1928
Mary and Os left on April 8 for about a month in Spain and vicinity and, for what I believe is the first time since graduation, he has had to call on a guest editor for this column. In typical Skinner fashion, he sent me more than enough material to fill this space and then naively sends a personal letter to Cornie and me from Spain which, for news interest, makes all the other stuff sound quite dull. So for the first time in nearly 28 years, this column will be devoted in major part to some reporting on the activities of our wonderful class reporter. Excerpts from his letter follow:
"The plane trips to Europe were uneventful, particularly when compared to our trip from Troy to New York. We had planned to drive but when it started snowing Sat., we decided to go by Greyhound ('the buses always get through'). About sixty miles from Troy the bus skidded on a steep hill and only the steel wire between guard rails kept it from going down a 20-ft. bank.^At Scranton no buses, trains or planes were running. After a five-hour wait a bus started and we got to N. Y. at 12:30 p.m. - five hours late. Mary and I had booked passage on separate planes and her TWA plane had left at noon. However, I got her on a Pan Am flight to Paris at 5 and I left, as scheduled, on Air France at 6. Both flights were to be nonstop to Paris but headwinds slowed us down so I stopped at the Azores and Mary in Shannon. When we finally got together in Paris, there was only one flight to Madrid so rather than wait another day we went on the same and 'Air Chance' at that.
After two days in Madrid, we flew on the same plane (I guess by this time the complications of dual air travel had become so monumental that they said the hell with it - Ed.) to Tangier in N. Africa. The next day who should we run into in a French tea room but Sam and Hortense Giftord and daughter Gail. They were as happy as we at this '28 reunion in Africa.
"So the next day we teamed up on the rental of a car and chauffeur for a trip into Spanish Morocco. Or at least it was Sanish Morocco until a week ago. Now it's Morocco with the capital at Rabat - the world's newest independent nation. Tangier is still an 'lnternational Zone,' but residents expect it to become part of Morocco soon. Banks and firms have flown all the gold out of Tangier in anticipation. Tangier was fascinating with Arab costumes in the modern section as well as in the Kasbah. Moslem religion forbids Moslems to appear in pictures, so picture-taking was difficult. The youths kept putting hands in front of our cameras or nudging our elbows and it kept our guide busy shoving the boys away, amid loud shouting. When a potato hit my shoe, I decided it was time to move on. Our guide said that a week ago this would not have happened - the boys now are very nationalistic and cocky. As a result tourists (except the braver '28 kind) are staying away.
"Three days later we stayed in the same hotel as the Giffords in Algeciras, across the bay from Gibraltar. Next day we went through the largest bodega (wine cellar - bottling plant) in Jerez. That was something! They insisted on your having several glasses of their finest 25-year-old brandy. Then to a beautiful 'sampling' room to taste different sherries. After five of those I had to stop. This was all in the morning! There are four more bodegas in Jerez, but we had to catch a train to Seville so we missed the others."
And so we leave Mary and Os living it up in Jerez. Sounds like a pretty good vacation spot to me.
Johnny Cronin has agreed to be our Reunion Chairman for the next reunion - just about a year from now. We will be reuning at the same time as '26 and '27. The Class Officers prevailed upon Herb Sensenig to take over the Hanover end of the arrangements and this is a large order. Herb thought no one could equal the job Jim and Helen Campion did on our 25th, but agreed they deserve a break.
Bill Ballard has been on Sabbatical leave this semester and he and Elizabeth and their four children wintered in Sicily. Bill is now working in Naples at the Dohrn Marine Laboratory. They will return to their home in Norwich, Vt., this summer.
Bill Treanor is now head of the legal staff of Union Carbide and Carbon Co. - a promotion which might have gone unheralded if Bill Heep hadn't tipped us off.
Brad Brown has moved from Milwaukee to 6oa Victor Way, Mountain View, Calif. DaveThompson was not deterred by the smog either — he has moved from Dallas to 9430 Santa Monica, Beverly Hills. Another belated convert to Horace Greeley's famous dictum is Harv Fisher who has deserted N.Y.C. to live in Arcadia, Calif., at 1611 Rodeo Rd.
Chet Goulding, a Remington Rand salesman, has moved from Buffalo to Syracuse where his office is located at 677 S. Salina St.
Well, well. I see that Maury Cogan is still eking out a marginal existence by selling insurance. He has been awarded membership in the President's Club by the Conn. General Life Ins. Co. for his outstanding record in production of business.
This is the caption under a picture of Bob in a full page write up about him in the Waterbury (Conn.) Independent:
"Robert T. Grey, superintendent of the Conn. Reformatory in Cheshire since August 1954, is changing the face of that grim 500-acre reminder to delinquent youth. Through physical and psychological changes at the Reformatory, he is revamping the institution so that it may more capably carry through its purpose - the reform of young criminal offenders."
Here's a picture of smilin' Dana Condon, '28's Havana agent, in a vigorous handshake with Maj. Gen. Fulgencia Batista, el praysedaunt of Cuba. It appeared in a Shriners' magazine and was taken at a ceremonial when 54 candidates were initiated into Shrinedom with Dana serving as acting president of the Shrine Club of Cuba.
Before signing off I must mention that in these piles of papers before me is one which indicates how hard our Class Secretary works to keep track of you guys. It is a long list of recent address changes sent to Os by the Alumni Records office. During February and March Os wrote to thirteen of the men on the list asking for information about the move and to date not a one has replied! Maybe all thirteen are leading lives of sin and don't want us to know about it.
The College this spring announced the establishment of the Jacob Ziskind Memorial Lecture Fund on the William Jewett Tucker Foundation, through a gift of ? 10,000 from the Jacob Ziskind Trust for Charitable Purposes. It will be of special interest to '28 men that the lectureship is in memory of AbeZiskind's brother, who was one of the country's foremost rebuilders of mill properties and who also had extensive interests in the textile field.
If you haven't sent in your Alumni Fund check by the time you read this, DO IT NOW!
Secretary, Van Dyne Oil Co, Troy, Pa.
Class Agent, 11 Glenside Road, South Orange, N. J.
