1935

Readers of this column, if they get nothing else, are expected to acquire suitable appreciation of the odd place names in the State of Virginia, from which I have just returned - again. Found a Fitzhugh, Va., which was gratifying, but for euphony prefer Sweet Chalybeate. Very nearly wrote the column on the north west frontier, at Oomps, just to have the date-line, but forgot my notes. I don't think they ever heard of Dartmouth at Oomps.

This distressing insularity does not extend to Cleveland (Ohio) where I telephoned Jack AuWerter the following week on Hallowe'en. With five kids I thought this would be a hectic time but he was taking everything calmly except the state of business subcontracting aircraft parts. I caught him mixing a martini but he interrupted this long enough to fill me in on Bill Hawgood, who sells paint for Patterson-Sargent, and Jack Steifens, who is one of the brain trust at SOHIO. Also Jack Petrequin, whom I tracked down the following day at Buehler Printcraft. After a spell selling printing equipment, Jack now has to sell what the equipment makes as sales manager for his firm. I think this is poetic justice. DaveJohnson is still lawyering, Dan Swander is still making vises. Things are pretty ho-hum in Cleveland. Tried to reach Bud Fraser for some really hot dope but he was out looking for a new bank customer in Muskegon, Mich. Very pleasant secretary, though.

At long last the squire of Mento, Ohio, Jack Gilchrist, has broken Olympian silence to report a bout with hyperglycemia which has kept him in and out of hospital for some four months. He reports that the villain is on the run now.

On to Chicago, planning to call Bo Kreer, who has just been made a senior vice president of the Clinton E. Frank agency. His exploits in a recent speaking tour to Omaha are so noteworthy that I have turned the entire file over to be reproduced in the "Tear Bag" for your appreciation. Meanwhile, feel free to call on Bo for any speaking jobs you may have in mind. If he is not available perhaps Bill Laurie will do. As head of the Detroit office he was recently made an executive vice president of J. Walter Thompson.

Readers of the 25th reunion book may have been intrigued by the brevity of Harold Kennedy's listing as "Playwright and Producer." Harold has carved out a career for himself both in acting and producing which is quite extraordinary. Our information has been considerably amplified by a piece that Leonard Lyons wrote about him in "The Lyons Den" column in which he related some of the folklore which has come to be associated with Harold in his rather individualist and grass roots approach to the celebrities of stage and screen. Possibly apocryphal is the story of Mike Todd chasing Harold into the sanctuary of a Princeton telephone booth after Harold had had what Mike considered "words" with Joan Blondell, but it is amply documented that Harold inserted into a contract with Tallulah Bankhead the clause "the actress agrees to play bridge with the management each night" on the theory that nobody read such contracts anyway.

Harold just finished the summer season at Storrowtown including a musical version of "Bell, Book and Candle" which he both directed and performed in. Ginger Rogers, it might be added, also performed. Harold has been compared occasionally with the late Robert Benchley, whom he resembles slightly. He delights in the sharp, acid phrase both on the stage and off. He has appeared in eleven movies and innumerable plays. He is genuinely interested and remarkably successful in getting first-class stage presentations before small community audiences particularly of young people. "Off-Broadway" means just what it says to Harold the further off the better.

Speaking of performances, I have just gotten a letter from Harry Griffith who has Metrecal'd his weight from 220 to 195 pounds. This is to get closer to the pianos and organs which he sells at the Griffith Piano Company in Newark. This is a family business which he has been in for 26 years. He also runs a real estate office and investment concern on the side. He moved in from Quakertown, N. Y„ to Summit, N. J., a year ago. One son is at Moravian College and two more are coming up.

Chick Harrison has gotten interested in geriatrics and recently spoke on the legal aspects of "Preparation for Successful Aging" at a forum in Paramus, N. J. Chick recently was elected a new director of the Citizens First National Bank and Trust Company in Ridgewood. He lives in Saddle River nearby.

Odds Bodkins: Hall Colton made the industrial press recently on his appointment as manager of industrial engineering, Continental Can Co., New York. Biddy Chase, whose name was omitted among those at the class executive committee meeting last month, was elected a member of the City Council in Lebanon, N. H., where he has been managing radio station WTSL and serving as president of the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce. Frank Donohue has been promoted to senior supervising inspector and senior civilian aide to Cdr. William Jeremiah at the Fore River Naval Shipyard. Frank also works at shipyards in East Boston and Bristol, R. 1., on Naval duty. He served four years in the Army Air Corps and three years in the Naval Reserve during World War II. He is a former trustee of Quincy Local 7, AFL-CIO, Federation of Technical Engineers and is a member of the Weymouth Legion Post. He and his wife have three children: Frank J. Donohue III, David, and Geraldine. Bill Clark has a daughter at UVM who is in pre-training for a nursing career. He and Lewie Haas visited Hanover recently. Lowie was dropping a daughter off at Middlebury.

As we go to press I have just received word that George Goodman has agreed to accept appointment as class agent replacing Bob Naramore whose "Narrow Fabrics" are taking too much of his time. Congratulations George! Send me a picture, will you?

Secretary, Hog Hill Road Chappaqua, N. Y.

Treasurer, 305 Grosse Pointe Blvd. Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.

Bequest Chairman,