1931
About the time this column appears in print, Laura and I will be luxuriating in the haven Hanover and setting aside a moment of meditation out of abject sympathy for those of you who will not be sharing our hinterland hiatus. The annual Class Officers' meeting is the excuse; but the actual reason is that, like the storied lemmings who can't resist that migration to the sea, the Morrises can wait just so long and then we simply must head north and dig our heels into the campus. It looks as though the Bill Stecks will join us there, and we're hoping that the Jim Godfreys will complete the sextet (which, gentle reader, is a mathematical, not a sociological connotation).
This year, as was true for each of the past many years, I shall come away from the annual meeting with a firm resolve to be a better secretary, a more consistent correspondent, a more diligent director, and a more avid amanuensis ... a more of everything of which there should be more ... and this year, as has been true for each of the past many years, my intentions and my actions shall be so far apart that their only connection will lie in the fact that they are both written in English. Truly, "the world is too much with us" and although my file is thick with notations of things that would be good to do for '31 they just don't get done because clients and family and community and innumerable intrusions force you back into second position or third position or even limbo. So be it! Each year, along about this time, my thoughts turn in this direction when I begin to anticipate the annual meeting. That conclave has a serious purpose, and the College itself does a fine job in its organization and curriculum. As a result of it, you should have a progressively better secretary each year. The betterment's there... at least I feel it... but it just never gets expressed in the sum total of things accomplished. Maybe that's par for the course, but the simple fact of the matter is that I am so proud of all of you as a class, and so glad to be a part of it, that I feel considerably inadequate in translating all that mood into so little deed.
On the other hand, a guy like Bill Steck swings into a real big job and polishes it off with effectiveness and aplomb. Right now, he's clavicle-deep in the most strenuous of all class activities, the Alumni Fund. He writes that this year he's lined up about seventy agents (more than we've ever had before) and when he and his crew have finished their job, you can be sure it will have been done to the optimum. And Ned Campbell, somehow or other, finds time to handle all those Wah-Hoo-Wampum communiques which are so fundamental a part of the Fund Drive.
Johnny Cogswell writes that he was in Hanover for Carnival (sic semper youth!) and claims that it was a lot of fun being an undergraduate again for four days. He cautions, however, that the aftermath was proof positive that he is no longer an undergraduate. Bob Dickey says, "I'm trying to earn a law degree which consumes three nights a week, in addition to hours and hours of home study. This, plus executoring an estate and raising four youngsters, provides a reasonable facsimile of a full life." Forsha Russell pens that he has seen Hart Gilchrist, Thad Smith and Stew Rose, and that they all look fit as the proverbial fiddle. Russ Beckwith enjoyed an experience that all too few of us take the time to cultivate. He took a station-wagon load of applicants for Dartmouth admission up to Hanover for a lonk weekend. He says they were all royally entertained, had a grand time ... and that's the way good colleges are built. Oz Bliss was in New York recently on a quick trip from Chicago. In accepting an assignment as Fund agent, Pete Akerlund replied on Hawley Products Company letterhead which (if memory serves us right) is the outfit founded by Jess Hawley of long-ago football fame. Johnny Camph has just been upped to the post of advertising director in the Conde Nast organization.
Ned Campbell sent along some of the returns of the Newsogram questionnaire and, although we won't attempt any full-scale codification of comments and attitudes, it strikes me as being significant that in answer to the query as to "the finest thing I have ever done," a surprising number have been moved to say "I married the girl I'm now married to." Maybe I'm an old softie, and maybe I don't recognize politic persiflage when it's staring at me, but I believe those are honest statements and that's just about the nicest thing that could be said in answer to that question. (Aside to all wives: congratulations!)
Seldom do we hear from the land of the maple leaf, but one of our across-the-border confreres broke into the news. Don Cruikshank was in Regina, Saskatchewan, about the middle of March to act as referee of the North American Figure Skating Championships. This harks back to some of those moonlit eves on Occom Pond.
A press clipping from an Oshkosh, Wise., paper carries the bridal portrait of Miss Mary Gertrude Castle, who is now Mrs. Bill Minehan. As my teenagers would put it, she's an ever-livin' doll... and welcome to the family, Mary. Hal Sutton, the Jim Lyalls, HowardCrosse, Homer MacVean and son, and GeorgeNickum were in Hanover during late February and early March. That's not exactly the time of year that I would ordinarily select for a Hanover trek, but I'll have to admit there's nothing in the world quite like one of those exploratory expeditions across the campus duckboards. Remember how that water used to spout up your pant leg when you stepped on what you thought was a firmly-founded board, only to have it squish down into the oozy terrain and geyser an old faithful unerringly up inside your corduroys.
There's nothing you have to do tonight quite so important as sitting down and sending your check for the Alumni Fund. Certainly it's important that the Fund should get every last simoleon that you can wring out of the old carpet bag; but equally important is that every single member of the class should make some kind of contribution. Last year there were 84 of our graduates missing from the roll of donors. That's almost 20% of the class ... and that's too many! There are always going to be a few, for one reason or another, who forget to give, have no intention of giving, or delay beyond the deadline; but 84 is anything but a few. Some of those don't think they can give very much and, therefore, feel that it might be embarrassing or inconsequential to give a relatively small amount. That just isn't true. A one-dollar bill would be at least a vote cast in favor of the great, good purpose and function of the Alumni Fund and of Dart- mouth College itself. Each of these individual votes is mighty important. Then, after you have given the mite, there's time for that mighty decision to give the most. What a wonderful thing it would be for all of us to express our appreciation to Bill Steck and his fellow hard workers by establishing a 100% index of participation this year. It just takes a little thought, a little time, a little money ... and it does so much, so often, for so many! Take a big king-size hello for yourself and then, remember, you're always '31. See you next month ... from Hanover.
Secretary, Lambert & Feasley, Inc. 430 Park Ave., New York 22, N. Y.
Class Agent, 1250 Terminal Tower Bldg., Cleveland, 0.
