1942
Just to keep you people confused, I've moved again. As this is written I'm practically living in my car, a small, weatherbeaten article which rolled off Uncle Henry Ford's assembly lines a good many years ago. Or I would be, if it weren't for the good offices of two good friends and hosts, Bill and Liz Maeck, who are letting me put some sleep mileage on a day bed of theirs.
In an attempt not to be brief about it—since I don't have any notes whatsoever to fall back on—l'm in the process of changing papers from that northerly seed catalogue, The Burlington Free Press, to a more responsible journal, The Claremont (N. H.) Daily Eagle. The latter was recently purchased by a Dartmouth of no small talents and accomplishments (not the least of which is the siring of five fine offspring) named John Clark, who at one time wrote very elegant class notes for '32. I have a week's interregnum here during which X serve no master but Farley. And so I am letting my frail talents get nourishment from their native heath, Hanover.
All of this has let me observe The Plain during that period of peculiar frenzy called Green Key weekend. As is typical of most major Dartmouth weekends, Green Key this year was blessed with some particularly loathsome weather. It was gray, cold, wintry stuff both Saturday and Sunday, with only occasional moments of thin, watery sunshine. Doggedly enough, the same weather has hung around today, the Monday following the weekend, when' at least, it is probably more in keeping with some of the large, aching heads that are hanging loosely on student shoulders.
According to old hands at gauging the numbers and intensity o£ Green Key weekends, this one was small, and, comparatively speaking, mild. The rotund rajah of the Inn, Dave Heald, took it in stride without puffing noticeably. He even managed to sneak off to a Dartmouth ball game on Saturday afternoon. It was his expert judgment that only about 300 girls were in town, The Dartmouth's estimate of 900-odd notwithstanding. The large man's opinion was backed up by another expert, Lou Bressett of Lou's Diner on Main St. Lou said that he'd managed to keep busy all right, but the crowd really didn't extend his excellent staff. One version of explaining this rather curious decline was that some 88 Colby girls were being held incommunicado in theit New London dungeons by college authorities there. Something about breaches in the Colbyrules on the proximity of its undergraduates to alcohol. It's an ingenious theory, but I somehow or other like to think that the resourcefulness of the average Dartmouth undergraduate is still of sufficient strength not to be bilked by the actions of a single girl's school. My own hastily constructed, rather jerry-built theory is that the economic status of the present undergraduate is such that he can have a Green Key weekend any time he feels like it. I back up this theory largely by what seems to me to be the extremely high incidence of large, low-slung convertibles which seem to be the standard equipment for any undergraduate here nowadays.
My own participation in Green Key was chaste and restrained, as befits my age. I wandered down to the muscle manufactuory, the Alumni Gym, on Saturday and watched for a few minutes as the Yales toyed with the Dartmouths on the tennis courts with consummate ease. Their intimacy with a tennis ball and their knowledge on the care and feeding of rackets is nothing short of expert. The Dartmouths took their beating with grace.
After a little of that, I ambled around to the ball field where another, and less courteous, contest was taking place. The Princetons were in town and for eight innings had the temerity to attempt to give the charges of Eddie Jeremiah a tough time. In the eighth, the roof fell in on an otherwise well-intentioned young chap named Wolcott who was deluding himself at that point with visions of a Nassau 3-1 victory. Dartmouth wrathfully hit him for seven runs in that inning, three of which scored on a baleful clout by a large Dartmouth man named Hudak. This hit was a towering, majestic drive which landed only a few feet from the evergreens and the ironwork fence in left center field and earned for Mr. Hudak credit for a home run in the box score. The only other hit of like proportions I have witnessed in ten years of watching Memorial Field games was one fashioned by George Sommer back in our gay, unlettered undergraduate days.
As for strictly class news, you ain't gonna get any. There are two reasons for this—the most active one being that X don t hav'e any, and the second being that if I did, it would be hidden away in the mare's nest that is the inside of my car where all the Farley goods and chattels are stored during this period of moving.
I can remember that Ev Johnson wrote me a long letter some time ago, which I received just too late for inclusion in the May notes. It is temporarily lost in the mazes of my unscientific filing system, but my none-too-good memory pipes in a tiny treble that Ev is situated in one of the Southern states, North or South Carolina, I think. I also remember that he is well, but further than that I am unable to go. My number one correspondent JoeLogan also sent along one of his helpful postals about George McClintock. Since I've misplaced it, too, I can only say that it was in regard to George's having won some Harvard Law School honor. My Hanover scouts tell me that Henri Bohle was here recently and that he spent at least part of his Hanover sojourn writing a letter to The Dartmouth be- moaning the demise of the coffee hour in Sanborn House.
I do, however, have a pleasant surprise for all of us. Last month I promised that you would have surcease from me for two months after two more issues. I have just been informed that you will have surcease as of the publication of this issue. There is a July issue, but, as usual, it is reserved for the reuning class reports, so '42 can ease its aching sensibilities which have been whipped raw under the Farley pen for the last nine months. I will see you in the October issue (none are published in August or September), refreshed and refurbished with some shining new cliches. So long!
1943 CLASS AGENT SKATES TOO: John A. Koslowski giving his young daughter Judy the straight facts about the hockey game. Don't know who's having the most fun Johnny or Judy.
Secretary,Claremont Eagle, Newport, N. H. Treasurer, 710 Linden Ave., Los Altos, Calif. Class Agent, 17 State St., Marblehead, Mass.
