1944

By the time you read this, many of you will have had the chance - and I hope you took the opportunity —to hear President John Kemeny in person as he spoke on a coast-to-coast tour that covered New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. If you heard him, I can only surmise that you got "the word."

Incidentally, I don't want to steal any of the President's thunder, but I've been thumping for years for the choice of a sabbatical for everyone after he reaches 40. It's called Hier's Hope for Rejuvenation and calls for a full year off, with pay, for anyone who wishes to re-tool, go back to school, sleep, play, travel or mount butterflies. So far I've only convinced myself, but I'm ready to lead a groundswell....

I doubt, however, that I could get GregRabassa to join my club. He is just out with his second translation in 1970 of a, Latin American novel, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It got front running and first-class reviews in both The New York Times Book Review and The New York Book Review. He also has an article in the winter issue of "Books Abroad" (see Alumni Articles in this issue).

Also seen in print: If you want the pants scared off you - and even if you don't read the "Ocean Pollution" item in the January 31, 1970 Talk of the Town section of "The New Yorker." Dr. Dick Backus is one of the scientists interviewed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "We found Dr. Backus on the ground floor of the Marine Sciences Building," the text reads, "where he studies the habits of fish. Blue- eyed, brown-haired, dolphin-nosed, and weathered by voyages, he snatched a seaman's blue knitted cap off his head, handed a voluminous computer print-out to an associate, and led us into a tiny, book-lined inner office." Dick then went on to show his interviewer bottles containing "gooey, golf-ball-size black globs floating in a liquid and trailing sticky-looking streamers," and this is the stuff flushed into the ocean by ships and tankers and often found in the stomachs of fish in waters throughout the world. All in all, it's a tale to take your breath away, as well as the fish....

Dick Guthrie lets it be known that he is, indeed, an attorney with Universal Studios, a branch of the Music Corporation of America, with an office in Universal City and a home address that reads 14517 Bledsoe, Sylmar, Calif. Other interests include Mexico's Southwest desert and Afghan hounds, "an unlikely combination," in his words. "My wife Georgie is a nationally known Afghan breeder and exhibitor; and we want to go back to South America which we visited last year for the first time."

From Manchester and East Hartford, Conn., comes an up-date from Dick Mull. He lives in the former and toils in the latter as advertising manager for United Aircraft, a post he's held since 1959. Prior to that he worked for the Hartford Times, 1948-55, and did public relations for Pratt & Whitney (1955-59). With three children, Michael 24, Cecily 20, and Jared 16, he lists himself as a weekend skier, sailor, fisherman and tennis buff; and he has spent the past several summers working on a summer home at Martha's Vineyard.

Our erstwhile Class Secretary emeritus, Twitch Miller was good enough to send me a clipping from everyone's favorite magazine, "Adhesive Age," which carried a photo of E. C. "Buffie" Hills, president of Parr, Inc. at the dedication of the T. C. Parr Research Center. The Center will be looking into bigger and better adhesives, sealants, coatings, paint and lubrication.

Bill Harrison, professor of civil engineering at Clarkson College of Technology, was Dartmouth's delegate at the April inauguration of the new president of nearby St. Lawrence University. On the phone Bill said that he'd seen Snook Hughes and Bill Riley '46 at the NCAA hockey championships at Lake Placid in March.

NBC Television did the right thing in March when it promoted Steve Flynn from director, Sales Service, to vice president, Sales Services. With NBC since 1947, Steve is a member of the Wilton Riding Club and the International Radio and Television Society.

Unscheduled and unbeknownst, four '44 SAEs suddenly found themselves cavorting on the Dartmouth Skiway slopes one day early in April. They were Jim Browning,Ja Densmore, Merle Hagen, and Bob (F.)Miller. Jim was just back from a business trip to Japan; Ja was relaxing after having directed the NCAA Ski championships at Cannon Mountain; Bob flew in from Tucson for a college function; and Merle was just plain lucky to be there at all — having managed to nose-dive his VW off a deaDend road because a snow-plow had knocked down the dead-end sign. Slight damage to VW; none to Merle.

In the married-daughter department: Steve Rothermel's Lee will wed Robert J. Clancey in June; both at the University of Kansas. And Bill Barrett's Betsey was married last September to John D. O'Shea '6B of Laconia, N. H. And if you don't think that was a put-up job of keeping it in the Dartmouth family, just listen to this: on the bride's side there is Bill '44; her grandfather was W. Emerson '14; great-grandfather William E. '80; an uncle Lee '41 and her godfather is George Clark '42. The groom's father is John D. '39; his grandfather was Arthur D. '08; and there is also an uncle Dr. lames '42. If all of their kids don't have green eyes, I'll be surprised....

And as for '44 sons on the Hanover Plain: John H. Marshall '70, son of Hank, was named a Senior Fellow in early April. For his advanced independent study he .will investigate the conflict between environment control and development in Vermont. william A. Fead '70, son of Bill, was an associate coordinator of the April 22 "Earth Day" program of seminars, workshops and community action projects dealing with the destruction and reclamation of the environment. And Timothy C. "Kip" Hale, son of Ezz, is back in Hanover for the spring after having spent the winter term as an intern in the Tucker Foundation's Jersey City Project.

Howie Pennington was in town in March, all the way from California with son Scott, looking over eastern colleges. Howie reports a switch-board tie-up phone call with Tankand Helen Bruce in Greenwich about things various and sundry and an almost all-nighter with Bud and Dorcas Park in Longmeadow, Mass.

Two reminders: (1) Mark your calendars now for the Princeton Weekend informal reunion in Hanover, October 10, details still in the works. (2) As you finish this column, please sit down by your checkbooks and send in your much-needed contribution to the Alumni Fund. It may not get you into the Hall of Fame but it will certainly win the appreciation of Dartmouth and class agent Ezz Hale.

As the father of a couple of teen-agers recently signed off a letter to this father of three of the same: "Well, I guess we'll all meet at Generation Gap." See you there....

Ja Densmore '44 (r), meet director for theNCAA ski championships at Cannon Mt.,confers with Willy Schaeffler, coach ofthe U. of Denver's winning team.

Secretary, 309 Crosby Hall Hanover, N. H. 03755

Class Agent, Lawyers Co-operative Publ. Co. Aqueduct Bldg., Rochester, N. Y. 14603