1926

Rudolph dropped in on Hub and me with a few letters, cards, and filled-out questionnaires. He said he was as happy to carry them as we were to get them but he seemed a little restive at their lightness. He kept shyly shifting his hoofs and flashing his nose while mumbling something about light payloads and losing face with Dancer and Prancer. Hub and I, not being as up as Bob May on our Reindeer, could not quite get it all but he made it very clear that like "Barkus" he was ever "willin" and was only really happy when he was busy carrying '26 news. We promised him you fellows would do your best to keep him happy all year. So please do.

Now to get on with his returns - JackStraight reports from Bartlesville, Okla., that he is still working there as Cities Service Oil Co., Manager of Operations producing 135,000 bbls. of oil and a billion cubic feet of gas per day and that he occasionally sees King Dickason in Tulsa. Also that EdMcClintock likes his move to Arizona "just fine." Jim Shaftall reports himself from Nashville, Tenn., as half retired and half working at his own radio station and that there are no other members of '26 "around here." Our renowned hotelman, DonChurch, Manager of Belleview Biltmore Hotel and Chairman of the American Hotel and Motel Association's Resort Committee, conducted the Association's annual meeting December 5 through 8 at the Wigwam, Litchfield Park, Ariz. Edward Steel, U.S. District Judge for the District of Delaware, is still working at it in Wilmington, Del., as is Freeman Metzer, M.D., still working at his profession in Riverside, N. J. His daughter Patricia Ann graduated cum laude from Penn Law School in 1966, passed the Mass. Bar the same year and is now associated with a half Dartmouth Boston law firm. Another one of our physicians is Al Morris, on active duty with the Navy as senior medical officer at the Naval Air Station, Los Alamitos, Calif. His son Edward W. Morris, USNR (Dartmouth '59) is on duty with the 7th Fleet in the Western Pacific.

The normal pay load rules do not apply to special cargo, which under the Reindeer tariff means letters and when Rudolph brings one in his little face is really aglow. As it was for example when he brought in Ritchie Smith's report of his and Betty's epic seven-week circuit of the Pacific "built around a ten-day seminar on Far Eastern civilization at Hokone, Japan under the auspices of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. (You saw picture in January MAGAZINE.) Prior to the event (shades of Alumni College) we had been sent a library of books by Aspen covering Japanese literature from the earliest time to the present, plus a real dip into Zen Buddhism. Dependent, of course, somewhat upon" the amount of homework we had done prior to the jaunt, I think all the participants ... of which there were some twenty American business and professional men ... felt that it was a rare opportunity to have such an exposure under such conditions to the mores of our Japanese brethren." The circuit included "Anchorage, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the Fiji Island and Hawaii... highlighted by five days of the greatest dry-fly fishing on the South Island of New Zealand that any Izaak Walton might cherish." Thanks, Ritchie, for a masterpiece of concise reporting. We don't need to be poets or Waltons to follow you in imagination.

Earlier at the Bohemian Grove Ritchie and Dave Smith '35 with Del Worthington at their side put on a campfire show in honor of their bewhiskered cousins billed as "Smith Brothers Night." Most appropriately considering their Hanover background and that the old Sigma Nu house in Hanover was reputedly the original Smith Brothers' home and factory they borrowed generously from the "Sahara Derby" for their material. For example, to quote Ritchie again "we felt it more appropriate to discard the original words of 'Weep and the World Weeps With You,' and to affix to that great tune the following more appropriate lyric.

'Cough and the world coughs with you. Take our drops and your cough goes away. Every campmate with congestion Needs remedial suggestion, etc.' "

I suppose the refrain went, "Spread a Little Smith wher'er you go" but the authors did not say.

Now for some more quotes. From: EddieDooley, to classmate, Ed Hanlon, "I have just returned from a trip to Houston, New Orleans, Tampa, Marco Island, and Miami as part of my boxing duties. I saw the fight at Houston and can honestly say that Clay impresses me as the greatest fighter over the last fifty years. Anyone that says otherwise is talking through his chapeau. He is fast and furious with a deadly punch." (Don't say these Notes don't pass on tips when it gets them.)

From: the Lexington, Ky., Herald-Leader - "Dr. Granville F. Knight will present the annual Martha R. Jones Lectures on Nutrition under the general topic Will Mankind Survive the Impact of Civilization? The two lectures will survey the hazards facing individuals in this age, resulting from contact with chemicals in air, food and water. Now in private practice in Santa Monica, Calif., Dr. Knight specializes in treatment of allergies." Finally, from: Littleton, N. H., in connection with the Gala Open House of the New Peoples National Bank of Littleton.

"Directors of the New Bank include, Clinton H. Kelley, who is owner of the Kelley Barrett Insurance Agency and is active in real estate development locally. He has served the town of Littleton as tax collector, as selectman for many years, and is presently a member of the town budget committee, and is chairman of the Littleton Planning Board. He has been a member of both the Littleton Masonic lodge and the Grange for almost 40 years."

My closing intelligence is that Chuck Abbott visited Paris in the summer and Reg Hanson in the fall. This news came from neither of these worthies but from Lois P. Abbott, God bless her. "As you can see I, Lois, have filled out this questionnaire. Charles is allergic to such things and files them immediately in the wastebasket whence I rescued this one." Allergic, my eye! The guy is just lazY or unappreciative of the truth of Hub's sage remark in his first Smoke Signals that what may seem old, commonplace, uninteresting and unnewsworthy to you is new, refreshing, interesting and most newsworthy to your classmates who are in a different field of endeavor. So I say, thank you, Lois. And to our other ladies I say, if that '26 ball of fire you married is now so allergic to any cerebration not in the line of his business as to be unable to report on himself, please do it for him. As for you gentlemen of '26, the subject of your next term paper is "Why is it that as we get older our ladies become more alert, sensitive, and intelligent while we become more allergic, dull, and cybernetic?"

Secretary, 8 Old Farm Rd. Darien, Conn. 06820

Washington Valley Rd., R.D. 1 Morristown, N. J. 07960 Treasurer,

Bequest Chairman,