1940

Thanks to advances in medical technology, a surgeon's skill, and his own courage, class president John Crandall is getting about now with a manmade hip.

For too many years, John has lived with persistent pain caused by arthritic growths on the hip joint. Movement, or even his own weight, was increasingly difficult to bear. Biting the bullet, he entered Greenwich (Conn.) hospital in late April for surgery involving a total hip replacement. The operation caused him to miss class officers' weekend May 6-8 - your only absentee incidentally - because at that time he was carefully walking the hospital corridors, learning to use his artificial hip. Right now, he still has to use a cane, but he looks forward, he reports, to getting back on the golf course in the not too distant future and hitting the ball free of pain at long last.

Bob Austin, whose "Drum" is full of news about others of us, is making a bit of news himself, as he and Jane move from their winter quarters in Warner, N.H., to her family home in nearby Webster. For Bob, such a move is an immersion in a kind of living history, for among the items to be prepared for transport are seven trunks of family memorabilia stretching back over the nearly 250 years his family has been in that area. He acknowledged it was almost eerie to read from the diaries, letters, and family Bible notes he's found in the trunks and to realize that on his maternal side his Coffin forebears have tramped the hills of Webster-Warner since 1730, while the Austins have been there since 1784. He also was reminded by one of the documents that his Dartmouth connections reach back to an ancestor in the Class of 1836. He couldn't ascertain when the Austins started tapping maples for syrup, but said it gives him a good feeling to be joined now by his son Peter in taking his turn at extracting golden-brown nectar from ancestral lands. And Art Ostrander,Stet Whitcher, Gordie Wentworth, BobMacMillan, and I can all attest from sample jugs he brought us from Mill Pond Farm that the product is tops in taste and quality. He adds that he's taking reservations now for next year's harvest.

Other notes from the weekend underscore that your officers are busy men. Gordon virtually flew into Hanover from Paris, where he'd gone to look over the quarters of the First National Bank of Boston's branch in the "City of Light." He also looked into the Moulin Rouge. And only a couple of months earlier, he flew to Panama City to consider the bank's facilities there. He notes that in both places, the Japanese seemed to be everywhere as today's leading tourists.

Although Bob MacMillan stayed home to mind the store, Crosbie reports that she and several '40 wives from the former Cleveland luncheon club - Mevie Cockley, Ginnie Bruch and Loomie Rogers - met Carol Davenport on the sands of Sanibel, Fla.

Meanwhile, George Cutter stakes a claim to at least a part of what he calls the "dubious distinction" of being the oldest member of the Class, since he reports he turned the corner on 61 years back in December. He also notes for the sociological record that there are really quite a lot of 40's who've remained married to the sweethearts of their youth. He notes that John Crandall has been married for more than 40 years, while he will celebrate his 40th wedding anniversary next year - two more instances porting'the studies of the late Irving Bender, professor of psychology, who kept a special eye the Class of '40 through the years. Professor Bender contended that, contrary to a persistent canard, the constancy record of Dartmouth men in marriage was well above the national average. He argued it had something to do with the sense of loyalty engendered at Dartmouth.

On the health front, George has been waging a battle against malignancy since 1974, undergoing chemotherapy every three weeks. With wry realism, he writes the treatment is not exactly pleasant, but "neither is the alternative." And so he carries on the best tradition of the Green, working every day at the office where, he adds with what I imagine to be a grin, "I am, as a fact, the oldest officer (there's a message there some place) of Gillette."

Chal Carothers is engaged in what sounds like a gratifying pursuit as a partner in the New York firm of Executive Progress, Inc., which is paid by corporations to help "de-hired" executives find new positions. His four-year-old firm was recently (February) cited in a MoneyMagazine article.

Fred Bachelder reports from Garden City, N.Y., that daughter Sally was married in December, another daughter Susan is selling TV commercials, son John is a sophomore at Ithaca College, and "Peg and myself are trying to grow old gracefully," while "traveling a bit all over."

A final note until September - Bob Bunker's daughter Robin, who graduated from Middlebury in 1973, has followed old dad's footsteps to Tuck School, where she's now enrolled in the M.B.A. program. And also like dad, son Dumont '75 has gone into engineering in Asheboro, N.C., with degrees from Dartmouth and Thayer School ('76). Youngster daughter Anne is a freshman at the University of Carolina.

Hope you remembered Art's urgings and have sent off your Alumni Fund gift. If not, do it now; it's not too late.

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