Early Birds
HANOVER, like every living thing, has its rhythms, and in common with most communities committed to education or the resort business, or to the more likely combination of both, has in fact a dual system—a daily rhythm functioning within a series of larger seasonal periods. It's the early morning swing that we've been watching for some years, with rather disillusioning effects. The reason for this is that we had been brought up on Ben Franklin's firm conviction that it was the early bird that got the worm.
It is not the purpose of this piece to fall in with modern mores and give the early worm the bird; yet years of observing Hanover's early birds have not tended to confirm the Yankee faith that early to bed and early to rise would make a man a modern Dale Armstrong, a director of the Dartmouth Savings Bank, or a candidate for a deanship. The Big-Shots of Hanover Plain are rarely seen abroad before 9 a.m. Who then are the early birds? To call the complete roll would spill over from this page into Bob Carr's article on the next, but we still have space in which to snare a few birds of distinctive plumage.
Most conspicuous amid swirling clouds of morning mist and piles of debris from the night before are Hanover's toughlunged white-wings under Lonny Jones and Jess Haff. Before the street shows any signs of life at all they may have started a deer busily engaged in admiring the Gift Shop window on the Hanover Inn corner. But now the Hanover day really begins promptly on the stroke of seven—since Prof. Leslie Ferguson (Mystery-Hour) Murch criticized a certain procrastination in the administration of the Hanover P. O. under the Democrats—as Frank Waite unlocks the front doors to admit the earliest birds who have been waiting on the steps for their mail. There's Prof. Fred Parker 'O6, always chipper, who has already checked in at the Allen Street headquarters of the Hanover Water Works to make sure his men were on the job, and now hurries up street to breakfast, Waltham watch in one hand and Wall Street Journal in the other. There's Hal Gordon from Putnam's Drug Store, on hand to check up on Tink Cook, and usually a couple of Contractor Trumbull's men. And more often than not there's Rolf C. Syvertsen, Dean of the Medical School and our nearest approach to an early-bird Big-Shot, though Sy seems never to have lost the common touch. Main Street sees the Viking spirit in the flesh as his walrus mustache looms through the mist.
While they are picking up the mail the scene shifts to the book store of A. D. Storrs '99 where the Boston and New York papers are now scheduled to arrive about 7 a.m. Delays always bring interesting rumors concerning road conditions on Rutland Mountain or a flood at Canaan.
Early birds always on hand include such taxi drivers as John Cassin, with Rover, and Smitty and Woody and Winn and Alex Thorburn. Even more regular in morning arrival than the papers is Dick Southgate '07, whose matutinal regularity blasts the usual conception of the gentleman of leisure. In mild weather Dick stands outside the store and swaps golf stories or makes a date for that day's game and on inclement or wintry mornings he takes a seat in the rear of the store where with Yankee thrift he gets in a great deal of free reading. Among those swapping yarns is Rip Heneage '07, formerly director of athletics and present sponsor of one of Hanover's latest real estate developments on Balch Hill, lately rechristened "Pill Hill" because of the heavy infiltration of the medical profession.
By this time things are really stirring. With mathematical precision Prof. Bancroft Brown comes up Main Street, speaking now and then to someone, but with his mind really far away as he computes the chances that he and the Boston Herald will make simultaneous arrivals.
If Bancroft, authority on gambling odds, were computing the chance for an early breakfast in Hanover, it wouldn't be what it used to be, though we're completely baffled when someone asks what is. Fairly close to the witching hour of seven Lou's Restaurant (nee Saia's) is ready to serve crullers and coffee, and more if you want it, and gradually one by one and in varying order, smoke appears in Putnam's and Eastman's and Allen's and the Indian Bowl, and, after due deliberation, in the Hanover Inn Coffee Shop. By this time as a general rule the Dartmouth Printing Company has completed its run of The Dartmouth and shivering undergraduates hustle by to make the rounds of dormitories and fraternity houses. At the lower end of Main Street, Gulf Oil as represented by Jack Manchester '33 has started its pumps and Fletcher pulls in from his hide-out in Wilder to open the modern cave of Robin Hood—"rob the rich and give it to the poor and treat 'em all rough." All the rest of the stores and offices on Main Street seem to wait until close to nine o'clock before showing signs of life. To us early-birds this is a shameful adoption of what country boys like Foley and Parker must ever regard as banker's hours, though "Governor" Hill assures us it is but one of the blessed survivals of the Roosevelt Revolution.
But there is one other exception that perhaps you've been wondering about, and that is an exception indeed for it is Main Street's most widely known emporium—the one and only Tami's] Though that highly personal and very loquacious interchange of goods and cash—or creditwhich constitutes a sale in Tanzi's, doesn't really get under way until nearer eight by the clock, Harry (Hole-in-one) Tanzi, true to the ancient traditions that have made America what it is, always pulls around the corner by the bank on the stroke of seven. As Harry says, "Dammit, there's plenty to be done," and there is!
We suppose the day is not far distant, what with all our inventions and improvements, when there'll be no Hanover early birds—no one stirring at all until the dew has dried off the golf course and the mists have rolled away from valley and stream. But as long as Harry Tanzi smiles at us over that first good cup of early-morning coffee and Fred Parker rattles his paper and checks his watch and hurries up the misty street—well, why worry about the worm anyway?
Editor's Note: The above piece has all the earmarks of an authoritative account of a phase of Hanover life known only by legend and hearsay to 99 per cent of the population, including the editor, but we feel that the author has been guilty of an important omission in making only a passing reference to Prof. Allen R. (Cowboys and Indians) Foley '20 of Norwich, noted orator, lecturer and preacher. It has always been our impression that Professor Foley is the earliest of the Hanover early birds, as circumstantial evidence of which we cite the fact that by 8: go each morning he and others mentioned above have rendered all other available news organs largely superfluous.
