1921
For 1921 men there are in Athens two lures greater than the Acropolis: Lucy andEllis Briggs. Mr. and Mrs. Ambassador have had or are about to have "the great pleasure" of entertaining the following Twenty-Oners: Ned and Pern Price, Gordon and RobertaMerriam, Ort and Lois Hicks, and Joe andRuth Vance. Why try to bone up on the Greek classics when one may be fleshed up in the Embassy? The Acropolis by moonlight is better illuminated with Ellis at one's side than with a guidebook in one's pocket. It is diflicult to estimate about which Ellis is most eloquent: The Erechtheum, the Propylaea, the Theseum, or Greek pheasants.
Kent McKinley has been nominated as The 1921 Traveler of the Year. A confirmed jet man with no further use for floating hotels, he has flown to Europe three times within the past year and zooms off to Germany this autumn. Why? Because as Editor and Publisher of The News (Sarasota), he has such fascinating inside sources of information and because he enjoys doubling the circulation of his paper with special articles. At the Vatican, for example, "the best Intelligence Office in the world" he is welcome, though a Protestant, and given confidential information about Africa. (Incidentally a year ago Kent predicted the African crisis, and, as far back as 1958, the Cuban.) Do you know how His Holiness feels about Kennedy? Kent does. It was only fair that His Holiness should learn, confidentially of course, how Kent feels about Nixon.
Kent would do well to solicit an article from Ort Hicks, who has been peering into some inside European corners not so well lighted as Diogenes and General Electric would like. Lois and Ort had two special guides, Orton Hicks Jr. '49 and his wife Janet, who have been piloting the party of four on a 30-day tour of 12 countries: England, Germany, Switzerland, Lichenstein, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Holland. In a pedagogical and sacrificial mood, Big Ort confined himself to speaking English and let Little Ort practice his French, German, and Italian.
If Gus and Betty Perkins had the best plans of any in 1921 for a summer vacation, they had the toughest luck in carrying them out. Way back in January Gus started to work out the details of an Alaskan expedition. When April rolled around, he had a folder of reservations as big as his two fists. On May 10 Betty had to undergo surgery for a detached retina in her left eye. So Gus wrote another batch of letters cancelling everything. The bad news is outweighed by the good. Betty's eye should regain normal vision, and the Perkinses leave for the Forty-Ninth State from the steps of Dartmouth Hall AFTER our June Reunion.
Homer Cleary did this summer what few men in 1921 can do: he sailed free from Montreal to Europe as the only passenger on a freighter docking at one port each in Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Such a voyage was just what the doctor ordered, for Homer has been suffering from diabetes, angina, and shock caused by the sudden death of his beloved headmaster at Kew-Forest School, Forest Hills, N. Y.
Few men in 1921 can travel in the style of Osborne Ward. As one of only nine civilians last year, he was a guest aboard the heavy cruiser Macon when she served as a flagship of a 26-ship task force in Operation Inland Seas from Boston to the St. Lawrence Seaway in which President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth participated. As a memento, OC has 200 colored slides. Later, seeking a change from Florida, he and Lyla sailed on the Queen Elizabeth for Paris where they picked up a Renault and drove some 15,000 miles through 15 countries before shipping back to Montreal in late July. Such are the rewards of retirement after 34 years of faithful service in the Beneficial Finance Co., the last 21, magic number, as Field Supervisor.
Not yet retired, Kaddy Kadison and Diane left Broadway and White Plains for two months of spring excitements in Europe of the kind obtainable only with extra effort in White Plains.
Bob Wilson, whose nervous energy if transmuted to an electrical generating plant would be enough to light up a city of 200,000 for six months, has traveled from Tunisia to "The Rock," that island only 69 miles by 15 called Okinawa. There, representing the United States, he became Industry Officer for the Army. In addition to straightening out complicated business matters he has been studying the Japanese language, learning the names of exotic flowers and the best way to avoid that deadly snake called the Habu. Trying to sell a beer company, he is negotiating with Heineken in Holland. (Bob has not touched a drop of anything stronger than milk in 25 years. He has ulcers.) He has been inducted into the Bar Association (lawyer variety) of Okinawa and into the International Bar of the Ryukyu Islands, and he has joined the Alliance Franchise. Much of the summer he spent in various Japanese cities where he was treated royally by leading Japanese businessmen.
Roger and Caroline Wilde restrained their enthusiasm for foreign parts until the end of the summer when they dropped in on Copenhagen. Never mind what they did in Denmark; listen to this. They flew to Ireland to fish for trout and then hopped over to England for a week at a private club on the river Wye to fish for salmon. In Paris Roger let philosophically minded Frenchmen fish dreamily for the non-existent fish in the Seine. When with reels and hooks Rog flew home last month, Caroline flew to shop for new clothes and old furniture before shipping out on the New Amsterdam.
Here is news about New Hampshire and Vermont owners of real estate, present and future. Though Bill and Teeter Alley spent most of July at the Hermitage Country Club, Lake Memphremagog, Quebec, they stopped in Hanover to look over hills and bodies of water on which and by which a future house could be built. Lucy Briggs enjoyed the fine view from her present house at 3 Pleasant St., Hanover. Hal and Doris Braman observed the diggers of their well from which spring water bubbles up purely and abundantly. Hal retires this month, and he hopes to move into his Norwich home by April 1. Abe Weld put in some time in Henniker, N. H., to oversee improvements on his property and had a chance to view the girders of Hopkins Center. Incidentally, the doctor said such things about his health that he, steamed up, beat at squash Nelson Ehinger '52 and Bud Hewitt '40, men some so or 30 years younger. Another estate owner in New Hampshire is Leighton Tracy. His house and grounds in Canterbury looked particularly cool and serene to him in the July sunshine. Leigh is now National Accounts Executive with the Regan Furniture Corp., which lured him away from Clark and Gibby, Inc.
On his 60th birthday Bill Codding and his new wife Mary Clint left New York for Denver, Colo., on a combination business and pleasure trip. Mary is still an editor with Macmillan in charge of their basic instructional or developmental reading program.
Some years ago Ellis Briggs, given two bear cubs in Korea, arranged to have them shipped to President Eisenhower, who presented them to the Washington zoo. At that time they had doubled their Korean weight of 20 pounds. Curious, Mac Johnson called recently at the zoo to give the cubs greetings from Greece. The boy bear now weighs 200 pounds; the girl bear, 180. In the same cage with a maximum of philoprogenitive opportunity the couple have not yet engendered any bear babies, and Mac thought that he saw an expression of sadness and frustration about the girl bear's eyes.
Ellwood Fisher 'si, the first chairman of the Fenn College board of trustees, was recentlyhonored at the college's annual corporation meeting. He was chairman of the board from1935 until 1946- A portrait of Fisher, unveiled during the dinner, is examined by Charles J.Stilwell (l), chairman from 1946 until 1960, and Harry F. Burmester, the college's presentboard chairman. Fenn College is located in Cleveland.
Secretary, 33 East Wheelock St. Hanover, N. H.
Treasurer, Rm. 1200, 195 Broadway, New York 7, N. Y.
