1926
A letter I sent our early retirees seeking their views on the comparative merits of life before and after retirement, problems since, difficulties of adjustment if any, etc., elicited some masterful replies. Inadequate as excerpts out of context are I am sharing the following with you now to whet your appetites for the full expositions you will get in a later edition of Hub's "Smoke Signals."
Don Mackay from Quincy, Mass. — "I have not found any problems resulting from the retirement. We have some 70 lawyers in Quincy who now and then think I can help them with a bit of advice. Quite a bit of reading has seemed in order. If I walk up to the center (15 minutes) I can find a few hundred folks any day with an inclination to chat. That is the old story of how to age slowly and with pleasure." Paul E. Kyburg from North Sutton, N. H. - "And what's this about adjustment? For Heaven's sake, did you have any trouble getting adjusted to breathing? Same difference." DintyMoore from Pompano Beach, Fla., after November 1: Delray Beach, Fla. - "Now people say, 'Well, how are you adjusting to retirement?' and I say, 'About like I adjusted to eating candy and ice cream as a small boy.' " Bill Farnsworth from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. - "The only difficulty of adjustment I had was getting over waking up at 6:00 A.M. every morning. It took me six months to lick it. Bob Stopford and Ann have just finished building house about five blocks from ours, here in Imperial Point. It's grand having them here. I hadn't seen him in 20 years. In fact not since the day he used his influence at Lord & Taylor's to get me my first civilian suit at the end of World War II."
Ben Zaeder from Erie, Penna. - "I have had no trouble in adjusting to my new life and probably am happier, because my time is my own." Dick Burlingame from Scarsdale, N. Y. - "It seems to me that I have become enormously rich in one respect, that of having Time, plenty of it to do with as I wish and want. Now time belongs to me and I spend or save it as I please." Herman J.Trefethen, from Skytop, Penna. — "I will reply to your letter pertaining to retirement at an early date. I will now only say that the biggest problem is finding time to answer correspondence." Edward C. MeClintock from Tucson, Ariz. - "My only comment about my retirement is that it beats working by a helluva lot!"
Herman F. Davidson from Sioux City, lowa - "Retirement really hasn't bothered me since I've had quite a bit of practice. I really don't have any problems other than those of the world and I don't know the answers to those." Rollie Eaton from Charlottesville. Va. - "I know I have not answered your question for the sociologists namely: 'Are my intra-psychic motivational strivings according me maximal gratification in retirement?' I do find things to do that I have always wanted to do.... I am not bored and in fact I still don't have time to do all I would like to do."
Replies to "anything interesting happen during the past year you have not yet reported" in questionnaire accompanying Hub's first "Smoke Signals" produced the following nuggets: Clyde Hall - free-lance magazine feature story writer and Washington, D. C., correspondent of the Episcopal Church's weekly "The Living Church": "Nothing except a richly rewarding experience at the 40th at the Lake Pleasant (N. H.) cottage of my roommate Doug Everett and learning to cast for bass from teacher, Johnny Manser, and catching and eating several fine bass. Frabjous indeed!" Oz Fitts — Brattleboro's gift to the law, whose chief recreation is an annual yachting trip to one place or another - "I made the best investment that a Vermont Republican ever made - I skippered a small cruiser, with mate Dorothy, on the River Shannon last year, with a pocketful of Kennedy half dollars!" Danny Drury - the squire of Drury Lane, Norwich, Vt., and Hanover, N. H.'s gift to Civil Engineering - "Sally and I had a two-month trip to Ireland, Scotland, England, September 25-November 18. Good salmon fishing in Ireland early October - returned on the 'Rotterdam' in time for Princeton game."
Dean Chamberlain, active in the 1926 Memorial Book Collection and Desk Officer for Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Albania in the Eastern European and Soviet Section of the United States Information Agency - "Went to Poland for three months with a USIA Exhibit 'Graphic Arts USA' in 1965. Sold house on Webster Lake, Franklin, N. H., where we had been going for many years. Too far from Washington, and children have grown up and gone away." Ed Cole, acting Dean Yale University School of Drama through June 1966, currently on one-year Senior Faculty Fellowship to write and study - "Elected a charter Fellow of Educational Theatre Association (one of six)." Henry Greeley, Palm Springs, Calif., High School math teacher - "Will be attending Alumni College in August. We saw Monty and Nina Colladay frequently during the past winter."
Ward Benton, Research analytical chemist at Economics Laboratory Inc. - "Elected chairman of Twin Cities' chapter of the American Institute of Chemists for 1966-67. John Blair, "Vox clamantis in deserto" of Francesville, Ind., and semi-retired cattle raiser there as well as director Bank of Homewood - "Built a new home on the farm."
Bayles Minuse (whose name was on the list of early retirees in error) could not be more correct in writing me from Stony Brook, Long Island, that as a still active banker and president of his own business, North Suffolk Management Corp., it was a little ridiculous to ask how he likes retirement. Bayles goes on to say that even though he does for health reasons take long winter vacations he is "in constant touch with his office." I therefore would say he is the least retired man in the class. My apologies, Bayles.
What news do you hear about other members of the Class? in questionnaire turns up the following: Gail Borden - "See TomColt frequently. He has really made something of the Dayton Art Museum. Before he got in the act the Museum was something of a static affair. Now it's really first rate." In Tom's own words he is "Director Dayton Art Museum: - Ohio Arts Council - member of executive committee. City of Dayton, Technical Advisory Committee, reUrban Design-Chairman."
Our peripatetic Pulitzer Prize Poet DickEberhart along with 1963 National Book award winning novelist J. F. Powers, author of "Morte D'Urban," was a spring participant in this year's Harold S. Vanderbilt Literary Symposium held annually at Vanderbilt University for students with a literary bent and Nashville book lovers. He later made a summer visit to Kenya to study the work of the Peace Corps there.
Also last summer by loan of Herb Darling an outstanding exhibition of 36 rare examples of early American silver, covering over 100 years of the silversmiths' art in New York State was on display in the Beaumont-May Gallery of the Hopkins Center. This exhibition not only presented the fine silver of the times but showed the contribution to scholarship made by those who have traced early craftsmen through their marks, occasional advertisements, and the records of church and state. Herb, an amateur and connoisseur of fine silver, heads the Darling Foundation.
A summer group on the Chilcote terrace,Walloon Lake, Michigan: Herrick Norcross '26, Chim Curtis '26, Ort Hicks'21, Fritz Curtis '33, Lee Chilcote '30.
Secretary, 8 Old Farm Rd. Darien, Conn. 06820
Treasurer, Washington Valley Rd., R.D. 1 Morristown, N. J. 07960
Bequest Chairman,
