1937
Occasionally the Alumni Records Depart- ment of the College loses track of one of the Alumni and the help of the class secretary is solicited. Therefore, if anybody knows the present whereabouts of E. Martin Shera Jr. in our Class, will he please communicate with either the secretary or the Alumni Records Office in Hanover. His mail has been returned from No. 845 Work Drive in Akron, Ohio Jim Gray, a transplanted New Englander who has adopted the South as a home, recently obtained controlling interest in the Herald Publishing Company, which publishes the DailyAlbany (Georgia) Herald and operates a Radio Station, WALB Since Dartmouth Jim studied at the University of Heidelburg in Germany. Returning to this country in 1939, he became associated with the HartfordCourant as editorial and feature writer.
Em Brightman was married recently to the former Miss Janet Altrenter, o£ Montclair, N. J., and Bennett Junior College. During the war, Em served as a captain in the Army Quartermaster Department seeing 2 1\2 years of active duty in England and France. After a wedding trip to Canada, Mr. and Mrs. Brightman will reside in East Orange..... Ed Jones has received wide recognition for a recent article, "The Wounded Still Fight," in the Atlantic Monthly The Rutland Herald recently announced Robinson E. Keyes has been named a partner in the Law firm of Ryan, Smith & Carbine. After Dartmouth, Robinson graduated from Cornell Law School and was admitted to the Vermont Bar in 1941. .... Phil Conti was recently promoted to be lieutenant colonel and by now is, probably, discharged. Phil entered the service as a cadet and gained quick promotion in active service against the Japanese as a Navigator on bombing planes. His Squadron in the Jolly Rogers is credited with about 300 Japanese planes downed. He was promoted to major in April '44 and lately has been guiding athletic programs at the Keesler Field, Miss JohnHandrahan, Al Bryant, Carl Amon and BibsBankhart can take a good deal of credit for a good organizational job from work on the recent Boston '37 get-together and provided a grand time for everybody. Among those present were the following:
Stan Berenson, Harold Gould, of the Hartman Shoe in Haverhill; H. E. Jones, now with New York Life Insurance Company; George Roewer, of the U. S. Conciliation Service; Parker Butler, of Northampton; Tom Mclntyre, who came down from Laconia, N. H.; Arnold Shapiro, of Chestnut Hill; Stan Lappin, of Filenes; Bob Sullivan, Doug Butman, Bob Ross, Ed Loudani, now a Manufacturer and Distributor of dry goods and textiles in Lawrence; Bill Thomas, now located at the Boston Lying-In; Crawf Hintnan, also Of the Boston Lyingin; Earl Cleaves -of Waltham; Dick Wood of Sharon; Em Bentley of New Bedford; Bob Milliken of Kingston; Jim Emerson of Northampton; AlMayer of Longmeadow; Em Patterson of Hoxsie, R. I.; Ralph Griffith of Providence; Bill Talberg now connected with American Brass Company; Bill Rotch of Milford, N. H.; Paul Wentworth of Winchester; Gib Reynolds of Cambridge, now with DeWolfe & Fiske of Boston; Art Ruggles now with Equitable Life Assurance; Ed Perry, CraivfFerguson, Ed Temple of Winchester; F. ]. O'Brien,Walt Graf, Les Barrett and Dex Smith.
Jerry Golenbock was surprised to find a note in the Alumni News to the efEect he had opened up his own office. As a matter of fact, he has had his own office for the practice of Law in New York for approximately seven years. In addition, he is the proud father of a son, Peter, bom July 19, 1946. The SelectedLetters of William Allen White edited with an introduction by Walt Johnson, our classmate, who has been making great strides in the University of Chicago, is being published early in '47 by Henry Holt & Cos. price $3-75It is a fat volume of 460 pages and involves a whale of a lot of work. According to the blurb on the dust wrapper:
Walter Johnson, & member of the History Department of the University of Chicago, is a young liberal thinker, a graduate of Dartmouth who decided that education was more important than the football he played; His interest in history and government led him to believe that William Allen White epitomized the thought and movement of the Middle West. The Letters were collected and edited with the unqualified cooperation of Mr. White, and Walter Johnson is now at work on a definitive biography of him to be published next year.
Walt Hard Jr. had an article titled "What a Rat Race" in Mount Mansfield Skiing. It is an exceptionally good job of de-emphasizing tow-hill and down-hill skiing. Sample quote: "It is not enough that several thousand skiers park themselves on one mountain side and churn the slopes into a morass of rocks and shaved ice. Now everyone is expected to race, become a competitive skier, run time trials, win little gold stars and be neatly classified and graded. Trying to run the 'Bone Crusher' you can well believe you have been caught in a down town subway rush, and if you survive the waiting line, you can freeze to death riding the lift back." Walt goes on to describe the joys and benefits of touring skiing. He notes, "Touring skiing can be fun even below timber line. The Norwegians have done it for years and like it."
Hard is now State House Reporter at Montpelier for the Burlington Free Press and Rutland, Herald. Last winter he wrote a ski column in the Herald. He served with the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment in the Kiska and Italian campaigns.
Having printed previously quotable letters from Art Guyer, it certainly would not be fair to leave him in Europe. Accordingly, here is another very quotable letter written from Hanover, N. H., which brings his public up to date on Art's wanderings among the vagaries of UNRRA.
Well at last I am back in the "tall timbers" and happy to be there. It has been a long and interesting road and is far from done yet, but I am taking a three month "breather" to rest a bit and get back on my feet. I am really bushed, not so much physically as psychologically, because I have been fighting hard for the entire year and it has been a losing battle all the way. This is a sort of regrouping or something, an organization to attack again on a new front with different ideas. Perhaps you remember the lunch we had in Cambridge some time ago and the vague ideas that I was trying to work out then. If so you will understand a bit of what I mean. The situation is even less favorable now than it was then, and there have been times when I wondered if it was worth the effort, but a couple of months here in Hanover teaching in the Ski School, and seeing that the "kids" in the America today are the same as they were when I was one of them by age rather than by inclination, ought to set me up again. Did I write you last June or July to tell you what was going on? I don't remember, but this is briefly the story. UNRRA was gradually bogging down in a political and inefficient mess. The great majority of the people I was in contact with were activated more by their own greed, search for pleasure, pride, or selfishness than by the ideal which UNRRA had set for itself. Although this did not affect the ideal, it ruined its operation and led to a situation where I felt that there was nothing to be gained by continued work under its aegis. The whole operation reminded me of a drunk delivering a pound of butter in a ten-ton truck. The final blow was when we were informed that the operation would cease at the end of the year. The result of this information was a feeling that since the end was so near there would be no time to improve the work and that complaints and suggestions would never come through before the end so if there was anything wrong, let it go for the few remaining months. This added to the increased activity of the people engaged in the black market who saw the approaching end of their wild profits, made it impossible to do a job that was worth the effort required. I intend to use this operation as an example, supported by documents which I have kept, to illustrate the sabotage of a fine ideal by insincere people. Last June, sickened by the rottenness, I sent in my resignation and went to Paris. From there it was possible for me to take a two weeks' trip to Venice and Trieste to renew my acquaint- ances there and see at first hand the situation in this area. Upon my return to Paris I realized that I had about thirty cents in my pocket, no ticket home and no job so I had to scurry around a little.
The Air Transport Command hired me as an Air Corps Supply Technician and flew me to Dhahran Saudi-Arabia, where much to my disgust, I found that even the U. S. Army is not immune from the sickness of incompetence, political angling and general decadence that seems to have swept the world. I knew from earlier associations that there would be some of this in the Army, but am still amazed at the extent of it. The extent of the incompetence in the Army today is perfectly brought out by the story of my trip home. On October 2 I left Dhahran by plane for Cairo, Egypt. Although I had reminded the personnel office of the necessity for sending my 201 file with me, they did not have it ready and despite three attempts to get it was forced to take off without it, having only a promise that it would be forwarded by the next plane. There followed a ten-day wait in Cairo. The next stage of the trip was on orders issued at Cairo to travel via Leghorn, Italy. Upon arrival at Leghorn I was told that these orders were not properly written and although they planned to send me back to Cairo to have them rewritten, I arranged to be allowed to go to Paris as it was closer and was a step forward rather than backward. In Paris there was further discussion and finally a new set of orders were issued to Bremmerhaven for a ship. There was a long wait there and finally in the middle of November we were put aboard a Liberty ship which took EIGHTEEN days to cross the Atlantic, a disgrace to the Army and to the American people. The sad part of the whole thing is not that I missed Thanksgiving at home and had a miserable trip, but that the taxpayers had to pay about S2000 to get me back that way, whereas they would have payed less than $500 by the normal channel. This multiplied by thousands over a period of a year mounts up to a large figure, and added to many other far greater wastes of money which I don't have time now to describe means that the American taxpayer is hooked in the millions for the Army's incompetence and downright dishonesty. I make this statement in full knowledge that there will be many who disagree or who will for their own profit fight to maintain the status quo, but I have the facts and documents to prove it and intend to do so when the time comes. Now to more pleasant things. The Children's Ski School has always been a wonderful thing to work with and I plan to do so this winter. Other plans are yet in too early a stage to say much about, but I am keeping in mind the Reunion this summer and am planning to be there with camera and film to record the antics.
Don't know when I will get down to Boston and vicinity, but hope to one of these days. If you get up this way this winter look for me at the Inn. Hope to see you soon and discuss the latest class plans. So long for the moment. Let me hear from you.
The class secretary is indebted to GeorgeLiscombe of the Class of 1907, well known around Boston, Hanover, and for all we know, other sections of the country for his complete and unswerving loyalty to all things Dartmouth for the following bit of news. George dropped the following post card from New York City dated Feb. 5th:
You may be otherwise informed, but as a casual observer the '37 had a good party here at the Club last night with 24 loyal prospective next June Reunioners present. And Dave Camerer just left me at the bar. He should! See you at the Boston dinner on the 26th. Best regards. George E. Liscombe '07.
Secretary, 12 Hay ward Ave., Lexington, Mass. Treasurer, Box 121, Deerfield, Mass.
