1952
Fall is a time for nostalgia. Though it will be November before you read this, at writing we are putting away the lawn furniture, activities are beginning to pick up in community affairs, and students are just going back to school. The summer is over and we are savoring every last bit of warmth and sunny weather.
Doesn't seem long ago we would have been off to Hanover by this time; looking forward to football games and all the other wonderful things a fellow can enjoy when he's an undergrad at Dartmouth. Now the Green has already drawn first blood on the gridiron and we in these parts foresee a very successful campaign ahead; feeling in some way that following Big Green football fortunes makes us a little bit closer to our lost youth.
Down at the Yacht Club here in Riverside, the salts are counting each fair weekend a pleasant bonus, and among the saltiest of the sailors hereabouts is classmate Pete McSpadden. Though Pete makes it plain that his racing record this year was not what it had been in years past, they tell me he's one of the best sailors at the Club. Next time you get Pete together with RogPierce over the flowing bowl maybe they'll tell you about the time, this summer, when, with Rogo as crew and supposedly navigating, they crossed masts with one of the other boats in the race. A real Laurel-and-Hardy bit. When they came out of it each boat was going the opposite direction whence it came!
Matter of fact, for a landlubber school the Ol' Green does all right before the wind. '43 has America's Cup skipper, Bus Mosbacher; '53 has Joe Burbeck who came in fifth in the World Championships in the Star class over in Portugal; and besides Pete and Rogo '52 has George Sverdrup who was one of the skippers representing the Royal Norwegian Yacht Club in a team race with Long Island Sound yacht clubs this past summer. And George reports that one of the members of the opposing team was Charlie Benisch.
What's George doing in Norway? Well, he's doing something I suspect his training in Hanover prepared him for very well. He's export manager at Frydenlunds Brewery - that's right, brewery - in Oslo. And he'd like to have any classmate put him in touch with people in the beer business in the U.S. (No, Linman, your consumption habits don't qualify you!) Sailing may be exciting, but it's hardly as out-of-the-ordinary as this bit of business reported by Jack Crowell of his family, and I quote: "Probably qualifying as the most out-of-the-ordinary for us in the past year or so was six-year-old son, John's winning first prize for pumpkins at the 1961 Oregon State Fair! He grew them in the front yard of our new house before we got around to putting the lawn in, having saved the seeds from the preceding year's jack-o-lantern." Now if any of you proud fathers can top that one I'll be glad to print it!
What would the Greater Boston United Fund do without Dartmouth '52? They'll have to do without Al Reich though; he was appointed Chairman of the Sudbury Fund before his unfortunate accident reported here last month. But George Hibben has been named Chairman of the Lincoln town fund, and Bob Grace is Chairman for Dedham. All '52s in those towns dig down! As the life expectancy for Americans goes up so should the combined wealth expectancy of the Class, for we have no dearth of insurance men who seem to be progressing well. Bob Adams has been appointed regional reinsurance manager with Connecticut General. Roger Steinharter has been made a senior brokerage consultant at the Boston brokerage office of the same firm. Ray Smith was named district sales manager in the Pittsfield, Mass., office of Allstate. Alan Sherburne has joined the staff of the Lewis P. Bither Insurance Agency in Tyngsboro, Mass. And I can't tell from the correspondence whether Bill Fischer is in insurance or not. His firm is Teachers' Insurance and Annuity Association, but Bill's a mortgage officer.
Those' of you who were at reunion in June may have trouble recognizing RandyNubel because the photographer responsible for the picture here shot him without the dark glasses. But it is Randy, and he has been named design manager in the administrative design division of the CIBA Corporation. Randy joined CIBA in 1960 as a package designer after jobs with an industrial design consulting firm and the University of Texas. Randy has an M.F.A. from Yale. He also has a wife, and they live in Summit, N. J.
There is still no insurance against the foolishness of the American electorate, and so I'm glad to see that the Republican Party in Illinois has not completely folded since I left that state. I learn from a clipping that Will Craven has taken up the cudgel against the Daleycrats in Cook County as precinct captain in Maine Township. Win is also Glenview village prosecutor which is why I got the clipping on him. But I couldn't resist the chance to wish him well in his politicking, since that Illinois battleground is still so close to my heart. Also from the Chicago area. John Fellingham has gone and got himself committed to wedlock come next February, and with him go our best wishes. Dr. Dick Carleton, who lives in Hinsdale, is now associate director of the section of cardio-respiratory diseases at Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago.
And how about our other medics? We've got a passel. Dr. James Harshbarger has gone into practice with his father in Bridgeport, Conn. Harry Wachen is a Captain in the Medical Corps doing obstetrics and gynecology. Fred Hecht is a pediatric resident in Rochester — N. Y„ not Minnesota. Dr. Bill Fletcher, besides giving his famous lectures on bird-watching to any gathering of five or more people, is instructor in surgery at the University of Oregon Med School. Dr. George Howard reports that between completing his residency in ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary," publishing four articles in his field, and enjoying an occasional Cutty Sark, he still has time to reminisce with Dr.Eric Gundersen, who's completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in surgery.
We also have a few fellows who are "going the route with Uncle" to use SteveLazarus's phrase. You guessed it, Steve's one. He's a Lieutenant attached to the staff of the Navy destroyer force in Newport, R. I., attempting to manage about 22 million dollars. (If you read about any destroyers defecting to Castro you'll know we've got at least one classmate who's really made it!) And Yin Rathburn, Captain in the Army, should be back in this country now as company commander in the 561st Engineer Company, Ft. Baker, California.
And while the class seems to continue in a steady pattern of achievement the birth rate seems to be declining. Only three new legacies I've heard of born in '62. JackUnkles now has a third son, John, born May 3. And Conny Carstens has young Stephen Mowbray, born August 14, and also third son. Then there's the rumored son of Ace Lynch. Dick Brown tells me he has one, born some time in May, but I won't believe it till it's been Notarized.
Guess it will be almost Christmas when we come at you again. So for now, Happy Thanksgiving and much good fortune!
Secretary, 168 Riverside Ave. Riverside, Conn.
Treasurer, 221 Maxson Rd., Lancaster, Pa.
