1909

Greetings on this bright new year. Let's hope it'll be good to all of us and that we'll be thankful for what we've got. This calls to mind a quotation from the works of George Herbert, a seventeenth century poet and divine, which was sent on by Bill Blatner '05. "Oh thou who has given to us so much - mercifully grant us one thing more - a grateful heart." Bill, now retired and living in his New England-type home in Geneva, Ill., has another quotation inscribed over his fireplace: "If thy heart be cold, I cannot warm thee." Some folks know how to put thoughts together and their words never die.

John Christopher Shambow

A few years ago I made contact through the mails with Johnny Shambow '1O. For what particular reason, I don't recall, but during the interim we have been in touch at regular intervals, and I had the pleasure of seeing him and his gracious little woman Maggie at the time of our 45th reunion with '10 and '11.

We '09ers will recall Johnny as one of the smooth dressers of our day - almost in the fashion plate class, he was that neat. He came to Hanover from Woonsocket, R. I., and while I don't recall too many details of his college career, I do know that he was manager of his sophomore basketball team, that he joined up with Phi Gam, and was a member of Sphinx senior society. I didn't know until recently that he continued at Dartmouth and got his Master's degree. So the lad must have been somewhat of a brain.

In business, John was for many years with the United Shoe Machinery Company's Research department, located in Boston. On the side, he did some research on his own hook and came up with a gimmick that he called "Acura." In my limited knowledge of "footware dynamics" (apologies to Dodge), I assume that this is something you put in a shoe that makes the wearing more comfortable. Instead of doing things for "tired blood," as the Geritol people claim, Acura does things for tired feet and so you can "stand around all day and be happy and gay."

A couple of years ago, John reached the retirement age, but he didn't get into a state of going to seed. He opened up an office at 392 East 8th Street, Boston 27, Mass., where he's been ironing out whatever problems he's had in perfecting his contraption. The last minor problem, according to Johnnie, was getting an adhesive that would stick the gimmick to the shoe so that vigorous walkers could not work it loose or out of position. He's been experimenting with a super adhesive used in the Navy Yard to cement synthetic rubber to iron decking. , .

Johnnie is of the opinion that some big advertising agency could be interested to control the Acura patent. He points out that 500-million pairs of shoes are bought annually for adult and child wearing, and this, friends, represents an annual business 01 $2-billion f.o.b. for the factories.

These three things Johnnie intends to prove- 1. That many kinds of shoes would be capable of being made at less cost with Acura. 2. Walking and standing can be accomplished with less tiring of feet and legs. 9. Trim appearance of shoes will be retained for an appreciably lengthened period of time.

0.K., you advertising guys, let s go. i can think of two of the lads off hand: Jim Mathes 11, president of J. M. Mathes, Inc., who started making his heavy dough with Canada Dry; and Sig Larmon '14, president of Young & Rubicam, who must be in the bucks because he was wearing one of them silk suits the last time I saw him in Hanover.

Opportunity doesn't kick a guy in the pants very often.

Another of the lads we'll miss seeing at reunions is Howard Kirk Spaulding who joined the departed souls on November 22. Joe Worthen was informed that Howard was in the Salem, Mass. Hospital for an abdominal operation and was getting along in good shape when an infection set in, spread rapidly, and carried him off. Joe wrote:

I had seen him every few months for many years as he had been a client of mine since the Lord knows when - in fact, he had come m about his latest will as recently as two or three weeks before his death, and looked as if he could get into his "quick hitch" and extinguish any and every fire that might have the temerity to get started within a radius of 50 miles. It was only fitting that after long experience with the ABC. Elevator Company (ultimately bought out by Otis) that he should become connected with an outfit which had constant contact with fires, and he was active in this interesting and reasonably profitable enterprise until the end.

At the time of his death, Howard was general manager of the Boston Fire & Police Notification Company and was vice-president of the Warren Five Cents Savings Bank. Howard, however, won't carry his interest in fires into the next world, because where he's gone they don't have any fires.

Referring to another classmate, Mickey McLane, who passed on in November, Dr. Ben Burpee writes that Mickey's chief trouble was a flabby condition in the end air passages, a weakness of the muscle there, and a chronic bronchitis. Terminal pneumonia was the final cause of death. "You would have been astounded at how well Mickey looked, Ben wrote me. "I could not believe it, accustomed as I was to seeing him so uncom- fortable and dragging for breath. He didn't look a day over 50 and very much at peace (which I hope he is)... He certainly had the deep affection of all who knew him, undimmed by the passing of years. I quote from Cad Cummings' letter to me. 'Life is such an unsolved problem in regard to the friendships formed in our college days. We don't see each other for five years, yet seem to take up just where we left off at each meeting.' I thousrht this very good."

We close with a bit of dry humor from that well known Vermont story teller, Sandy Hooker. This was an epitaph chiseled on the headstone of a hypochondriac: I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK.

Curtiss L. Sheldon '09 with Director of Athletics "Red" Rolfe '31 at the Central Connecticut Association dinner on December 38.

Class Notes Editor, 141 Pioneer Trail, Aurora, Ohio

Secretary and Treasurer, Sandwich, Mass.

Bequest Chairman,