1918
Dear Tom Shirley:
Your name has for some time honorably headed these notes; so you won't mind, I trust, if I, your successor, try to put myself at ease by addressing you — at the outset, anyway — in this my initial try at the role of monthly columnist. While worrying about it this summer I've gained an understanding of the joy that glowed in your face as you handed me last June the class secretary's portfolio, which comprised several fat folders, the contents of which I've as yet not mastered. You certainly rate relief from this half of the job you've been doing for our Class conscientiously and well. Don Barr said as much when last May he summoned unsuspecting me into the Bible and Drum Coffee Shop in the new Hanover Inn "to ask for advice on a Class problem." When he murmured "nominating committee," I beamed, thinking I was to be put on it. "But no," said Barr, "don't get me wrong. That committee's already appointed, and you see it functioning. Frankly, we're looking for a new class secretary. Shirley is great, but it's too much to asic of him besides his executive duties. It's time for a change, even if it's a change for the worse. You won't equal Tom, or Ernie Earley. But we don't expect you to. You're fairly articulate, and I suppose you're literate, and you probably can spell. You'll be published monthly, no rejection slips. You'll get one free meal a year - at Class Officers' meeting! And the Secretaries Association won't put you on any committees, because you're too old. You live right here in the College almost, like Mr. Childs '06 and John Stearns '16 and half-a-dozen secretaries of younger classes. Man, for the job you're a natural!" Well, to make a long story short - if it's not too late — to these soft impeachments I blushingly succumbed. Homeward bound, crossing Ledyard Bridge, I recalled that "a natural" as Shakespeare used it often meant "a born fool." And when to my better and wiser half I announced my nomination, she murmured something about my need of having my head examined! That one I shrugged off. But as the summer wore on, my suspicion grew that probably she was right. Today, Labor Day, while she and the family are enjoying a neighborhood picnic, I'm sure she was!
By the way, you Eighteeners who may be reading this over Shirley's shoulder, if you yearn in future columns to hear less about Booth and more news of one another, you need only furnish me the news via mail or telephone, and I'll gladly fulfill your wishes. I yearn too - for copy.
"Copy" - that journalistic term reminds me, Tom: Did you see last Friday (30 August) in the "New York Times" the report of the death of its copy editor for 40 years, 1923-1964, Grover Cleveland Loud? If you missed it, and if you feel the affection for his memory that all Eighteeners who knew him share, do go to the nearest library and look up the intensely interesting column-long story about him. You'll easily spot it by his photograph, a delightful one that shows him in working costume - shirt-sleeves, pipe-in-mouth - and with a true Grover Cleveland Loud expression that will touch you. I'm glad that at our '64 reunion dinner he was one of our old teachers we had with us.
Another striking newspaper picture - this in "The Dartmouth" one morning during the just-closed academic year - is of our own Paul Reps, who came to Hanover to speak before some undergraduate group. The occasion I was unaware of until too late for me to see Paul, and I'll wager Barr, Blandin, and Stoddard missed him too. But it's good to know he's in circulation, and we all hope to welcome him when next he makes a pilgrimage back to Hanover.
Newspaper pictures remind me as well of the Indian elders portrayed in a clipping from "The Denver Post" of 30 June sent me by Syl Morey, to whom many thanks. An irrepressible wisecracker among our local classmates remarked, "After our exhausting Golden Roundup, I felt as old as Chief Ben Black Elk looks, almost 100!" For all that, and quite seriously, hats off to Syl, who after Reunion did not feel spent, but traveled to Denver and there conducted an important conference of sociological scholars and Indian elders, which endeavored "to determine," according to the "Post," "to what extent the ancient wisdom, philosophies, and intuition of the Indian could be utilized to help cure the complex social ills of the very civilization that supplanted him in his own domain." Eminently worthwhile, and the account of it all is more than interesting. It occurs to me, Syl, that your Dartmouth heritage direct from Eleazar Wheelock is clearly validated, though now, as you point out, the Indians are teaching us instead of our teaching them. Recall that at the 1964 commencement the College bestowed an honorary degree on a full-blooded Indian clergyman, member of the reuning Class of 1920, and he took part in conducting our Memorial Service. Are any American Indians now enrolled as undergraduates? I don't know, and at the moment I'm too far from Crosby Hall to find out. But what Eighteener can forget our popular classmate S. Ralph Walkingstick? Remember him in the fall of '14 teaching the whole student body his "Indian Yell"? Just a freshman, he stood before the crowded football bleachers and demonstrated vocally how it should go. I wish he'd let undergraduates of today hear its climactic bloodcurdling whoop, audible surely atop Balch Hill.
About a month ago I gave myself a treat, drove from Castine to Rockport, Me., for an afternoon call upon Don and MadelineScully. I only hope they had as joyous a time as I did. I presented Don with the '18 cap that was our reunion uniform, and I had with me my file of class literature to draw upon in case he should ask questions about the Roundup that off-hand I couldn't answer. But that fellow knew more than I about every happening of our Golden weekend, and he hugely relished filling me in on details! His fine sons are all thriving in business and professions, and one of Don's sources of pride is that as Dartmouth students they surpassed his achievements both in athletics and in the classroom. "They have a smart mother," he winked at me. And I'd affirm that. Don is comfortable and keen and his good cheer is infectious. Oh yes, I almost forgot: he can and does watch two sporting events simultaneously - on his two television sets - and keeps them both straight while he enjoys them!
A little later that month I paused in Portland while en route homeward, to accept a luncheon invitation from the President Emeritus of the Portland Country Club, SewallStrout. Excellent was the luncheon, and 'twas fun to watch and profit by the staff's deference to the President Emeritus. He didn't put on the grand manner, either. Glib and enthusiastic was our converse concerning many things, but mainly the Golden Roundup. At 1:30 he had to play golf - imagine! at our - I mean his - age! And I had to head west toward Vermont.
Thanks for listening, Tom. See you October 11 or 12 ... EHB
Secretary, Elm St., Norwich, Vt. 05055
Treasurer, 45 Rip Rd., Hanover, N. H. 03755
