1939

We attended a local Dartmouth-Princeton picnic before college started this fall. Two of our undergraduates had classmates from out of town as house guests whose fathers were '39: Roger Urban, son of Joe Urban, recently moved to Cincinnati, and Ned Bayrd, son of Dr. Ned Bayrd of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Both boys were great fun. They were taller, handsomer, more self-assured, more humorous and sophisticated than father. And why not? Their era is less neolithic. We wrote glowing reports to both parents and received a full reply from Ned which we are passing on to WaltDarby whose Newsletter hasn't the space restrictions we have. Briefly, though, Ned's specialty at Mayo's is hematology (blood, to you) and he is credited with over 50 published articles on the subject. (Like Dracula, maybe?) He is a member of 13 medical societies; he and Muriel have 5 kids, and by way of a hobby, has photographed over 180 different species of wild flowers in color which doesn't seem to impress his family a bit.

Ed Wakelin has been appointed district recreation specialist of the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Maine. With headquarters in Portland, Ed will work with tourist-recreation businessmen such as motel and restaurant operators on business management problems.

Moreau Brown, better known as chairman of the "Hats & Badges" committee for our reunion, took his son to St. Lawrence University to enter the freshman class this fall (where his French professor is Harriman Jones) and ran into Bob Howe doing the same thing with his son Dave. Browny has resigned as General Secretary of Beta Theta Pi after three years - too many irons in too many fires. Browny is almost 40 years old - and then there are all those hats and all those badges.

With Chase Brass & Copper Co. since 1940, Jim Brigden has been promoted to sheet mill superintendent of the Euclid Division at Cleveland. Jim and wife Margaret have 6 kids and live at 25360 Chetsworth Dr., Euclid 17, Ohio.

Back in the States visiting his parents in Hanover - Dr. Ralph Holben and wife. Ralph has been economic advisor to the United States AID Mission in La Paz, Bolivia, for the past 2 years. And, in corresponding with Bob Cushman's wife Polly (and why not?) we learn that Bob is in Canada giving a speech in French at a Norton Company award dinner for one of their plants up there. Mes amis, that must have been quelque chose! Their daughter Polly is at Smith this fall and daughter Penny at Dobbs.

Jocko Vincens is begging you to get in your autobiographies. Don't try to live a little more before you write it up.

In preparation for our 25th in June, we are asking some of the better writers in our class to serve as guest columnists to help set the stage for reunion. We recognize a lot of us have lost interest. We want to rekindle it. We want you to want to come back. This month we are hearing from JerryBeatty, free lance writer, columnist for the Saturday Review, author of several books and a latter day authority, along with Thomas Mann and Virginia Woolf, on the subtleties of the passage of time;

"More than half my lifetime has been devoted to reading the class notes in the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE. Fortunately my own name has appeared three times, which has added to its fascination. I suppose most of us are interested in the news of classmates we probably haven's seen for a long time. For me there's another precious meaning in this column: it reminds me of the fact that I went to college. And I need a monthly reminder, for the years spent at Hanover seem so much like a dream that I often can't believe it all happened. It was another guy, not me, who roomed in 406 Lord and who followed barking dogs on a geology field trip and who never understood a thing in Chemistry and who watched in amazement as a basketball game broke up in a fistfight and who listened in rapture to Robinson's lectures.

"Did it happen to me? What evidence have I to prove it? A diploma that got caught in the 1956 hurricane and has shrunk to a third its original size. A pair of ski boots. A sweater with numerals, not caught in a hurricane but shrunk nevertheless. A copy of 'The Divine Comedy' in Italian, with my own marginal notes. Yes, I've looked at them again; don't ask me to explain what Dante and I were thinking of. I also have dozens of letters I wrote home. They were turned back to me a few months ago. Reading those, I can tell you what was on my mind: 1. Would I get into Ma Smalley's eating club? 2. Why did I have a class just before noon Saturday? 3. Can I have a trip to Europe? The other fellows are going. 4. Skis, ski boots, poles and harness cost me $19. Where am I going to raise that kind of dough? 5. I'm sending my dirty laundry home.

"I guess the most valuable tangible product of those four lost years are the letters. You see, I'm getting some new ones now, addressed to me. I don't get upset. I just shuffle the 1963's in with the 1937's and 1938's and I can't really see much difference. What therapy! But, as I said, the confusion arises as to whether I have been through it for the first time, the second time or not at all. The eerie sensation comes to me that I can write a letter now and open it up and read it in 1939. I'll write to myself and tell myself to forget about the eating club and all that. Instead, get this into your thick head, you snotty pre-war collitch senior: 1. Small men on campus become big men in real life. 2. Learn how to find a book in a library, for crying out loud. 3. Thank goodness you're going to college in 1930's; you'd flunk out in five minutes if it were the 1960's. 4. Twenty-eight of your best friends are going to die violent deaths within a few years. 5. Go on the wagon now; it'll be lots easier. 6. Explore those woods now; they'll be replaced by buildings ere long.

"If I could get that letter delivered, across time, I'd get an answer: mind your own business. What's an old fellow like you know about real life?"

Golfing companions at Florida's Port St.Lucie Country Club were (I to r) DonaldSchott '40, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., ElliotSharp '15 of Boston, Skip Meneely '52,employed by Armco in Venezuela.

Secretary, 1908 Coolidge Drive Dayton, Ohio 45419

Treasurer, 25 Sound View Drive Bay Hills, Long Island, N. Y.