Manin the Red Flannel shirt

Need a tumpline. a ski lock, a bike pannier, or a fanny pack? Want to learn to make a tea dickey, treat frostbite in your fingers or prevent it in your camera, or keep your boots cozy at winter camp (sleep with them, lumpy or no, or stuff them with handwarmers)?

Try CULVER A. MODISETTE'50, entrepreneur of Great World, Inc., in West Simsbury, Conn. If it has to do with the great outdoors — and requires only muscle power - chances are he can sell it to you, tell you about it, or find out all you need to know.

If there's one Dartmouth man unworried about the effect of the energy crisis on his business, it's Modisette, who gave up the vice presidency of an advertising firm two years ago to found, with a partner, an enterprise devoted entirely to self-propelled sports: canoe touring, cross-country skiing, kayaking, bike- and back-packing. To all of these gas shortages are intrinsically irrelevant: most can be enjoyed close to home.

It was in August 1971 on an Alaskan mountaintop, where he'd taken a group of Eagle Scouts on a hiking expedition, that he made the decision to trade in his gray flannels for checked shirts and blue jeans. The following spring - "April Fool's Day, to be exact." he notes wryly - Modisette, then aged 45, resigned after 18 years with the same company.

What impelled a successful advertising man to forsake the security of the corporation to join that growing body of men and women who change careers at mid-stream? The younger generation has had a lot to do with the trend, Modisette suggests; continuelly questioning values, they have forced their elders "to stop and re-examine what you're doing." And he was mindful of predecessors who postponed until retirement things they really wanted to do. only to find that time and its infirmities had ultimately robbed them of the opportunity. The satisfactions of paycheck, bonus, and retirement plan were weighed and found wanting.

It was hardly a snap decision or probably a very risky one. For 10 or 12 years Modisette had been leading groups of young people on wilderness trips. For six or seven he had been importing canoes for catalogue sales. The telephone calls from people seeking on trails, streams, and equipment had been snowballing as his reputation for know-how spread. In view of mounting concern for the environment and the burgeoning yen of young and old to get into unspoiled back country inaccessible by motorized transport, he felt reasonably confident that Great World would make a go.

Changing careers has meant less drastic impact on living and life-style for Modisette than for some adventurous souls who have taken "the road less travelled by." Great World is in downtown West Simsbury," which consists of the store, a sandwich shop, fire station, grange hall, and post office, close to Hartford area where he grew up and worked for 20 years. His helps at the shop; his children, one a son studying forestry and wildlife at the University of New Hampshire, are all outdoors-oriented. Having for years spent vacations and weekends on river or trail, Modisette has essentially abandoned 5 desk job to allow more time for what he's been doing part-time all along.

About half Great World's trade is in retail, half in catalogue sales- In addition, the firm does a brisk rental business - everything but you, your sleeping bag, and the black flies" - sets up programs, and dispenses advice. Modisette teaches canoeing, kayaking, back-packing, winter camping, ski touring, and edible wild foods at area schools. Through "Les Voyageurs," a new division, he guides as well as equips canoe trips, last summer in Alaska, on Maine's Allagash, and on New England rivers closer to home. He plans a canoe tour of New Zealand this winter, in the company of a team from Sports Illustrated, to explore the feasibility of a later Voyageur trip Down Under.

Summer and winter catalogues offer a beguiling view of gear available for what Modisette calls "for want of a better term" the "ecology sports." Tucked in among pictures and descriptions of equipment from beef jerky to canoes are folksy hints for novice and veteran alike: "Keep the Green Apple Two-Step at bay by placing your washed camp dishes in our net bag and dipping them in boiling water"; "If you're cold winter camping, just think about mosquitoes and black flies"; how to attract bears - "Simplest way is to store candy, cookies, assorted gedunk and strudles in your tent . . . Open garbage pits also covered by this guarantee"; how to avoid them — tie a bell on your pack. "Some people prefer to whistle or sing, but after you've climbed a 500- foot ridge, whistling sometimes comes a little hard. And panting doesn't count"; how to test the temperature of a reflector oven - if you can leave your hand between fire and oven for a count of three, it's right for bread; if you're singed at two, cobbler's your dish.

Modisette entered Dartmouth, where he was elected to Casque and Gauntlet and edited the Jack-O-Lantern, at the age of 21 after three years in the Navy, as part of that wave of returning veterans who made the late '40s a high-water mark of student motivation. He has remained an enthusiastic alumnus, serving for several years as his class newsletter editor and winning the Club President-of-the-Year Award for his work with the Hartford alumni group.

And now, with no regrets, an object of envy from contemporaries who "wish I could do that, he brings the same exuberance to a new venture. Cul Modisette seems very safe at last in the great Great World.