines. And that's just where Andrew got me with his crack (coyly attributed to Larry the Liver- fluke) about me at Bald Peak. You know all too well that Andy and Larry are as Charlie and Edgar. Furthermore, tapeworms give cattle beef measles &nd that's sabotage, suh! Like the ground-hog, Andy came out of his hole the other day just long enough- for me to see that any aspersions in re bald peaks by him is just plain "pot calling." Personally, I doubt if he can read a Socony road map.
"Say; don't you think we of the Mufti Legion ought to delegate someone to kick that fellow Senator Butler in the shins? He can't do that to our Coordinator! First thing we know Truman will investigate Bottome, and then, hold your hats.
"I've got some Dartmouth spirit for sale cheap. Of all the gang who were in Quonset or Newport (including Admiral Embree) only Brad Carnell had the decency to call me up or to come out and see us. A fine thing! Am I being shunned by my friends because I'm the original four "f" ? (count them above).
"This started out to be a brief Christmas message and look what happened! Well, Bud, start recruiting now for the order of heath-hens to combat those lies (little white ones) of the future. Make the world safe for those that didn't went!"
With Charlie Raymond's cooperation in his class dues collections, we have a good batch of letters from Thirsty's heath-hens and service men, but will have to save them for the next issue. And by that time, Alex McFarland and his cohorts will be drumming up the Alumni Fund campaign.
In your behalf, we have extended the sympathy of the class to Shaw Cole, whose wife Joan Getchell Cole died very suddenly December 19 last, just three weeks after the birth of their third child. Joan had returned from the hospital the previous week and was feeling fine, when her death, caused by an embolism, occurred.
Secretary, 99 Hudson St., New York, N. Y. Treasurer, 49 Leighton Road, Wellesley, Mass.
