1933
If you have any doubt about the validity of the old saw that you can't teach an old dog new tricks or make a race horse out of a Percheron we offer ourself as living proof. Here we are bending over a cold typewriter to get out some class notes, several days past the deadline, with the hot breath of the Editor on our neck, with little to write about except regrets that we didn't write those letters to Joe, Charlie, and Win a few weeks back that might have gotten us some news. And (if we don't say this the editor will, the dog! He has the last crack at this before it goes to the printer) it is ever thus, always has been, and very likely ever will be, until some gallant soul takes our place. Any candidates? Step forward, gentlemen.
Well, there's 150 words of pure, unadulterated boilerplate, and we can see the editor's blue pencil poised to strike out any more of the same .... so ... . Parker Hart, fresh from the frying pan of the consulate in Saudi Arabia, is about to get married to Jane Constance Smiley, formerly of Ithaca, N. Y., now on the editorial staff of a journal published in Washington. She is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Dean Franklin Smiley. Parker has been on the hop for a number of years. Somewhere along the way he acquired a diplome from the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland. He also paused for a bit in the Georgetown University school of foreign service, and worked for the Foreign Policy Association before he entered the foreign service with the State Department. No mere secretary could fill in the details from that point on, but Saudi Arabia was the last stop and now, presumably to settle down for a spell, Parker is in Washington with the division of foreign service planning of the State Department.
We tagged another migratory '33-er who has been an elusive character last week, by the simple device of taking a trip to Connecticut, drinking a few martinis on the class of '34, and (a little later in the evening) lifting from Bill Judd's pocket a long epistle from none other than Cmdr. Earle C. Gordon, USN, written aboardship while en route from Guam to the States. Before our spouse carries out her promise to return it to Bill, we'd better embalm a few of the printable passages. Earle wrote: "At the moment we are en route from Guam to San Francisco then on to duty at the 13th Naval District Legal Office in Seattle. We will stay in Flonolulu a couple of days where the old pocketbook will doubtless take the proverbial beating. It's awful to be Scotch. .... Duty on Guam has been interesting but in many ways so hectic as to be extremely tiring. Right after the war it was realized that a big mistake had been made by not fortifying Guam many years ago and the brass was all hell for getting the job done and building Guam into a Pearl Harbor of the Western Pacific. Then Russia started acting up and we were (deleted in deference to the Legion of Decency) in China.... and things started shifting to the Atlantic. That would have been OK but .the brass still expected the same amount out of Guam with half the personnel. .... Such a situation is bad for morale, and when morale is bad the court-martials are thick. There were several very interesting cases In Seattle the work will undoubtedly be the same but should be at a slightly more leisurely pace. Also I hope to get in a bit of fishing and hunting which is supposed to be good around there. If I get a good one I'll send you a picture of it. We won't get East on this change of duty but probably will try to do so two years hence."
We spent three delightful days in New Britain with Jean and Sam Black, who, good hosts that they are, took on quite a menage, adding our small fry, and another visiting child, to their brood, as well as ourselves. Incidentally, we made the interesting discovery on this trip, that a six-year-old brought up in the "protected" environment of an academic community can hold his own in the matter of, shall we say, a "colorful" vocabulary with his opposite number brought up in the public schools of an industrial city. In fact, our Terry didn't have to extend himself at all to overmatch John's "You dumb jerk!", and other similar expressions.
We had a chance on this trip to do something we'd planned long ago, to go through The Stanley Works. Took the better part of two days going over parts of the huge plant with Sam, seeing the whole intricate process of tool making, from the dramatic openhearth furnaces in the steel mill in Bridgeport (where Jack Conners '14 took us through every step in the process of making steel) right down the line to a bewildering variety of finished products.
We also saw Sam hard at work on his Alumni Fund campaign. By the time you read this you will have heard from Sam, who is undertaking this year to reach every man in the class with a personal note. This, if you stop to think about it, is some job in itself, and it is only a small part, actually, of all that he is doing in his sixth campaign as Class Agent to give us the most successful year we've ever had. Every member of the class can help Sam and our class objective by getting his contribution in early. Let's put this one over in a big way. Send in your check, now.
Page Worthington will get out the Newsletter this year, from his new headquarters at the C & P Tel. Co., Charleston, West Va. Send him all the news you can get your hands on.
Dr. Weldon A. Brown, associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, has recently published another book. The Common Cause, published by the North River Press, N. Y., is a study of collectivism, and contains an analysis of war and peace and the conditions under which lasting peace may be won. Weldon is also the author of Empire or Independence, a study of the revolutionary period.
A note from Ford Marden a few days ago. Up to his ears in the steel business in New York, Ford confesses to an almost overpowering nostalgia, this time of year, for the fishing that is just getting underway up here in the north country. Ah, the almighty dollar, says Ford. Ford tells us to count our blessings up here. We do, but even if we were a fisherman, which we're not, we would still be staring a hundred bluebooks in the face. We would almost as soon sell steel. And so—to the bluebooks.
Secretary,. 20 Valley Rd., Hanover, N. H.
Treasurer, 2812 Grant Bldg., Pittsburgh 19, Pa
Class Agent, The Stanley Works, New Britain, Conn.
