1938
You could say you couldn't care less about the Edison Electric Institute, EEI, in American alphabetical brevity. I'd say you're entitled to your opinions. I gotta care about it as it's my industry's biggest blowout. It brought me here to New Orleans this early April. Instead of making expense account notes, I'm in the Jung Hotel penning this column. Instead of the shoe box full of class notes from hither and yon, I'm sacking vest pockets, dirty shirts and brief cases to find the source material I brought along.
Before getting into news let me tell you a little about New Orleans, 1959. If jt were located near Dartmouth like White River or Leb, either the College or the French community would have to go. Now don't worry about me. Jane is along. I even think I could handle it calmly without her. But this quaint community is jumping and the hawker? have their eyes out for the tourists. The natural part of the town is beautiful this monthwarm, windy and clear. The azaleas are out an green and flowers are everywhere. The man-made part is commercial and gaudy Neon lights, juke boxes, jazz and jingo characterize Canal and Bourbon Streets? Audubon Park is lovely and St. Louis Cathedral magnificently overlooks Jackson Square and the many little Greenwich Village-type art echibits and Portraits Painted while you wait. The beaten path portions of old New Orleans are highly commercialized, but the whole picture is interesting and different. Try to make this trip some day in early spring.
Called Ed Grace from the St. Louis airport on the way down. Got him at his desk at the Grace Sign and Manufacturing Co. Said to tell you Valerie was born six weeks ago. Now Ed and Adele have a sister for Mary.
The phone rang near midnight two weeks ago. The charming voice of the caller, Jane Davis, maybe you know her as Muff's Blondie merely said "Hi, Sweetie. Got somebody here who wants to talk with you." I knew it wasn't Muff. He can't talk. It was the big Larry Hull, fresh from Glendale, Calif., and househunting in Detroit. Yep, the Hulls are being uprooted from the sunny lands by Shell Oil. Larry has stepped up another notch in his successful sales career. He headed the sales district in Wilmington, Calif. Now he's division sales manager in the Motor City Lucille and four sons don't dig the change in climate. For Larry, well, it was snowing in Detroit as we talked.
Muff did mumble a few words to me over the phone. He gets a bang out of calling me a hick" and telling me how I ought to run advertising at General Electric. Muff is one of the top sales representatives for US. News and World Report in Detroit.
Charlie Livermore is being booked nationally as a speaker on race relations. He spoke in Flint, Mich., some weeks ago. Charlie is executive secretary of the New York State Commission against Discrimination. In the field of law, Hal Berman, prof at the Harvard Law School, is also doing duty on the lecture platform. His most recent stint was at Colby College, Waterville, Me.
The good news is that' Bob Stearns of Bridgeport Brass, Connecticutwise, has accepted the tough post of Head Class Agent. Our agents really work and the good ones have made you work too. Let's get behind Bob. This fund work can't be done alone. It's no Fund that way - Joke - Hey!
In the future I don't look up Scotford when I go to Hanover. This honey-of-a-guy, and you always want him along, sees and hears more things going on about us than I do. Then when I start thinking about writing his column from an empty shoe box, 600 miles from Hanover, in comes a "Pace Setter" telling you characters everything I ate, saw, heard, felt and missed on my trip. Back on the newspaper beat we called it gettin' scooped. But don't believe all this stuff about Pat Gorman going Patsy on art pieces. Engineering trained, advertising experienced Mr. Gorman will convert that inanimate hunk of colored plaster of Paris he purchased into a nice little pile. Then that other Scotfordized phrase about me taxiing Cleveland athletes to Hanover, listen: Each one of those kids does his homework on a digital computer. All the time on the trip they were talking about operations Research and Synthesis and something about the probability problem of meeting a Smith girl they would ultimately marry. Sure, they might play football sort of mean and nasty-like but each of them will wait until senior year for his Phi Beta key.
John Emerson needs a note from you. The class' best friend is in Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover. He flew there from Newport Beach, Calif., where he had been riding out a temporary sick spell in the sunshine. John's illness left some muscular problems which require surgery. He writes: "It looks as though we shall be in Hanover for most of next year and that I shall be a denizen of the Mary Hitchcock, known to its friends as the House of Mary, for six weeks to two months."
John said he saw the George Nelsons on the Coast, talked to George Erhard in Pasadena and just missed Ranchero Robert Kelly of Newman, Calif.
We'll be seeing John in May. Hope you find time to drop him a line.
Secretary, 2945 Fairmount Cleveland 18, Ohio
Class Agent, 88 Grovers Ave., Bridgeport 5, Conn.
