1921
Most women like cats, many men like dogs, and some small girls are fond of horses, but Doug Storer loves reindeer. Uncommon, practically non-existent in New Rochelle, reindeer drew Doug to the roundup in Lapland. To get there he flew as far north in Sweden as he could, to Kiruna, the largest city in the Arctic world. Within the city limits is the largest underground mine in the Arctic world, an iron mine with the ore running as high as 70% pure iron. The miners go down 1,80.0 feet below ground in new diesel buses on roadways lit by neon lights. Swedes like to eat hearty, and the mine boasts of no fewer than eight cafeterias under ground, and the mine boasts also of its subterranean urbanity: it has more roadways underground than the total trackage in the New York subways. Moving on to the reindeer roundup in Lapland, Doug had to drive in cars to the end of the road and then to cross frozen lakes passable only in winter. Daily it was a race against time; he had only four hours of daylight. Back in Stockholm, at the invitation of the Swedish Government Doug was present at the raising of the Vasa, which foundered before you were born. This most powerful warship of its day keeled over on its maiden voyage 333 years ago and sank with the loss of all hands. Doug was given permission to go down into the Vasa when, filled with silt, it was two decks above water. You will hardly be flabbergasted to learn that Doug taped the whole proceeding for NBC and took color motion pictures. To meet the floating whale factories returning from the Antarctic, Doug flew to Norway. Nor is this all. Doug has started a new series of shorts in Cinemascope (wide screen color) for theatrical release with Twentieth Century Fox. The first one was recently released, and Doug and Hazel are delighted that Radio City Music Hall is showing it on an exclusive basis for the New York area.
Letitia has invented a word, moondoggle, and Harland Manchester is grateful for a wife with so keen an imagination. Let Phil Gove '22 take note. The Reader's Digest April 1961 ran Harland's article deploring the billions spent on moondoggling when we need cash on earth. In that same month Harland visited the Peruvian .Andes in South America to get material for an article on Machu Picchu, "Lost City of the Incas," which appeared March 1962. Harland is prolific, three more articles: revenue agents out to trap us with new computers, the new microwave radio systems now in use, and some radical new automobile engines Detroit is playing around with. In the fall Scribner's will publish Harland's book on 19th century inventors, written last summer. At the moment he is investigating plant nutrition. Bill Lies will like this: last year Harland planted his usual 3,000 Norway pines on his Thetford "farm," and 3,000 more are going in this year. Susan Manchester, the daughter, a Pembroke student, is taking a breather in England, as is the current fashion. With solemn face Letitia herewith issues a solemn warning to 1921 wives: do not refinish furniture. She did, and what happened? A tennis elbow.
Afraid of retirement? Tony Gates is not. He has become plumber, electrician, cabinet maker, and doctor. He fixes everything, even himself when he gets out of order. In addition to becoming a master plumber, he is also becoming a master traveller. Last year he whirled Martha around Norway, Germany, Austria, and Northern Italy with Venice of course a major goal. He is now studying maps of Ireland, the Canary Islands, and Spain. Wyoming is high on the priority list, and a ranch 50 miles from nowhere where Joel Gates and his young wife live. After being graduated from Amherst, Jonathan entered Rutgers Graduate School and hopes to get his degree in August. Tony has given up dogs and taken up birds. He keeps a 410 shotgun at his elbow to give the quietus to red and gray squirrels which show a nasty disposition to bully a pair of titmice and a pileated woodpecker.
Tony will be interested to learn that on February 28 Ken Yeaton rode the New Haven Railroad for the last time right into his retirement. If he worries about the future being boring, Lucy does not: she says that he has enough projects about the housa to keep him busy until 1965. Ken has generously presented Baker Library with the medical diploma of his great-grandfather, Nathaniel Freeman Jr., which bears the date 1833.
Here, there, and everywhere: Ellis Briggs is not in Madrid but in the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, with hepatitis. ... Not long ago Paul Sanderson delivered the daughter of an undertaker of a fine boy, and the undertaker, smiling with gratefulness, offered Paul, lucky man, a handsome discount on his funeral. ... Unlike some 1921 men counting their great-grandchildren, BordenHelmer has only recently welcomed his first son-in-law, Thorpe Nickerson, married to his daughter Betsy. ... Retie, son of BillFloyd, in the Army for three years, is currently stationed in California. ... Bob and Florrelle McConaughy had dinner with John Meek '33 when he was out west. ... Short of time because of the several thousand pages of Kefauver Committee hearings to be digested, Bob Loeb has nonetheless read no fewer than 24 books recently: biography, history, political- theory, anthropology, and philosophy with not a novel in the lot, and as for detective stories - perish the thought! ... Also an assiduous reader, Carl McMackin favors novels and biography, and his favorites are those of our youth, W. H. Hudson and Lafcadio Hearn. James Stephens and Willa Gather, H. G. Wells and Arnold Bennett, and - it goes without saying - Robert Frost and Yeats. ... In Sarasota Bill Alley had a good chat with Al Catterall, and in St. Petersburg Bob Luce learned that KentMeKinley is running for state senator. ... Ralph Steiner in San Jose spent a day recently with Warren Homer.... Charlie Gilson is corresponding with Dartmouth and other colleges about policies concerning the admissions of Far Eastern students. ... The Class sympathizes with Howie Anger on the death of his wife Gertrude. ... Bill McAdams has been with North American Aviation for that magic number of years: 21. Twice 21 makes 42, the number of years he has been married to Dorothy. Their son Bob of La Crescenta, Calif., with Goodyear, has a son Brian, aged 16, headed for UCLA, and Dartmouth is sorry. ... Bob Derby was recently featured in a newspaper article, "The Artist and the Monadnock Region." ... Hewitt Moore of North Pomfret, Vt., is cheerful, for he had a good apple season and his maple syrup is in demand. He hopes that one son will choose to stay on the farm, one of the best in the area.... No longer a resident of Jackson Heights, Abe Weld is renting two apartments in Henniker, N. H., and is looking about Hanover for a suitable bachelor house. ... Merrill Shoup was a judge at a luncheon in India House, New York, when Daniel Gutleben was named "Sugar Man of the Year" for 1961. ... DonSmith was to have retired this year but he is being urged to stay on until 1963.
A healthy man who never gets sick, BobBurroughs was attacked by a winter virus. "Ho, ho," said Bob as he laughed it off and sauntered off to his office. "Ho, ho, indeed," snarled the virus and kept white corpuscling Bob until it had him down in a hospital. Health note to classmates from Bob: "If you run a high temperature for several days, do not after only 24 hours of normality whirl off to business as you snicker at what little effect a mite of a virus has." Bob's definition of Satan on earth is a scorned virus.
Bob Wilson '21 on Kito Daita Island inthe South Pacific, where the "PioneerMuse" ran aground with a $2 millioncargo, touching off a tangle of salvageoperations in which Wilson, boning upon admiralty law, was fully involved. Hisclients removed the cargo, guarded itwith baseball bats, but finally lost it in asaga wilder than adventure fiction.
Secretary, 33 East Wheelock St. Hanover, N. H.
Class Agent, 6 Ross Rd., Scarsdale, N. Y.
