1920
About the time this issue appears Sherm Adams will know whether he is to be in business at the same stand for another four years, keeping the same ungodly hours and performing the same incredible chores in the course of what Longfellow called "the day's occupations." In the event of an Eisenhower victory, no less an authority than best-seller-writer Robert J. Donovan of the New York HeraldTribune will already have placed much of the credit where it belongs. He wrote, on September 29:
Many of the men who were working in the goldfish bowl of the Hotel Commodore in 1952 are on the job again this fall but behind the scenes. In 1952, for example, Mr. Eisenhower's chief of staff in the campaign was Sherman Adams, former Governor of New Hampshire, who had led his floor fight at the Chicago convention that year. Mr. Adams traveled with Mr. Eisenhower as he stumped the country by plane and train. Today, as assistant to the President, he is still his chief of staff, not only in political matters but in the whole conduct of White House affairs. Yet now, as then, he is at the center of campaign strategy.
Back in June the New York Times did a doubletake on Sherm. Its Sunday magazine ofJune 3 carried an article under the startlingtitle of "The Administration's 'AbominableNo-Man'" by Richard Strout - a prettydarned good piece - pointing out that Sherm"seems to relish his job as protector of Mr.Eisenhower's time and energy." "As tough andcomplex a character," said Mr. Strout, "asWashington has seen for many a day, a manwith the dedication of a vestal virgin and theimpatience of a water buffalo."
Following the President's illness, the Times (June 11) ran a front page story saying that Sherm was again temporarily "at the helm" and included a personality sketch farther back in the paper: "It is Mr. Adams who takes the blame when things go wrong and gets little of the credit for successful decisions on a multitude of Administration tasks from patronage to foreign policy."
By the end of summer, when Sherm made his distinguished television appearance at San Francisco, he seemed to have thinned down some, but was carrying on with his usual vigor. Incidentally, an astrologist who straightens things out for the readers of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the key to Sherm's personality "is a deep-seated desire to be independent... [and] an innate understanding of the secrets of others... [which] comes from the Sun in Capricorn sextiling Jupiter in Scorpio." Now, are there any questions?
A fine letter came in during the summer from Dick Hayes along with a copy of the latest edition of his Trailering America's Highways and Byways. This is a mighty interesting book, packed with facts and wellwritten to boot. Nobody who owns and uses a trailer —or plans to do so - should be without it. To quote its own modest description of itself, it "describes over 60,000 miles of highway, giving grades, road conditions, mileage; shows where hills are, how long, high, steep; gives alternate routes and campgrounds." Dick's spring travels took him to New England and he got to Hanover for the first time in years. "I had to get a map to guide me around," he said. "However, I can report that I listened in on some student conversations and found that their emphasizing words and phrases have not changed in 36 years!"
Another Twenty who handles the pen with special facility is Charlie Youmans, and he too has authored a 1956 publication which combines travel and comment with charming felicity. Entitled The Port of Carenas Now Called Havana, this tells "the story of the city that Spain called 'the Key to the New World' as written in its streets." If you know Havana, you will know it better, thanks to Charlie's book. If you haven't been there, here is your Better-than-Baedeker for the first trip to Cuba. An even more recent Youmans' venture is "The Literary Review," a commentary on new books, which he hopes and plans to develop into a syndicated feature for daily newspapers.
Twenty's blue-ribbon reporter Paul Richter has come to bat several times lately with newsy items about Lee Hodgkins, Phil Kitfield, SamCenter, and Raynor Hutchinson. Raynor, it seems, was written up by the Boston Herald a full year ago for growing blueberries (successfully) in a manner contrary to tradition. His bushes, there on Moulton's Ridge, back of Exeter, N. H., are grown in green sod that is kept mowed as regularly as a lawn. The Hutchinson place, inherited from his father, totals 90 acres, but Raynor's first experiments in blueberry raising took place when he was living in Weston, Mass. When he gets out in the vicinity of Cooperstown, N. Y., he doubtless swaps stories with Hal Huntington, longtime blueberry-grower, who used to lead the league in the size of his output.
Phil Kitfield, who still looks young and unharried when they snap his likeness for the newspapers, has a job on his hands as Massa- chusetts Turnpike Authority chief engineer. He is trying to keep everybody happy about the route being projected for the superhighway. . . . Lee Hodgkins' handsome picture ap- peared in the Manchester Union Leader for September is when he was shown presenting a citation for exceptional service in the March of Dimes campaign to a summer resident of Meredith, N. H. . . . Sam and Marion Center remain residents of New Hampshire, which surely is to their liking, but Sam has now been transferred by the telephone company from Laconia to Manchester. The Centers will vacate their Campton premises and take an apartment in Manchester for the winter.
An item of some importance saw the light of day through the usual alertness of the Milford (N. H.) Cabinet relating the election of John Felli as the newest director of the General Motors Acceptance Corporation. Assistant treasurer of the parent company, General Motors, since 1936, John has been getting along all right in his quiet way. The company house organ describes him as "a friendly sort of Yankee, who sports a ready smile and is not exactly a stranger to hard work."
Johnny Bedford, buyer and seller of lumber, is back in Georgia again after a couple of years residence in North Carolina. Savannah is his home base now. . . . Phil Greeley, too long unheard from, checks in as the operator of a radio and TV business on 14th Street in Washington. . . . John Parsons, long associated with the chocolate business in Boston, is one more Twenty who has found a retirement home in Maine.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Treasurer, Tuck School, Hanover, N. H.
Bequest Chairman,
