1921
On a certain Wednesday in March a 1921 man poured his coffee cream into his orange juice. Usually poised, seemingly incapable at breakfast of such absent-minded nervousness, he had good cause. He had eloped. The setting delights 1921 romantics: a 75-mile drive for the blood test, a doctor sworn to secrecy, a 16-foot aluminum ladder against a second-story window, the baffled lover unable to hide it, its appearance on the automobile ski rack, the search at short notice for an available minister, a student nurse as audience, loss of the wedding ring, jubilation when it was found hitched to a key ring in a hip pocket, and stumbling over words during the ceremony. Now cool facts. Aretta Putnam of Harwich Port, widow of Guy O. Putnam '11, became the bride of Howard Anger, also of Harwich Port, March 10. The ceremony at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Wallace H. Drake '14, 88 Sea St., North Weymouth, was followed by a collation at the Toll House, Whitman. With Dr. Drake's granddaughter as witness, the Rev. Donald C. Ward of the Pilgrim Congregational Church, North Weymouth, officiated. The couple will live on Brook Trout Lane, Chatham Port.
In a large university like Columbia, responsibilities can pile up on an able man. Consider Erling Hunt, who has built a department commanding respect and shaped worth-while doctoral programs. Relieved of the Chairmanship of the Department of Social Studies and promoted to Director of the Division of Instruction, he now must supervise ten departments in the Arts, Humanities, Sciences, and Social Studies. Fortunately he has been permitted to retain his favorite course in historical method and research, but mostly he shuffles papers, sits in endless committee meetings, and contends with problems of staff, curriculum, and faculty communications. Erling is undecided whether the new position is a punishment for his sins or a reward for his championship of policies about which he has been sounding off for decades. Silently he thinks, "Thank God, for Vermont and New Hampshire," those refuges for high-powered professors and harassed educational administrators.
Although Hal and Doris Braman have a large house, it could not accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Robert White and their three children, who were all bedded down outdoors, not too airy for nature lovers. All the Whites were mad about cereals not only for breakfast but also for luncheon and dinner. Best of all, uncooked corn. Why not? You do not always cook your carrots or your celery, do you? In the Braman living room. Poppa and Momma White seemed bewildered by furniture, pictures, mirrors and andirons, but they fluttered about making little whistling noises as if to indicate that though they would never feather their nests in quite the same way, it was all right for pipe-smoking Hal and Doris, mother of two wives of very high-ranking naval officers. Ordinarily a peaceable woman, Doris flew into a rage when she discovered delinquents prowling about, bent on corrupting the innocent White children. The attempted outrages continuing, Doris bought an air rifle, in the darkness put on her ski togs, and established herself in the back yard ready to pump BB bullets into a degenerate peeping torn. One came. She fired and missed. The story ends, nevertheless, in death. The vicious hawk flew off with two baby quails, and the eating torn devoured the third. Warm, fluffy, shy, and sad, Mr. and Mrs. Bob White now sleep in a guarded cellar rather than under the outdoor shed. Their children, handsome, precocious, and ambitious, looked forward to a quail of a life. Sudden death by a ferocious hawk beak and yellow feline fangs is enough in loving White parents to induce black melancholia.
Sandy Sanders is busier than a bird dog, October, Corey Ford's setter, for example, even though Sandy is not being quailed by pointing his game in Dellwood. In Dellwood, Sandy is not concerned with quail, nor is he one to grouse. Dellwood is oil, and Sandy is Manager of Operations in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mississippi. He remarks that the only difference for him, aged 65, is some cussed back trouble putting him into a hospital and recurring since in milder form. "Cussed" means that Sandy missed out on golf for several months. He is mildly surprised that so many men are knocked out by backs. "Probable herniated disc," say Sandy's doctors.
With an eye for color, Connie Keyes has been sojourning in Tangier and makes colorful s uggestions about 1921 costumes in 1967: a brown cowl, cassock, bare feet, and sandals for the men with long flowing, curly beards; for the women, gently floating white robes with face veils; and, for the thirsty, burros equipped with water gourds.
Virgin-Islanding, Gus and Betty Perkins praise the climate and the sun, deplore the lack of rain, and make no mention of water gourds.
Moved by sudden impulses, Don and Prue Smith have spent a week in Washington and Williamsburg, visited Daytona Beach and Cape Kennedy, looked in on their daughter in Flamingo, and feasted in New Orleans.
Invited evening after evening by many Salt Lake friends, Florrelle, widow of BobMcConaughy, keeps busy with dinners, bridge, symphony concerts, and ballet. In various departments at the hospital she works from three to six days a week and from four to nine hours a day. Her pedometer clocked her as having in just one day in the hospital walked eight and a quarter miles.
Ray and Gertrude Mallary are receiving congratulations about their son, Rev. R. DeWitt Mallary Jr. '47, whose church in New York where he serves as vicar has now become independent to be known as All Saints Church. De has been named Rector, and he will be instituted June 6. Dick '49 has increased political responsibilities in Montpelier requiring considerable time away from the time-consuming farm.
Bill and Teeter Alley look on Egypt as about the most interesting place they have ever been in, but it is also dirty, dishonest, corrupt, with such miserable food and lodgings at such high prices that they were glad to leave for Greece. Remember Durrell and his Alexandrian Quartet and his ability to conjure up a city beautiful and hot, sensual and wretched, sly and sick with love? What Nasser has done to persons with money is incredible, the Alleys say: no liberty, censored mail, confiscated capital against nearly worthless scrip, bugged homes, toilet paper as status symbol. Greece was "heaven," clean, friendly, natives as noble as the sun and as Attic architecture.
Art Ross recalls the good times he had with the late Bob Daly, his roommate in 51 Wheeler freshman year; and Phil Noyes recalls the adventures with Bob at the University of Grenoble. Bob dropped out of sight shortly after graduation. Art is still working five days a week at Fairchild-Hiller (missiles and aircraft) in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and he hopes for a Maine vacation this summer, his first vacation in 24 months. Phil too keeps busy. Retired, he is none-theless substituting in Fairhaven H. S. for sick teachers in courses completely outside his specialties, Spanish and French.
In a syndicated newspaper column "Try and Stop Me," Bennett Cerf tells the story of two Dartmouth freshmen in Baker Library yakyakking and laughing and an outraged English instructor who brought them up short. "Have you no consideration for others?" he whispered angrily. "Can't you see that there are other students here trying to sleep?"
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