1949
If you hear of someone who made Hanover from New York in five hours, don't think as I first did that he has to be a reckless sophomore in a souped-up Triumph. The happy truth is that it might even be your own Uncle George and Auntie Mabel because it really isn't quite that difficult. Ann and I made it in our weary wagon in five hours with relative ease, and with the greatest foliage spectacle in ten years due to the wet summer it was- a grand trip. We landed at the Maple Leaf Motel up from the Veterans Administration Hospital in White River Junction at 6 P.M. on Thursday, slightly early for our class fall weekend but in good time to greet all but CharlieEaton who had outrun us in by an hour. We unpacked and had a couple of prepared sidecars in our room with our old friend and classmate before running into the new Howard Johnson restaurant down the road for dinner. My wife has always been a cheap date, God bless her, and it was off to the Nugget in Hanover right from dinner to see a French movie with English subtitles. Fred Hartford, manager of the Nugget for at-least the last thirty years and a fellow I remembered well from my undergraduate days, was so sure that we wouldn't like it that he let us in for a brief trial viewing before we paid admission. Boy, he was right!! This one was a real loser. The only thing that bothered me was that the place was filled and no one else seemed to be moving for the exits. When we came out Fred simply laughed and told us that this offbeat cryptic stuff is now grist for the students' mill. These students are in another world to him. In fact he was candid enough to say that as far as he's concerned the Dartmouth as we all knew it died about seven years ago.
Maybe Fred over-reacted, but there certainly is no denying that the College is indeed in an era of relentless change which all of us hope augers well for the future. Two significant changes we noted were the sizeable number of women exchange students and negro undergraduates. The former are generally on leave for a one-year exchange period from their respective schools while the latter are the product of a commitment by the College to the black student groups to seek out and expand the number of qualified undergraduates in the student body to a meaningful number. At the football game against Penn we found out that the loinclothed Indian cheerleaders we knew had been written off as outdated and offensive to the Indian minority and replaced by a peppy group of both young men and women students including blacks in Dartmouth green sweaters. They did indeed acquit themselves very well, but the game turned into such a rout that they had real difficulty generating lung power from the stands.
The weekend was as always very enjoyable. Once again there was a good turnout of classmates including newcomers Dud andBetsy Bursch and Harm Saville. The Burschs live in Vestal, N. Y. Dud is an executive in the marketing department of IBM. Their son Donald is applying for the next Dartmouth freshman class. Harm Saville has since 1961 been the production manager for Chuck Wagon Foods Company, leading producer of dehydrated foods for the nation's outdoorsmen. Harm loves Boy Scouts, butterfly chasers, bird watchers, and anyone who camps out because he has more than a fair chance of feeding them and feeding them not only nourishment but tasteful food from a wide selective shelf.
It was a treat to welcome Sam and Barbara Kilner back from Atlanta after a couple of years. They hope that this is their last move and to make sure have sunk their new home in lower Connecticut in eight feet of concrete. Sam is now vice president of systems Engineering and Education for IBM headquartered in White Plains, N. Y. The Kilners have a summer home in Woodstock, Vt., where the family has vacationed for some sixty years. Sam told me that Laurence Rockefeller has been buying up property in the . area and now owns the country club and" what we all knew as Bunny's Suicide Six, home of the first rope ski tow in America, rigged up on a jacked-up car wheel rim and another rim nailed to an upslope tree.
Our class executive committee meeting went off smoothly on Saturday morning. Gordon Thomas gave a brief report of progress to date on our June 1970 reunion. From what I could gather it sounds as if everything has been well thought out and will be in readiness. Treasurer Herman Muller furnished a current balance sheet showing a class surplus of $1275 in serious jeopardy due to our commitment to the class memorial books program and rising printing costs of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. A more detailed letter will be sent out covering this situation very shortly. We are pleased to report that Skip Muller not only is a frenetically busy New York accountant but has recently been selected as a trustee of Ithaca College and Manhattan School of Music. He is also legal guardian of his half sister who went to Dartmouth a summer ago and is one of the first alumnae of the College. The Mullers summer at Lake George where they have both a home and a farm.
Two years of foresight and planning have gone into the making of what should be the biggest fall weekend yet for October 9 and 10 of next year. The class has reserved the Maple Leaf Motel in White River Junction again for the Princeton game which will be as always a complete sell out. You may recall that the Tiger defeated us the last two times we have played him in Hanover, and we would all like to witness the turn around.
Highlight of the fall festivities was as always the awarding of the Gold Pick Axe. A committee of three Denverites consisting of chairman John Dahle, Bob Priester, and Phil Johnson selected two winners, one to receive his award this Fall and the other at our reunion. John Dahle hopes to be present to make the presentation in June but could not make the fall trip as well so yours truly did the honors. The award was given to John M. Borys, director of probation for the juvenile court of the State of Connecticut. The dedication and selfless effort which John has displayed over these many years on behalf of the troubled youth of both Massachusetts and Connecticut were ample credentials for this high tribute from his classmates who join to say with pride, "He was a classmate of mine at Dartmouth." John and his wife Eileen seemed to enjoy their weekend with us, and we hope to see them again next year along with many more of you.
Tom Barr has been elected a member of the board of managers of St. Barnabas Hospital for Chronic Diseases in Bronx, N. Y. St. Barnabas is the nation's oldest voluntary chronic disease hospital having been founded in 1866. Tom is president and a director of Barr & Barr, Inc., builders. A graduate of Thayer School, he is secretary of the Dartmouth Society of Engineers. He is also president of the Master Carpenters Association, an organization of building trades employers.
John Borys (r) receives the annual 1949Gold Pick Axe Award from Class Secretary Tom Swartz at 1949's fall reunion.
Secretary, 15 Twin Oak Rd. Short Hills, N. J. 07078
Treasurer, 530 East 86th St., New York, N. Y. 10028
