TOWN AND GOWN

Restaurants in Hanover come and go. Many alumni will recall from happy, far-off days Scotty's, the Greasy Spoon, Jim Hagerty in the College Grill, George Gitsis' emporium, the Wigwam, and Mac's, and remember with deep and abiding affection the custard pies, the toast-sides, and the good baked beans full of genuine authority. Restaurants on Hanover's Main Street today include the Hanover Inn Coffee Shop, the relatively new Beefeater, and Roger Eastman's Hide-Away, along with the establishment known as Lou's Restaurant. It is this latter which concerns us in this particular story and we should remind the uninitiated that since Lou's opened its doors in August of 1947 it has graduated from an eatery to a local institution.

This is particularly true for faculty and townsfolk, for though it does not seem to mean as much to most undergraduates, it has definitely become for a sizable group of adults a rendezvous noted both for pleasure and prestige. Dick Morin '24, the Librarian of Dartmouth College, is as regular in appearance as is Harry Tanzi; and Jim Campion '2B and Dale Nelson and Dick Rand meet on an equal, if not a superior, basis with deans and ex-deans, selectmen and precinct commissioners (of which Lou is one) along with professors - full, half-full, and retired. It wag, in fact, the devotion and good fellowship of the league of Lou's loyals which prompted him to start his photographic rogues' gallery of a questionably select group of Hanover charac- ters.

About two years ago, Lou, using the direct approach, began by asking some of the regulars for their photographs to put along his walls. Modest as all Hanoverians are, it is worth noting that not one refused and from the modest start of ten or twelve pictures the collection now numbers about fifty. It is an interesting sidelight upon the Hanover spirit that although Lou swears he didn't plan it that way there is about a 50-50 division between those with some association with the College and those who live by other means. The Hitchcock Hospital and Clinic are a bit undersold with only two representatives in the gallery, but perhaps doctors are busier than the rest of us. They have their own cafeteria at the hospital and it is a long trek downtown. Certainly Doctors Tyson and McCarthy do not show on Main Street very often.

Already the gallery is emphasizing the increasingly transitory character of personnel in Hanover. Four members of the group are now dead - Earl Hewitt, Charlie Bond, Schuyler Berry, and Arch Gile 'l7. Five of the group have moved away — Professor Phil Wheelwright, Coach Tommy Dent, Walter Swoboda, Ed Bennett, and Donald Barr '18. Ten with college connections have retired, including Dean Joe McDonald, the widely known Spud Bray, Coach Tuss McLaughry, and Bursar Roy Porter '15, along with Professors "Doc" Griggs '02, Fred Parker '06, Charlie Sargent and Fletcher Low of the class of 1915, Bruce Knight, and Fergie Murch.

Still active members of the faculty ineluded as regular patrons at coffee hour or lunch time are Dick Goddard, Al Foley and Bill Carter — all '20, Albert Wood and Blanchard Pratt '47 of Thayer School, Van English, Jerry Lathrop, Clyde Dankert and George Theriault '33. Other regulars still active in Dartmouth's service are Ed Lathem '51, associate librarian, and Eddie Decourcey and Tony Dougal of the DCAC. Hanover High School gets representation in matters both academic and athletic in the person of Forrest Branch '33.

Space does not permit a detailed enumeration of the representatives of Hanover's booming business world. Suffice to say that the gallery represents an impressive cross-section of economic activities along Main Street ranging from books to wearing apparel and ski equipment, from spectacles to TV's and in- surance policies. New construction, which mushrooms on every side in Hanover, is ably represented and the gallery even moves a little off Main Street to include an expert on the care of lawns. And the amusing fact is that in the absence of some evidence of financial rating, plus or minus, it is impossible to distinguish the College crowd from the entrepreneurs.

All in all it is an imposing gallery and naturally continues to attract more than passing attention. Students gape at it and speculate about the criteria of selection. Some Hanoverians, not included, make audible comments, not always complimentary. Transients don't know quite what it is all about. The wide-ranging collection certainly shows the popularity of the spot as a friendly meeting place for a cup of coffee, for a new story, or the latest bit of local news or gossip. Best of all it demonstrates that in Hanover town and gown are still one in fact as well as in theory. And in spite of the Hanover Gazette's delayed weekly coverage, and The Dartmouth's sometimes jaundiced reports, and the more immediate reporting of WDCR and WTSL, Lou's Gallery still looks down on the best spot in town to find out how the winds in Hanover are really blowing.