1921

So you believe that Hanover has become the victim of overbuilding? Suffers from concrete city sprawl and suburban blight? Police busy with New York-style strikes, brawls, abductions, rapes, and murders? No so. In the 1976 Hanover Town Report one learns that the police, busily bucolic, "handled" 472 dogs, 44 cats, 9 raccoons, 14 woodchucks, and 76 skunks. Miscellaneous animal control assignments include 5 complaints about bats, 6 about dogs chasing deer, 2 about porcupines on Greensboro road, and 2 about squirrels on North Balch Street (where Corey Ford used to live). They also destroyed a rat caught in a trap on the Lyme Road (where John Dickey lives), placed a pet rabbit in a new home, guided back to the barn a cow and a calf lost on Goodfellow Road, drove home two jackasses on Two Mile Road, and investigated a report of an otter chasing a mailman.

Here's one for Doug Storer. Addison Warner is unique in all these United States. He is the sole owner of a piece of the Grand Canyon of the Animas River. Public-owned are the four grand canyons listed in Webster's NewGeographical Dictionary. According to an aerial map furnished by the soil conservation service of Durango, Colo., Add's Elbert Creek Ranch lies for about a half mile on both sides of the famous Durango-to-Silverton narrow gauge railroad, which has a right-of-way, although the land is Add's. The first 25-mile trip from Rockwood to Silverton on the Denver & Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad was described in the Durango Herald of July 5, 1882, as follows: "The mile of road passing through the Grand Canyon of the Animas, immediately above Rockwood, is a miracle of engineering skill and audacity and presents probably the grandest scenery on the American continent. Looking down hundreds of feet from the car window, tire traveler's fascinated eyes rest upon the green waters of the Animas as they rush furiously through the narrow gauge below."

Rowene Kerlin, Red's widow, discredits the words of the philosopher who wrote, "The wise woman is not she who goes gallivanting around the world but remains happily rooted in her kitchen with a window giving a view of the sun by day and the stars by night." Next autumn Rowene, footloose and fancy free, heads skyward on her sixth trip around the world. She escorted her three grandchildren, girls aged 6, 8, and 9, to Tahiti for Christmas. "It wasn't too bad. Little French boys in the pool and ocean harassed the three, and it taxed my knowledge of their language to arrange an armistice from time to lime. Next year I shall try Hawaii, where the girls can talk for themselves." Rowene describes herself as a real Giant baseball nut, proved by her sojourn at the spring training camp in Arizona. She plans on two weeks of golf and limited gambling at Tahoe in July before she takes off for her world trip in September.

If you think of giving up mountain-climbing because of diminished gazelle and mountain-goat nimbleness, hear this. The older sister, aged 74. of Martha Burroughs lost her husband. Admiral Crenshaw, two years ago, and she was married again to a retired professor of economics at Leland Stanford, who lost his wife a year ago. The new husband and wife, long-time Sierra Club mountain-climbing friends, still hike towards the sky. Spurred on by such youthful exuberance, Bob and Martha Burroughs huffed and puffed up one mountain after them. Bob describes the mountains as "small."

Speaking of higher elevations, Tom Griffith, a topnotch downhill racer, has not bounced over moguls since 1940, but he contemplates his skis lovingly and longingly from time to time. Now trout-minded, he does not discard bass.

Van Shaffer keeps "very busy, trying to act younger than he actually is." Though he does not shinny up New Hampshire mountains, he continues to love New Hampshire maple syrup. He traces his family back to the Domesday or Doomsday Book, so called because people likened it to the great reckoning of doomsday. This valuable survey of England was started by William the Conqueror in 1085 and completed in 1087. As a bank president. Van is naturally interested in what it records about owners of land, possible taxation on a sound basis, and records of estate valuations.

Former Dartmouth trustees? John Woodhouse wintered in Arizona and is now back in Wilmington. Despite "a bit of a run-in with an eye surgeon," on the telephone John Sullivan is as cheerful as ever.

After a forced change in plans, Joe and Ruth Vance still hope to fly to their favorite city, Rome. Ruth was nominated as one of ten women for "Woman of the Year" in humanitarian and community services, a Ladies' Home Journal contest.

Sun Valley has been sold. Phez and Dorice Taylor, much pleased, will continue to live in their own apartment at the inn. Retired in 1971 as publicity director, since then Dorice, acting as a consultant, has been finishing her book on Sun Valley. Phez will continue his law practice for another three years. The rich and powerful buyer, Mr. Holding, "a smart businessman able to turn everything he touches into gold," plans to create new fortunes of white gold - snow with snow-making equipment right to the top of Baldy Mountain - and replace old ski lifts on Dollar Mountain. Last winter there was no gold of any color. The drought, the worst in Phez's 40 years, forced the governor to declare the county and all southern Idaho a disaster area.

Secretary, Box 925 Hanover, N.H. 03755

Head Agent, 119 Marion Way Rockport, Mass. 01966