1965

Starting this column was delayed momen- tarily as wife Anne hovered around to relate a couple of anecdotes arising from her recent classroom experience dealing with life planning - not family planning but life planning, as in setting personal goals and mapping out how to get there. Made me think back to a few critical crossroads in my own life such as deciding to go on to Tuck School as a 3-2 rather than complete a major in Economics. Fresh-baked junior year logic opted for transforming economics into monetary reward rather than absorbing theory as an entree to academia. Perhaps in 30 years I, too, will succumb to the lure of promulgating learnedness. In the meantime it seemed a check of the files was in order to see which of our classmates took that other path.

Rough statistics based on somewhat out-of- date records would suggest that five to ten per cent of our graduating class are employed as teachers, and of these most are working at the college level. Dave Weber, for instance, in addition to being a trustee of Dartmouth has been an instructor in English at Phillips Exeter since 1970; and somewhat typically is writing one or three books. Ted Muller has specialized in geography at the University of Maryland where he is an assistant professor. Jack Heidbrink is finishing his ninth year as social studies teacher and football coach at Lexington (Mass.) High School. With his share of both winning teams and losers, Jack balances out as a loser since his Saturday game schedule precludes trips to Hanover.

Russell Capelle just negotiated one of those life-planning crossroads after four plus years at the University of Rhode Island where he was assistant professor of geography. Since leaving URI in January he has been director of recreation development for the Fantus Company (location consulting) in South Orange, N.J. Two other classmates commented that they are still students while their wives pursue teaching careers. Vic Mair is now writing his Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard where his wife Li-Ching teaches Chinese. Mike Divak, whose wife Yvonne is a certified special education teacher, is a candidate for an M.A. in mental retardation at Kean College of New Jersey. MarkNackman is currently putting to use his Ph.D. in history from Columbia as he grinds away at the typewriter. Publication of his first book came last fall after preparation, no doubt, during his four years of teaching at Hunter College (C.U.N.Y.). A Nation Within A Nation: TheRise of Texas Nationalism is a social and political history of Texas in the 19th century.

A more recent commentary on social and political history in Texas arrived at the mailbox just a few weeks ago from Alan Stewart. Quoted in part: "Howdy y'all. Who are these people and what are they doing?" (See picture) "Would you believe the grand exalted major-Professor Stanlis David Milkowski in Dallas at the first annual East Asian History Colloquium held at St. Mark's last month? This was made possible by grants and graft from Zerox and Alan Stewart who is chairman of Social Studies at St. Mark's.

"Recognizing the need for an exotic (quixotic?) outside speaker to jazz up the history curriculum, Alan extended an invitation to David who was freezing at West Point, and he jumped at the chance to broaden his intellectual frontiers (and to eat some decent barbacue). (Incidently, this cannot be leaked to the CIA since the mission was something of a boondogge and involved the Army footing part of the bill.)

"Needless to say, the intellectual lights of the locals were kindled by David's matchless flair for lecturing on rare tropical diseases and erotic orientalia (he said that, I didn't!).

"Like most of Alan's and David's notorious affairs, this all began over a few young Scotches in Hangover where the peerless pair were reunited last June. They discovered, to their mutual astonishment, that each was an academic and an historian (John Adams would never believe this but Herb West might have un- derstood). You and the rest of the Class will be delighted to read a comphrehensive accounting of these proceedings in any one of several scholarly journals later this spring." Unabridged reprints of the letter are available for 250 and a self-addressed envelope. Alan is in Dallas and has been since shortly after gradua- tion. He likes it there so much that he's thinking of changing his name to "Billy-Bob" and buying a small spread outside Faught Wuthe. Dave or Stan Milkowski is at West Point USMA and likes it so much there that he goes all the way to Dallas to get brewed.

Another teacher albeit "former" at the moment is Bouaphet Sygnavong, a Laotian living in France after crossing the Mekong to Thailand during the Communist take-over. Bouaphet spent four terms at Dartmouth before returning to Laos and France where he finished studies with a degree in journalism. In Laos after a year of teaching at Lycee de Vientiane he became press director of the Ministry of Information of the Royal Lao Government. Bouaphet wishes to return now to the U.S. and seeks our help in finding job leads in teaching or journalism. Should you know of a likely opportunity contact me or Frank Hankins, Box 247, Meansville, Ga. 30256.

Memo to wife: (1) What's the value of life planning when a war steps in and eliminates ten years of building? (2) Why didn't we study family planning four years ago so that my basement workshop could turn out real furniture now instead of bunkbeds?

Alan Stewart '65 promoted a Dallas tripfor classmate David Milkowski of WestPoint to a history colloquium at St. Markswhere Alan chairs Social Studies.

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