1935

Being a Brooklyn boy, I always thought of Tonawanda as being vaguely "upstate,' sort of in the Finger Lakes region. Apparently I know New York geography like (Sen.) Bobby Kennedy. Bob Hubbard was thereby spared a call. He was as far away from me as I was from home when visiting Elmira the other day. The same goes for Tim Reed who is supposed to be back in the same Buffalo area (Kenmore) teaching school. It's surprising how few upstate New Yorkers we have in the class.. There s DickMitchell, the litigator from Oswego, and Joe Waters, a professor in Canton (which is really upstate) and Charlie Eldridge in Rouses Point (which is as far as you can go). But I was in Owego country, not Oswego. At least one thing I found out. The place names are almost as funny as in Virginia. You can go from Painted Post to Horseheads to Gang Mills and still be in the Mark Twain country of Chemung. If you want a little southern rather than western influence you can drop down to Choconut Center. While up north, the Dewy Threwy - the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway - charges across the New York landscape with those Finger Lakes festooned underneath like fish on a string.

Enough about New York. The real news of the month (and about the only) is the appointment of Dud Russell as Minneapolis Area Chairman for the class. Dud, as you undoubtedly recall, has been in the flour milling business most of his life so I thought I should understand this subject better to keep up with class affairs. The effort has been rewarding and I think the results should be shared with you. The problem seems to start with the fact that all wheats have a crease and splitting them at 50 million berries an hour is required. Furthermore, as I get the story, the grains, or berries, have "hairs of beard" at one end (just like you and me) and these hairs have to be removed by the miller. You should not confuse these with the awns which are attached to the glumes. The glumes can be empty or flowering as the case may be, but in any event they are generally described as chaffy bracts at the base of the spikelet. Flowering glumes are called lemmas and the awns are on the end as slender bristles collectively known as the beard. (The other kind of awn need not concern us here. It is one of the barbed processes on the hemipenis of a reptile.)

Well, as you can see, what with one thing or another, a miller has his work cut out for him. Anybody who can manage a situation like this should find being area representative of the class no trouble at all. He may even be able to scare up some news.

Meanwhile, Len Shortell sends greetings from Washington, D. C., where he helps the House of Representatives tend to its business. "Older son Fred coming home from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, daughter Lois graduated from Strayer and slaving for Associated General Contractors of America, little son Brian home for first Christmas vacation from William and Mary. Me - retired from W.W. II total disability but still fooling them all (most of the time)." Len also casts a few aspersions at the Montgomery avoirdupois displayed recently in the public prints and suggests a note of explanation.

Calvin J. (Bud) Wright, associate counsel of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, has been named a member of the State Affairs Committee of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce according to a rather cryptic announcement in the Marblehead Messenger. In the tycoon department I notice that Ralph Lazarus was recently featured in a P.R. picture in Advertising Age representing the United Community Funds and Councils of America; Herb Shuttleworth has acquired Chromcraft Inc. on behalf of Mohasco Industries, Inc. for $3 million; Screen Gems, Inc. profits are better, which ought to please HarryAckerman. I used to get long communications from Rudy Pacht out Hollywood way. Right now all I know is that he has formed a new law firm with Ben Erlich, called Pacht and Erlich.

Lex Sheldon has a boy at the University of Colorado and is still running Camp Hawthorne in Maine. Dr. Dick Potter has moved to Chincoteague, Va. That's oyster country, man. Jack Crane to Tarpon Springs, Fla. Walt Stem has been appointed assistant professor of Physical Science at East Stroudsburg State College, and is living in Marshall Creek, Pa. Bill Warren, who last I heard was with the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, has moved to Old Sturbridge Village, Mass., where he is chief curator of the museum. Bud and LouiseHinman's daughter Susan has just announced her engagement to Roger Blackstone Alley Jr., of Blackstone Farm, Suffern, N. Y.

Johnny Jewett has written commending my attention to an article on bass horn playing by James Faran in the November 1963 (sic) Horizons magazine. As one of the clan I commend it in turn to Bill Bury. As Faran says in his letter to Jewett, "We bass-horn men have something in us which is so strong it just bubbles to the surface now and then. . . ." Don't teach your sons to play the (ugh) clarinet, men.

Secretary, Room 703, 521 Fifth Ave. New York, N. Y. 10017

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