1908
Time magazine reports that there is less polio this year than there was in 1944. During the month of October the Class Notes Editor observed signs o£ an epidemic of some sort which affected the writing and dictating organs of a group of about one hundred and fifty men all over fifty-five who live in a widely scattered area with a majority on the Atlantic seaboard. It was too late to secure the wide- spread use of any efficacious remedy for men of that age bracket, whether spelled front- wards or backwards or to get any help from Doc O'Connor '12. The Class Notes Editor faced the deadline for the December issue of the MAGAZINE with about enough class news to fill the back of an airmail stamp. The war made roving correspondents out of a lot of individuals who had never traveled for news before. When Larry Symmes and Art Rotch persuaded us to take over the job, Larry scribbled something which was not entirely legible and clear but which we understood to say that he and Rotch and/or the class would take care of any unusual expenses incurred in acquiring news. With this in mind we decided to travel and to look for some. We could think of no place about which most of the men might like to get first hand information than abOut Hanover. The Class Notes Editor, therefore, with- out much difficulty, persuaded his wife to join a party made up of the Bill Franklin's of Rockford and Knights to drive to New England, the Franklin's to visit their son at Hanover and the Class Notes Editor to endeavor to get some news.
The College was not in session but we found the Inn very full, and numbered among its guests were seven or eight Dartmouth men in uniform just back from the service and in Hanover on their honeymoons. More came during our stay—shedding confetti and rice in the elevator. The first night we were there we discovered Jack Everett and his wife on their way from Maine to Rutland where Jack was to attend a meeting. We regretted exceedingly that our visit with Jack was very brief. Many other alumni were there on visits.
Sitting in the coffee shop for a leisurely breakfast the following morning with a perfect view of Main Street, the first familiar face to come along was Dick Southgate '07, a permanent resident of Hanover. Nat Burleigh '11, of the Tuck School faculty, recently back from Washington next came in. Professor P. O. Skinner, now retired, hove into view and shortly after that Prof. Charles Bolser, erect and striding energetically, came up the street looking capable of giving either Pete Cams or Artie Soule a busy time in a half-mile run. Dave Storrs looks the same as he did during the Taft administration when we crowded in to buy "Baastan" papers to read Bob Dunbar's column.
At the window in the Post Office we found our old friend Mr. Snow on duty. Inquiry as to the length of time he had worked there brought the reply that he started in 1904 when we were freshmen and that he has been there ever since. We attended football practice. Tuss McLaughrey and his assistants are doing a good job without much material. Always modest, Tuss would not make any prediction as to what the team might do. We obtained the real situation, however, from the barber in Tony's Barber Shop. Our interview with him was just before the Syracuse game. He predicted unqualifiedly that with the difficult Holy Cross, Pennsylvania and Notre Dame games behind them, that the team would win every game "except," he said, "possibly the Columbia game." With this authoritative and accurate information at hand we contemplated rushing to the Western Union, leasing a wire and passing along this news to Badger, Bills, Cowee, Crowley, Fiske, Mason Lewis, Hilton, Melville, O'Shea, Richardson, Rotch, Bob Rugg, Tappan and others whom we felt confident would make the greatest use of this dependable dope. We didn't lease the wire, however, and by the time this appears in print the potential recipients of this reliable dope will know how much they missed by our failure to get this on the wires.
Hazel McLane Clark and her son John '32, just back from two years of very interesting service overseas, John's wife and their son, Alexander IV, drove to Hanover from New Boston the Saturday we were there. They came up to attend the Syracuse game and found after their arrival that it was being played in Syracuse. John's brother, Alex, is still in Japan.
We had a visit with Hoppy. He is looking fine and has bought a house on Rope Ferry Road, near the golf course. President-elect Dickey was expected in Hanover a couple of days after we left. Everything one hears about him is very, very good.
The Class Notes Editor and his wife went to Northampton to see their daughter Mary, a sophomore there. The Draper, Northampton's Waldorf, in our day, is not now mentioned in Duncan Hines. Dicky Rahar's still has the reputation of serving good food and it apparently is no longer Off Limits for Smith students as it was from time to time over thutty years ago. The Hotel Northampton which took us in is a charming spot. Mort and Marguerite Hull came over and had lunch with us. Mort is the Holyoke Community Fund Chairman for the fourth or fifth successive year and was in the midst of the campaign. We ran into Clark Tobin '10, at the hotel and had a good visit with him. The Class Notes Editor went to New York for a day to get Mike Stearns, the class president, to approve his expense account for the news-gather- ing trip. Lela and Mary were at Holyoke for dinner that night with Mort and Marguerite. They report a delightful dinner, a grand time and a session afterwards at which they played and sang all the old favorites and many of the new ones.
Mike and Annis invited the Editor to go out to South Orange for dinner and to spend the night. Mike was a little evasive about approving the expense account for the trip. He mumbled something about having the approval by the class at a reunion. We didn't quite understand whether it was to be approved at the reunion we had just missed, at the next one, or at the fiftieth. We had a delicious dinner and a grand visit. Mike belatedly reported that he and Art Rotch attended the Army-Navy game at Baltimore last year equipped with tickets furnished by a United States Senator and that they had a great Peerade.
The Ev Marsh's visited the Hilton's in Glen Ellyn on the Saturday afternoon of the Notre Dame-Dartmouth game and listened to the returns in comfortable fashion, bountifully supplied with everything necessary for an enjoyable afternoon, according to our reporter.
Sydney Ruggles called us up from Chicago the other evening. He was-on his way to Connecticut from the Aleutians where he has been for several months. He planned to eat lunch the next day with Stickney, Marsh and Hilton.
Art Lewis has been elected President of Sharon Springs Sanitarium, Sharon, Mass., operated for the treatment of children afflicted with rheumatic fever.
Lt. Bill Knight Jr. is now assigned to the Motion Pictures branch of the Army Special Services and is stationed in Brussels, Belgium, after being in Paris for six weeks on special duty and then in Frankfurt.
Secretary, 115 Broadway, New York 6, N. Y.
Class Notes Editor, 60s Forest City National Bank Bldg. Rockford, Ill.
Treasurer, Taftville, Conn.
