1939
We opened a letter from Dr. Ernest J.Smith of Oakland, R. 1., the other day and out fell a clipping about the greatest tiger of us all. It was a photo of balding, bespeckled Ernie and his young looking wife holding their eight-day-old only daughter surrounded by their nine sons! We seem to remember not too many years ago when Ernie was vying for the class's most prolific. He echoed empty boasts of five or six then. Now that he has crossed into the two digit numbers does anyone want to take him on? He was so excited about finally producing a daughter and turning the household "co-ed" that a bit of it rubbed off on the state legislature which extended its formal congratulations. We hope that someone in the sort of business which knows all about these things donates an appropriate door prize for Ernie to win at reunion. Rhode Island is such a tiny state!
Al Loberg of Preston, Md., has been appointed sales and production manager of Cobb's Pedigreed Chicks with headquarters in Delmarva. He used to operate the New Hampshire Poultry Farms and has done pioneer work on controlled feeding. Around about Saturday afternoon the 20th you're going to wish you knew him better when Cornie Miller's committee on "Buffet and Tent Snacks" goes over the hill with the mustard jar.
Les Smith, special features newscaster for station WOR in New York, delivered on the spot coverage of the disastrous earthquake in Alaska last March. Dick Durrance, who has been producing films since 1938, has recently joined Pelican Motion Pictures of New York as vice president and producer. He will operate in Aspen, Colo., his home, as well as at the New York studios. HankWelton, recently with the Morgan Park Academy near Chicago, has migrated to Menlo Park, Calif., where he is headmaster of the Menlo School. Hank's daughter is a sophomore at Ripon College and his son remains a loyal junior at Morgan Park. ColbyHowe also lives in Menlo Park and their cocktail flag hangs every Monday evening.
Last winter the front pages of this magazine reviewed the Prentice-Hall publication of a milestone in the saga of the links, "The Offensive Golfer!" by Dick Brooks. Not content with ruining our home life with his "Jackson Twins," Brooksie has to follow us around on our pastoral pastimes and keep us from keeping our head down. (And we're playing in the Bourbon Open at Bardstown next week, too!) Because of his harmless associations with wholesome hanky panky, Bert has bound this charred Prometheus with the chairmanship of the "Cocktail Parties" Committee - the only job in the whole TENT Enterprise with built-in payola. But people like Brooksie are never content. He has gone into a new side business which will be announced, shown, promoted, and probably sold at reunion. And look who his partners are! Bob Field, who came up with the idea, and Bob Brown, who thought it was worth financing. And just so they won't confuse the stockholders, they are calling the new company "Brooks Brownfield." This Tenterprise is in the business of designing, producing, and marketing a Dartmouth wallpaper and a matching fabric which will wallow in good taste and be unveiled at the TENT with a roomsworth of the paper as a door prize. The wives of the founders will wear shifts of the fabric at the class picnic and, if picnic chairman Bill Carter fails to get Mae Britt for the field show, the same founders' wives may auction off the shifts to secure the debentures - and other things. (For this publicity we ought to get Termite for a houseboy.)
One thing we have noticed in corresponding with classmates the past six years, their handwriting is in a skid of steady deterioration while our own penmanship improves majestically in its legibility with the purchase of each new ballpoint. We have before us three recent letters from Junie Merriam two of which we legibly answered, but the stain of green ink on Junie's trifocals either failed to let our message through, or, in turn, Junie forgot that he borrowed our Rosetta Stone. He is going to Japan on business before reunion and Martie is joining him there but they don't get back from Europe until June 16 and on the 22nd leave "en famille" for Martha's Vineyard but if we want to rent their house while we attend the Fair it's available. That doesn't sound like a brushoff to me, does it to you, Cocky?
Another thing we've sort of sixth-sensed these past few years: The breakdown of that old adage that each alumni class has its hard core of workers who put forth all the effort and do all the communicating while the rest of the class sits on its duff and gripes - or even worse — remains incommunicado. This is not altogether true. The response to the Memorial Fund Drive brought forth generous donations from many who have been only so-so givers in the past. Many have helped make Bert's job of Reunion Chairman halfway pleasant by contributing time and ideas for the first time since evacuating the Bema. At our age most areas of common bond have pretty much shriveled up: the peachy group around the yacht club every summer at Northeast Harbor; the guys who' were all together at old Camp Hood; the third reunion of Air Group 28. The laughter is forced; the camaraderie is tarnished. But your old college class is slightly different. Thanks to geography, the familiarity of togetherness doesn't get recharged often enough to breed contempt. Its memories encompass those salad days that shine with magnificence in the light of the present. So we seem to be entering an era where most of the persons approached are more willing to do their share, to communicate, to look up almost forgotten names in strange cities because nostalgia overcomes social timidity. And for me this has been fun. The rekindling has been rewarding. I think, if you've tried it, you've found it so too. If you haven't, there are plenty of opportunities.
Lloyd U. Noland Jr. '39, president ofthe General Association of Alumni, willpreside at the traditional Commencementluncheon program on Saturday, June 13.
Secretary, 1908 Coolidge Drive Dayton 19, Ohio
Class Agent, 70 Pine St., New York 5, N. Y.
