1963

The clouds that had been threatening all afternoon were carrying out their threat as the Dartmouth Night parade moved across the line of departure on Lebanon Street. We proceeded through a rain squall that lifted just in time for the Glee Club's rendition of "Men of Dartmouth" at Dartmouth Hall.

The weather apparently thinned the ranks of the class delegation markedly. Only your president, Charlie Parton, and I braved the rain, but we deployed our wives and children to create the illusion of a creditable showing. (Better, for instance, than the Class of '64 behind us, which was represented by a solitary marcher.)

Ultimately, though, it was a beautiful evening. The strange atmospherics created an arresting portent, or omen. The tower of Baker Library was silhouetted against a passing fogbank, creating an eerie double image that clearly meant something. In any event, a favored Yale team went down to defeat 10-3 in Hanover the following afternoon.

It's worth saying something about the game, since the style of play seemed so reminiscent of the Blackman-coached teams of our years that somehow always managed the big third-and-ten play that would confound, and ultimately defeat, a superior opponent. Dartmouth did that a couple of times in the 91-yard touchdown march that made the difference against Yale. It has always seemed to this observer that the only real knock that could be put on Crouthamelcoached squads was that when they were up against a better team, they generally lost. That didn't seem to be true during our years in Hanover, and this year's Yale contest seemed to indicate that we are going to see a return to the level of dangerousness that marked those teams. (I can recall, for instance, sitting in the end zone at the Yale Bowl during a season shortly after we graduated, watching a contest in which the Big Green - while they kept the score close - was hopelessly outclassed, and finally beaten. One of the Yale rooters, with whom a truce had developed during the fourth quarter, told me consolingly on the way out the portal that he'd been scared Yale would blow it until the final ten seconds. "Against Dartmouth, you always have to be scared," he added.

So much for the good news; the bad news came the following week against Harvard. It would appear that while we're now going to win some we shouldn't, we're also going to lose to some we shouldn't.

As is no doubt painfully obvious at this point, there's a shortage of real news this month. In an effort to do something about this, I am making the following standing offer: Anyone who shows up for Dartmouth Night henceforth during my secretaryship will be guaranteed, in addition to all the other psychic awards that go with attendance, a mention in the class notes.

We do have a couple of late-breaking bulletins: Armand Villiger has been appointed eastern sales manager for the food engineering publications of the Chilton Co., a Radnor, Pa., magazine publisher. Armand, the company reports, is living in New York with his wife Jennifer and two daughters; his hobbies are running, tennis, and skiing. He was affiliated with Interlines Inc., an international importer, before joining Chilton in 1977.

And in a dispatch from Abu-Dhabi, which may be a little out-of-date now since I mislaid it for a couple of months, Daryl Erickson, M.D., reports that "life here in the oasis continues to blossom, as this country leaps out of the age of patriachs and into the 20th century. My days are spent dealing with obstetric complications and infectious diseases, most of which have been eradicated in the U.S."

John Stormer recently had an article published in Contributions to Minerology andPetrology. The piece was entitled "Two-Feldspar Thermometry in Granulite Facies Metamorphic Rocks." Both John and the coauthor of the article are at the University of Georgia's department of geology . . . Norris Siert is now vice president of Protane Corp. in Coconut Grove, Fla., a subsidiary of Northern Natural Gas Co. . . . Morris Kramer reports that he's married for the second time. The new Mrs. Kramer, whose name is Nancy, is an interior designer. He is now a partner in Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, a New York-Washington-Boston law firm specializing in proxy battles and other fights for corporate control. His son Jeremy, eight, has declared Dartmouth to be the college of his choice . . . Bob Phillips has left his old job and marriage in Monlo Park, Calif., and moved to a farm "one-half mile off the beach (with) strawberry fields forever" in Watsonville, Calif., where he is now a consultant to the state's Health Systems Agency. Bob and his son Adam, four, have planted a garden which would make them self-sufficient Bob says, if they were willing to live on a diet of carrots, radishes, and artichokes ... In other news from the Golden State, Dan Schiele is now a psychologist in private practice in Mission Viejo, Calif., and lives part-time aboard his 41-foot sailboat, skimming across the waves back and forth to Catalina. He does hospital practice at the South Coast Hospital in Laguna Beach, where no doubt he gets a lot of interesting cases . . . Jeff Galper will have a second book out shortly entitled Social Work Practice: A Radical Perspective. His first book, ThePolitics of Social Services, came out in 1975. He is doing some competitive swimming (under the A.A.U. masters program) and shares the duty of bringing up his son Joshua, eight, with his ex-wife, in a "co-parenting" arrangement that he says has worked out "really well." Dr. Paul Muenzner has joined a group orthopedics practice in Jacksonville, N.C.

I had a couple of other random observations on the changing (and unchanging) aspects of life in Hanover based on my visit: Soccer is hot stuff now. They even broadcast the play-by-play over the radio, and there was a bigger crowd than I think ever turned out in our time there, watching the undefeated Dartmouth team beat Yale 2-0, despite a downpour so drenching that one kept checking the field for dorsal fins. . . . Bob Finney offered drinks to all the '63s he could find after the game at his architecturally stunning glass-and-wood home on one of the new roads branching off East Wheelock St. down past A lot. Every room has a big window looking off into dark and lovely woods. But he made the amazing claim that it only costs him $400 a winter to heat the place, thanks to the wood stoves he uses - and that price includes the eight cords of wood those stoves burned. It's an amazing system: The oil burner cuts on automatically when the wood stoves burn down. (I pass this item along in keeping with the spirit suggested by one class member who said that if I wanted to print the kind of things that everyone in the Class really wanted to know, I would run a list of what kinds of cars everyone was driving. Maybe next month.)

One last thing: anyone interested in trying to get together a block of rooms for the Dartmouth Night weekend next year? (It's the Cornell game, 1 believe.) My father's class (1932) does that, and getting one of their leftovers was the only way I got a room within 50 miles of the campus. But the time to act is now. (Indeed, it may already be too late.) Write me if you're tentatively interested and I'll see if I can put anything together.

7809 Winston Rd. Philadelphia, Pa. 19118