1951
It's a dreary, rainy Sunday afternoon, the second day of 1966. I've got a wretched cold and also feel somewhat like the kid who found coal in his Christmas stocking.
The problem is a scarcity of news. Some of you did send some at Christmas, including a priceless photo which Charlie Widmayer had better print in this column - or else. I received a fat envelope of clippings from the Alumni Records Office, only to find that I had already reported over half of them.
On a similarly dreary Saturday afternoon in December, I journeyed to New York City to make certain that '51's biggest news event of 1965 actually came off. Yes, classmates, Al Karcher did marry Mary Allen on December 11. Dwight Allison and JohnClayton were among the ushers, and several other '51's were on hand. The Class even got a play in the following day's New York Times' writeup with a subhead, "Colorado Alumna Wed to Allan R. Karcher of Dartmouth '51."
Gone, I suppose, are the days typified by the picture, which Chattanooga Jim Robinson contributed. It portrays not the Loch Ness monster, but Al Karcher emerging dripping wet from Occom Pond at last June's Class Reunion. For those not present, Al was not thrown in but jumped in voluntarily to win a $5 bet.
Marriages seem to have a way of resulting in progeny, and the Christmas mail brought news of several additions to the '51 family. Back in January, first daughter and third child Martha was added to Peteand Nancy Henderson's brood. On February 1, Ed and Roxane Isbey contributed son Brian Foster, who is either their fourth or fifth, I'm uncertain which.
The arrival of Bob and Joan Brod's fourth, Lauren Kathleen, on August 1 topped off a busy spring and summer in their household. In May, Bob, an M.D. specializing in internal medicine, became a partner in the Media (Pa.) Clinic. In June, the Brods moved into their first "permanent" home in nearby Wallingford after renting for eleven years.
On October 9, Fred and Libby Ranney added number 4, son Edward. Bill andMarie Goulburn's fourth boy, Robert James, arrived on November 30. To wrap up '51's part in the greater Philadelphia area population explosion, Gary and Marge Mansur contributed their second daughter, Hope Hathaway, on December 15. She weighed in at 8 lbs., 11 oz.
The Brooks Dodge family got not just one, but two, spreads in The Boston Sunday Herald magazine section on December 5. The picture at the top of the first story shows a weekend vacation house which Brooks built at Jackson Ridge in God's country (New Hampshire, in case you've forgotten). The pix at the bottom of the same page shows wife Ann reading to son Brookie, 9, and daughter Christl, 7, in a pine-paneled bedroom with a Dartmouth 1951 banner on the wall.
This column reported about a year ago that ex-Olympic skier Brooks had becoipe a vice-president of Cabot. Cabot & Forbes, Boston real estate developers whose tentacles extend far beyond New England. I did not know, however, that wife Ann was a corporate lawyer in Boston. The first of the two articles deals with the Dodges' split life between Manchester, Mass., and New Hampshire; the second, with ski clothing styles.
Mass. (not to be confused with Conn.) Dick Ellis, a Navy career man with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, recently returned to New England. In July, he was transferred from duty at the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts in Washington, D. C., to the Portsmouth (N. H.) Naval Shipyard, where he is Production Material Division Superintendent. Dick and his family are living in nearby York Harbor, Me.
Native down-Easter Dick Castner, now a resident of Cambridge, Mass., makes a career of folk dancing. A professional dance instructor for more than ten years, he is co-director of a music camp in New Hampshire and a folk consultant at Sturbridge (Mass.) Village. He recently presented a program of Irish folk dancing in Clinton, Mass.
HAPPINESS IS: Watching a Big Green football team come from behind to demolish an excellent Princeton squad.. .. Having an undefeated season and coming out on top in the Ivy League.... Winning the Lambert Trophy. ... Having the coach turn down a posh Big Ten offer to stay in Hanover....
Perhaps this is as good a context as any in which to share with you some thoughts on today's Dartmouth undergraduates. With a freshman class whose median scores on the College Board SAT's are 650 verbal and 710 math, some alumni think that "real" Dartmouth men are being superseded by "eggheads" who have no devotion to the College and will make lousy alumni.
Then there is the omnipresent fear, which is not that far away for many classmates, that your son will get a rejection slip from the Admissions Office when he applies.
Anyone who thinks that Hanover now contains only intellectual geniuses with nothing else to offer is a nut. The proof of the pudding lies not only in the football team but also in countless other displays of undergraduate extracurricular excellence, non-athletic as well as athletic, about which most of you hear little, if anything.
In passing, it's interesting to note that the football team has a better academic average than the undergraduate body as a whole. Sophomore star Gene Ryzewicz, for example, earned a citation for excellence in mathematics as a freshman.
Anyone who knows what Hanover was like the weekend of the Princeton game would not even dare to suggest that today's undergraduates lack the Dartmouth spirit. They rang the chapel bells for 26 hours until the team arrived back home. The buses were an hour late and it was raining, but the undergraduate body was there in full strength.
You may be thinking that this is all very fine, but what about my kid - I couldn't get accepted today.
I'm going to take issue with that last premise. I sincerely believe that, had we had the same quality of secondary school preparation which is now common, had we been faced with the same degree of competition at the secondary school level, the overwhelming majority of '51's would have performed to a degree which would have assured them of admission to the Class of 1970.
But that's purely hypothetical, and your son's application for admission isn't. Let's be fair both to him and to the College. According to the law of averages, half of your children will be brighter, and half stupider, than the old man.
If your son is as good or better than you would have been given the same context, you may rest assured that he will be accepted. Here in the Philadelphia area, our experience has been that far more alumni sons are accepted than are rejected.
If your son is not that strong a candidate, do you really want the Admissions Office to bend in his favor? If so, do you then expect the faculty also to make allowances so that he won't flunk out?
Think about it. He's your son, and it's your College. Don't you really want for each of them what is in fact the best for each?
Secretary, 2107 Fidelity-Phila. Trust Bldg. Philadelphia, Penna. 19109
Treasurer, 13 Chadwick Rd., Binghamton, N. Y. 13903
