1954

I want to share with you a touching note I just received from Alan Sullivan's widow, Terry. "Alan was struck and killed by an auto while riding his bicycle near our home on August 3. He enjoyed the reunion book, 'Reflections,' very much and had a great deal of fun looking up old classmates. I'm sure he would have been more than willing to help with the additional costs of the reunion book, hence I am enclosing a check for $10." Alan leaves two daughters, Linda '79 and Sonya '81. An obituary will appear in a forthcoming edition of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. A heartfelt thanks from all of us, Terry!

On hand for the Yale-Dartmouth game in New Haven were Harry Robinson, Bob Vorsanger, Dave Grogan, Bob Price, Joe Mesics, Ed Winnick, Bob Adnopoz, Dave Mandelbaum, Dick Page, John Gillespie, and Jim Rill. Jim's son, James Jr. '81, was starting in the offensive guard position for Dartmouth, which made the game a lot more exciting for the Rill family. Also at the game was Peter Gutlon, just back from a 14-year assignment in the Far East - four years in the Philippines and ten years in Hong Kong. Peter is director of import administration or the Van Heusen shirt company. Peter's wife is running her own special design department at Bloomingdales, specializing in corporate executive moves to and from the Orient. The Gutlons are living on East 22nd Street in New York and would welcome a call from old friends passing through New York (Pete can be reached during the day at 212-541-5200).

Those of you who were at the reunion will remember the ever-present lens of Al Pitzner's camera. We had a chance to see his super color shots in Hanover during homecoming. Al is one of the top photographers in the country and his work is in many leading national publications. Al lives in Witchita, Kans.

The class executive board, at its recent meeting in Woodstock, Vt., also had the opportunity to see Blair Watson's great movie coverage of our 25th reunion, which will be added to our class film. Hopefully the entire film can be shown at a mini-reunion in Hanover. In addition to the 16 executive committee members at the Dartmouth-Cornell game, we were glad to see John Steel, east from San Diego; Tom Malcolm, who drove up in his Winnebago from Pennsylvania; Bob Adnopoz; John Pope; Rick Hartman; Al Woddell in from Hawaii; and Bob Pallatroni.

Dick and Jane Page spent a weekend late in September with Dick and Dottie Buffington at a house party at Ev and Helen Rattray's home, on the tip of Long Island. Ev is a benefactor of the Marine Museum at Amagansett as well as publisher of the East Hampton Star. I thought it might be interesting to pass along Helen's comments on our 25th reunion, reprinted from the June 21 issue of the Star.

"I was an observer last weekend at the 25th reunion of my husband's class at Dartmouth. I say observer because, although wives and children attended in number and were much a part of the activities, nametags and all, the old grads shared something quite special that I do not think the rest of us could fully comprehend.

"This was an Ivy League college, whose graduates, until recently all male, were expected to make a mark upon their world. John Sloan Dickey ['29], president of the College in my husband's day, retired and old now, spoke at one mid-day function of the 'fellowship' that has persisted there through generations and the 'sense of place.' One could hear the tears as he spoke and the standing ovation lasted until he moved, slowly, out of the large natural amphitheater in which the speech had taken place.

"The class of '54 broke all records for attendance (more than 48 per cent of its members were there) and for reunion giving (exactly $1,054,000 was pledged). It also partied and talked and paraded and picnicked and banqueted and watched old films and listened to music and danced to Dixieland and defeated the rowing crews of the reunion classes of 1969 and 1974 and held golf and tennis tournaments and swam and put on a marathon and a 'run for fun' and attended seminars. Some even stayed up all night singing (till 5:00 a.m. one night and 7:00 the next) such unlikely songs as 'Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra' and 'Silent Night.' Few talked business.

"Why, I kept asking myself, did it seem to mean so much? Why did they, grown men half way through their fifth decades, still share such strong sentiment that they could speak not only of camaraderie but love in public and openly brush aside tears of their own?

" 'l've just been to my 25th,' one of the wives told me, 'but it wasn't the same.' No, I knew it couldn't have been. Although there are a few old college friends that I would dearly love to see, I know, too, that I am very unlikely to attend my own 25th reunion when the time comes. Some of the old friends would mean a lot, the place little.

"The surprising quality is apparently that, despite their disparate natures and interests, the old graduates thought of Dartmouth as a home and their classmates a family. They traveled far - one from Bangkok and one from Bogota, for example - to be there again.

"On the last night of the three-day affair, my husband and I sat at a little distance enjoying the sound of the Dixieland and the view of the crowd. One of the '54s who had been a good friend but whom my husband hadn't seen in almost all those years sat with us a while.

" 'You know,' he said, breaking our silence, 'I guess no matter where I've been or what I've done with my life, I always thought of myself as a college kid. Now I know it's over. I have this sad feeling that the past is gone.'

"Rites of passage. This reunion has been as much a part of their lives, and handled with as much ceremony, as a graduation. I think, in fact, it is."

39 Walworth Avenue Scarsdale, N.Y. 10583