1970

Class communiques are suddently raining down like so many political flyers upon the alluvium of the Mekong. But there, novel enough, the metaphor seems to die. T'were not always thus.

Images provoked by this recent salvo include Clark Beier pondering the fate of Bicentennial iconoclasts atop a hillock of dirty didies, LarryKillgallon altar-bound while visions of class memorial programs dance in his medium-range planning, and Gary Brooks batting out states-of-the-reunion messages for the insatiable Crosby Hall duplicator. And meanwhile this thin raconteur slips comfortably toward the middle of the book, where to distinguish among classes is the pastime of historiographers and limners.

Isn't it about time we all got on back to Hanover to consecrate these and other related phenomena in the appropriate rite of passage? June 13, 14 and 15?

I was walking with some friends along the rim of le Mont Royal in Montreal one late afternoon almost a month ago when a couple passed us in the direction of the terrace which overlooks center-city. Despite the obfuscations of October's early twilight and a full beard about the chin of the gentleman; there were murmurs of recognition in both camps. All paused, and the stranger quite conveniently metamorphosed into Bob Bull, practitioner of psychiatry, enthusiastic resident of Quebec's capital, and escort of attractive young Canadiennes.

This struck me as a singular coincidence (most aren't, when you stop to consider) in view of next year's reunion, because Bob was absolutely the first classmate I met in Hanover eight years ago - and I suspect it was the same with him though we have never mentioned it since. We introduced ourselves on the College Hall corner at E. Wheelock and Main, in those first few terrible moments when the parentis were abruptly no longer in loco. We had a cup of coffee at the Green.

We never became close friends, but chance encounters always recalled for me both the confusion of the first day at Dartmouth and the relief which that cup of coffee in Bob's company brought. There was the same pleasant and significant sensation again this time. Strange that I should meet so utterly at random the one person who can provoke these precise reflections just at the time when we are planning to regroup in search of them.

By now most persistent readers will have realized that we are not blessed with columnmeters of hard news this month. Therefore we will record here a second, somewhat (but only somewhat) less singular, chance meeting which occured some three weeks prior to the first. This time it was Windy Loopesko and why the hell I ran into him in a pizza joint in Cambridge, Mass. in September - where he still conducts a mimic Paper Chase rather than in Brussels, where he was a student while I was in residence last summer, is at least mildly bemusing ...

And now that you've ail finished your spinach, we'll finish up with a little Rip 'n Read for dessert ...

Steven Tourek has been elected president of the Cambridge University Boat Club, the first American named to that post. Historians may well look back upon the event as the last nail in the British coffin.

Navy Lieutenant George Kain is now stationed at the Naval Education and Training Center at Newport, R.I. Hardly a radical address, but extremely chic none the less.

Stu Zuckerman has changed channels again. He's now promotion director of WNEW, the "New York flagship station of Metromedia Radio . . . He is single and will reside in Manhattan." Now that's what we'd call a press release.

Lawrence Russell Lucas has graduated from the Willamette University College of Law. A press release from the university cites him for exceptional work in environmental law - a compelling speciality, no doubt, in the state of Oregon.

Larry Marsh left Dartmouth after two years to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. Since then he has become a recognized master of jewelry design and craftsmanship, and now is a partner of Osiris Goldsmiths, Ltd., Providence. Osiris designs and handcrafts each of its pieces individually, and is therefore an influential renegade in the industry.

NYU School of Law recently dispatched RobHorner to the New York Law Firm of Haight, Gardner, Poor and Havens, attorneys in Aviation and Admiralty Law. There he apparently legislates in-flight wine temperatures as associate counsel to Air France.

Christmastide is upon us - please credit the column if anyone asks you how you know - and with it come best wishes for a successful second demi-decade. Cast aside that Humbug and let the rest of us know how you passed the first!

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