1909

Back in the saddle again after a summer full of activity and some bull and now the call is out for alumni notes. They've got a new system this year made necessary "by space restrictions. A class, such as ours, which has between 100 and 200 subscribers to the MAG is allotted 900 words—no more. So we'll have to make copy snappy and succinct and run any overflow in issues of the '09 Diddings, a sheet of no inhibitions.

My project this summer has been painting old Hitching Post Manor—that's what we call the Childs domicile on account of oldfashioned hitching posts that mark the walk to the front door. Then there's the carriage stoop by the driveway, with lattice front and back and a seat where the women folks used to sit and wait while their men were getting the horse and buggy from the carriage barn. Fixing up and painting the barn was the project for the summer a year ago.

I've been working on the place since last June, and if I do say so, it looks mighty pretty: white, with dark green shutters, sky blue on the ceiling of the two porches that run across the front of the house, pearl grey for the porch floors, doors and screen frames in the green. Towards the end of the job, after all the high work had been done, dam if the ladder didn't slip as I was working on the eaves of the front porch and down I slid with it, dropping to the cement walk from about four feet up. No serious damage, just a sore back and a sore elbow. That's the way it goes. One can never tell what will happen next, can one?, as Mrs. Frankie Roosevelt would say.

Hats Off to One Ralph Clement

Due to the persistent and consistent good work of our new class agent, Ralph ByronClement, '09 made the best showing that it has ever made in the Alumni Fund drive, even if it did fall 31% short of its quota. The total take was $5,510.05 which was some 1,500 bucks more than in 1950, and a 100 odd higher than Norm Catharin's best year, when he was class agent. So the boys are making progress and they are to be congratulated for coming through in such fine manner. We're still in the cellar of our Green Derby group, but a little daylight is breaking through the chinks, along with some fresh air. More details of this will appear in an issue of Diddings, if I ever get around to writing it.

According to advice from Hanover, these classmates have put up at the Inn since last May: Mr. and Mrs. Walter Brown of Boston spent a week there; Mr. and Mrs. H. WilburGraves of Rochester, N. Y., were there for three days; and, of course, Russ Cowles when he was present to get his honorary degree from the College at Commencement time. Russ can now shake hands with Hal Murchie, who got his honorary degree the year before, or was it '49?

Not much correspondence this summer. A card from our roving reporter, B. MatthewScully, who says he'll have something about guys who wear night .shirts and tell hotel clerks not to put them up with Irishmen, next time he writes a letter. A couple notes from Nut Root, Chicago, who sent a clipping about Alpha Delt at Chicago University pledging a Negro and wondering what DillerRyan would think about that. He also sent a clipping of the death of George Leach 'll, another Chicago lad with whom I worked for six years when I was with A. B. Leach & Co. Some of you will probably remember George on the Mandolin Club. Another good guy who has gone to join his fathers.

A card from Happy Hinman '10, who tells me he has to give up being class notes editor on acount of a bum arm. I always enjoyed his stuff. He's got the beak for news and he knows how to dish it out.

I've been seeing quite a bit of Ced Wellsted this year. We've got business connections and so X drop into his place several times a week. Ced is a snappy dresser. He must have at least six suits—maybe more. He wears his togs well, as befits a prosperous investment broker. Inge (Don't-Call-Me-Fat)Fearing and his personable helpmeet were in Cleveland a while back and had several happy sessions with Ced.

Unless plans are upset, I'll be going East the fore part of October to spend a few days with my sister Mildred, widow of Gene Prentice '08, and, of course, my son John and grandson who will be two on the 18th. I was hoping to land in Hanover for a session with my old friend Charlie Truman, but I guess that's out. Charlie writes he might be going to Detroit this fall, in which case he'll stop by Aurora.

This is it, mates. The 900 words are used up. And now that the fall season is here, how about some of youse limbering up your writing hand and sending me some of that stuff to Aurora? Get out of that easy chair and get going. As Confucius said: "Salesman who covers chair instead of territory, always on bottom." Ain't that so, Norm Catharin?

Class Notes Editor, Pioneer Trail, Aurora, Ohio Secretary and Treasurer, Sandwich, Mass.