1948

Under Hanover's spell, 30th reunion nostalgia, age-weakened, yours truly volunteered to spell Sonny Drury by providing alternate month's notes for old '48. Only after this bit of folly did I learn that news-gathering is a euphemism for imaginative news-making. In this loveliest of all seasons in Maine, the bounty of fall sunshine, frosted nights when, in E. B. White's remarkable phrase, "The maples have turned red with anxiety," and the summer tourists have gone home, I am tied to my typewriter and my telephone. Being of an organizational bent, lazy by nature, it occurred to me to start to explore this war-warped class geographically, starting close to home.

Four '48ers, according to the cards supplied by the Alumni Office, have the intelligence to live in this fair state. Walton A. Baker, who runs a marine service in South Freeport with the delightful designation, Harraseeket; Norman W. Saunders, M.D., with offices here in Portland; and Lieutenant Commander JamesL. Graham. Graham is listed as living in Blue Hill, with a telephone listed in New Hampshire. The phone isn't his and the Blue Hill phone people never heard of him.

So, I talked with Baker. At the Harraseeket Marine Services. Learned that Norman's boat sits in the harbor in view of the boat yard. Rarely used. "What news?" asked I. DickBredenberg and wife Hulda stopped by after reunion on their way back from a week at PhilGahm's summer place near Damariscotta, I learned. Baker learned that Dick and Hulda had stayed at the Crook's permanently-under- renovation ancient cape in Standish on the way to Gahm's. But, I learned more. Baker's daughter Wendy '77 and her husband, Grant Healey '75, are buying a house in Thetford, Vt. Grant is with the Campaign for Dartmouth working on major gifts. When I asked how the sailing had been this summer, I learned that running a boat yard was not conducive to finding time to sail.

Having proved that it is possible to stretch one telephone call with one '48er to such irrelevant length, beware the next issue. The '48 mini-reunion timed with the Yale game October 14 should provide sufficient raw data, hopefully including the Eli's defeat, to make more readable copy.

Meanwhile, has anybody heard of the missing Graham? Without him, we Mainers are only three.

80 Exchange St. Portland, Maine 04101