1937

It would appear in retrospect that I hankered overly hard for spring in the March notes. We are now in April - as I write - and snow still clutters large areas of our place. Our friends in New England suffered more than we in the late winter storms. As a matter of fact, you probably read they postponed the St. Patrick's Day parade two Saturdays running up in Boston.

All of this is very disturbing to us local gardeners. Carl Ray has been pestering me to get over and make a soil test on his garden. And it looks as though several weeks will elapse before I can get the Rototiller out to till my place as well as Carl's and Don Miller's.

Albie Chester followed up his card to me with a letter giving us details of his comings and goings. Last year when Albie's machine tool outfit was experiencing some of the famine which hits the industry from time to time, he left southern New Jersey where he had been since April of 1953, and headed back to Boston, Since October, Albie has been with the Edward Blake Co., Inc., of West Newton, who are in the machine tool business. Albie and family are now living in Lexington, Mass., and are happy to be back on familiar grounds.

I was delighted to get a note and press release from Walt Greenspan this month. Early in the year, Walt organized his own firm, purchasing the frozen food division of Flagstaff Foods. His new company is Flagstaff Frozen Food Associates, Inc. and is in Newark, N.J. - just a block from Penn Station if you Jerseyites get a chance to look Walt up. He goes on to add that he was elected V.P. of the National Frozen Food Distributors Assn., is president of the Metropolitan Frozen Food Distributors Assn., and V.P. of the Eastern Frosted Food Assn. And now don't blame me for this, X quote Walt when he says: "All this makes things pretty hot for me in this frozen business."

As for more personal details, Walt and wife Harriet have three children, Toni, 6, Doug, 5, and Vicki, 3. He's also U.S.M.C. Reserve with permanent rank of Major. I would say that Walt was being very cosy businesswise - his new landlord and his banker are both Dartmouth men!

While making some address changes recently, I noted that John Lindsay was with National Homes in Bloomington, Ill. Since 1 had a good friend who went with them recently, I had a news peg for a letter to John. His reply was lengthy and rewarding. He has been in Bloomington since October of 1954 as National's district manager for Central Illinois. So far John has not met any '37ers in the course of business travels. His last get-together of any consequence was last October when Ed Price invited John and Lucy up to Dartmouth Night in Kenilworth. Other '37ers there, in addition to Ed, were Park Johnston,Clint Demmon, and "their very attractive spouses," and Herb Butz who was stagging it. John goes on to say that Ed is now in the plastics business and has a lovely home very near Clint, as well as "a gorgeous daughter of 17 who some day could easily be Carnival Queen." Park still has his insurance business in Chicago. Herb has left the Buchen Co. (advertising) and is now with House and Garden in the ad end of the business. John regrets he has no particular news of ex-roommates Al McIntyre and Claude Clark, but brave exchanges of correspondence in early post-college days have dwindled to the annual exchange of Christmas cards. How about a revival, men?

Several days ago, I was at our graphic arts laboratories in Springdale, Conn, (near Stamford). I took time out to call Halsey Bullen who is a doctor in Stamford specializing in ear, nose and throat. Halsey sounded very chipper and glad for a few moments of chitchat with a voice he had not heard since Smalley Club days.

And on my way home, I dropped off to see Dave Camerer who is busily at work on his book. We had a beer in Dave's attractive little studio, which adjoins his house, while he recounted progress to date - well over 200 pages or 60-70% completion on the first take and sounding good about it.

Carl Gram and I had a few minutes on the phone recently. He and his wife had spent a little time in Sarasota to escape the aches and pains that accumulate over the winter.

Via the Winchester (Mass.) Star, I learn that Dave Kenerson was appointed administrator of Mound Park Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., on February 1, the successful applicant among some 150 contenders for the job. The hospital will ultimately have a 385-bed capacity and some 500 employees. Mercy Hospital, the city's colored facility, will also be under Dave's supervision. Dave is married and has two children. Since leaving Tuck School, he has picked up a Ph.D. in management. Lots of luck, Dave!

Also, from the newsclips, I read that Prof.Dick MacCornack has given at least several presentations here and there of his illustrated travelogue compiled from a South American visit. This should be right up his alley since Dick comes from Lima, Peru. His father was one of the head medical men in the BritishAmerican hospital there.

The Hanover Inn reports more than a sprinkling of '37ers as guests this past month: Dr.Ed W. Smith from Pelham Manor, N.Y., LemBowen, Les Bratton and Bob Turner. I expect to make it up to Hanover myself May 4 and 5 for the annual meeting of Class Officers.

March 27 I attended the New York kick-oft dinner of the Alumni Fund at the Dartmouth Club. About 170 were on hand and I was most impressed with Bill Morton 28, the Fund Chairman; Don Morrison, Provost of the College and Nick Sandoe '45, Fund Secretary. Rowley Bialla is your boy on the Fund for '37, as you well know. I trust we can make his task as painless as possible. The April 1 mailing piece from Hanover very earnestly and well tells you the why of the matter.

Besides Rowley and me, Rog Allen and Mike Wright also made the dinner. Mike is practising internal medicine in New York City, his hospital affiliation being St. Luke's.

Next month I will give you a run-down on the '37, '38, '39 affair at the Dartmouth Club on April 13. In the meantime, I could use some more letters from you gentlemen.

F. Robert Houlihan '36 was recently elected president of the National Retail Furniture Association.

Secretary, 869 Hardscrabble Rd. Chappaqua, N.Y.

Class Agent, 120 Broadway, New York 5, N.Y