1921

Smiling security. Country club with a super chef. Hail fellows well met. Lovely 19th holes with Jack Daniels, Chivas Regal, and Boodles martinis. And yet Jim Wicker turns his head away from Rossmore and lives in Oakland, where, though he enjoys visual and performing arts, he faces crime, burglaries, homicides, segregation, desegregation, affirmative action, and "pushy Blacks." World problems interest Jim. Israel vs. Egypt, the United Nations, inflation, unemployment, world-wide ripoffs by OPEC and the U.S. unions, and to-hell-with-the-other-guys business leaders. In Oakland last spring he spent time and money in politics to elect an establishment white man as mayor. Jim lost. Since June 1977 Oakland's Black mayor has bucked insurmountable problems: a $200 million downtown city development virtually at a standstill, a 60 per cent Black population, and 40 per cent Black unemployment. Boondoggle jobs offer no solution for Blacks aged 16 to 35, who want to follow in the steps of Willie Mayes and Sammy Davis Jr. In business they figure to start out as junior executives. Oakland bus drivers recently struck for 66 days and now will earn $19,000 a year for a 40-hour week and retire after 20 years, aged 45 or 50, with a pension of about 55 per cent, i.e. about $15,000 a year by 1990. "To provide jobs for the inexhaustible pool of Black unemployed," says Jim, "Oakland must gain the confidence of private industrial capital, department stores, hotels, and insurance companies to invest capital and provide work."

New Hampshire Governor Thomson has given Bill Fowler an official commendation for his work during the past 50 years, during which "he has upheld the high standard of ethics of the legal profession with dedication and integrity." In Boston and North Hampton, N.H., Bill has specialized in real estate and probate and trust law.

In Honolulu Ted Merriam was pleased to get a Hanover letter with a Captain Cook stamp. He remarks that some Hawaiian activists object to Cook's being so honored, insisting that he brought nothing to the Hawaiian Islands except violence, crime, and disease. Furthermore, he did not discover the islands; the Polynesians did, hundreds of years before him. True, Hawaii suffered violence before Cook. Thus the need for Kamehameha, King of the Sandwich Islands (1795-1839) to proclaim the law of Manala Hoe, the splintered paddles. Out in the country he caught his foot in a lava crack, and fishermen beat him on the head. Hence the law to protect everyone: the highway shall be safe even for the weak, the sick, the elderly, and the children.

Chicago-oriented Bill Embree is smartly urban but protean. He loves hunting. Since 1948 he has flown west to get a bead on antelopes, and last fall it was with an old rancher — a bronc rider and "a great guy." Originally RogerWilde suggested Bob McConaughy, just the right adviser for a Chicago aspirant. Bill also belongs to an Illinois duck club, and since 1926 he has expended 134,456 lead pellets upwards and bagged a few ducks. He has them cooked to order and makes Ned Price envious.

Here, there and everywhere: Florida. Don andAlice Sawyer are baking and basking in Jupiter in the benign light of being great-grandparents of a five-year-old boy, courtesy of their Betsey, grandmother. Caroline Wilde left Naples to spend two months in Mt. Dora. Ort and LoisHicks will fly down to escort her home. Never mind winter, it was Hanover, not Florida, for Lucy Briggs. Mildred Campbell slips away from Pinehurst to visit family and friends on the Florida west coast. Harry and Mary Garland chose Nashua rather than Florida this year, and Dan and Tish Ruggles in Beverley eyed Key Biscayne nostalgically. Bord and Burd Helmer drove Dud and Helen Robinson to the Dartmouth dinner in Naples, where Kemeny, "a great college president," gave "a fine talk about the thrills of teaching." Surgeons in Hanover found Jack Hurd such fertile soil to delve into that they insisted on excavations which prevented him and Evelyn from enjoying Florida in March and England in April. RuthMoore flew up from Clearwater to visit her daughter Pat in Acton. The former wife of Henry Palmer, Mary, now Mrs. William Fields, and her husband are flying from Jensen Beach to London. Paul Belknap has been enjoying Sarasota.

Without her Jack Graydon, Olive in Oakville, Canada, cannot face a fifth winter in Mexico. Laetitia Manchester will spend this month in Washington, Virginia, and Bermuda and later join a Harvard-sponsored cruise to the Adriatic. Leaving Hanover, Doris Braman visited her daughter and son-in-law, Marcia and Captain Grosvener, USN, in Annapolis. MargaretHerbert is happy in garden plans with a wine-colored hen flower, special and exotic. Aged 82, Phil Newhall in Bar Harbor walks four miles a day and digs up a pipeline five feet below ground for repairs. Ruth Dain continues to fulfill John in Manhopac, where his hospital has expanded to 155 beds. With some 16 couples, Emory andOlive Corbin are crossing the country by train and bus.

Bob and Martha Burroughs are as volatile as ever: Philadelphia for the annual flower show, Washington for visits with old friends and the American Forestry Association, Panama for business with pleasure, and a few days in Hawaii. Coldfootedly, Bob denies that they are flitters. Every Saturday and Sunday during the winter, they snowshoed wood trails about their Canterbury farm.

Box 925 Hanover, N.H. 03755