1954

Never has the Gillespie family watched as much hockey as we did this February. And we loved every minute of it. However, I feel sort of silly sitting here at the typewriter at the conclusion of the Olympics on February 24, knowing you won't be reading this column until the end of April. Let's look at some Olympic sidelights.

Sandy and I divagated around Lake Placid as guests of Time magazine earlier this fall and had a great overview of the entire setup. Fantastic! While we were there, fortunately, we did not have to rely on bus transportation.

A quick check of our '54 classmates involved in pre-and post-Olympic activity disclosed the following:

Herb Hillman, past president of the Stowe, Vt., Area Association, told me that the entire West German Olympic ski team checked into his fantastic Golden Eagle Motor Inn two weeks before the Olympic competition began. Herb related that over 30 members of the team, after arduous ski practice all day, would have a "do or die" soccer game in the parking lot.

Christa Kinshoffer and Irine Epple, both silver medal Olympic winners, confided to Herb the morning they left for Lake Placid, "If we win a medal, a lot of the credit will belong to Stowe and the Golden Eagle." They expressed this sentiment because Stowe had been amply provided with man-made snow, which gave the West German team a great chance to practice and prepare for the type of conditions they would encounter at Lake Placid. In fact, the man-made snow at Stowe permitted the West Germans to gain quite an edge on their competitors. Incidentally, Klaus Mayr, the West German coach, paid his bill in advance, in cash, which was even better news.

Herb reported that due to superior snowmaking equipment at Stowe, his business was off only six per cent from last year a lot less dreary than the media led us to believe.

Herb also related that his daughter Carol, Dartmouth '78, has been working this past winter at the Mount Mansfield Ski Touring Center and recently married a Dartmouth graduate. Another item Herb passed on was that his daughter Mary, now at Brown, was the only person on the Brown University girls squash team to register a victory over the Dartmouth girls squash team during a recent visit of the Brown team to Hanover.

At the conclusion of the Olympic games in Lake Placid, the skiing World Cup season immediately resumed action at Tom Corcoran's Waterville Valley, located in the beautiful Passaconway region of New Hampshire. You'll remember Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark, who won two gold medals, snaking through the slalom gates at Lake Placid with seemingly offhanded genius. Well, Tom's secluded White Mountains resort area provided the ideal location for the world's top Alpine skiers to continue their competition. Tom set up a giant slalom course which proved to be a real test for the likes of Hanni Wenzel of Lichtenstein and others including Stenmark. Tom reported that 190 racers from all over the world took part in this spectacular four-day event.

Tom pointed out to me that the World Cup races at Waterville were the only ones held in the United States this year. (The Olympics don't count towards World Cup competition because they limit each country to only four racers. The World Cup is open to unlimited entries from every country, thus making a bigger and more competitive field in the eyes of the skiers. This marks the third time that Water-ville has hosted this prestigious Alpine event.

Tom Corcoran said that every piece of flat, shoveled space at Waterville became, like Herb Hillman's parking lot, a soccer field. To use up the skiers' boundless amounts of energy, Tom hosted dances every evening and provided plenty of bluegrass country music, which the international racers seem to like. Tom reported that Ethel Kennedy and her family enjoy Waterville Valley and that Phil Cooke (Tom's roommate) and his family are in Waterville every weekend during the winter. Phil was a gatekeeper during the World Cup, and his wife Sally was in the timing room. Tom concluded that despite the lack of snow this year, Waterville boasted the best ski conditions in New Hampshire due to its huge snow-making capabilities. Fortunately, business was off only ten per cent.

There's still more news of classmates in the hospitality and recreation industry. I recently had a visit with Larry Russell, who is the manager of Stouffer's Pine Isle Resort Hotel near Atlanta, Ga. Larry lives at the property and confides that Burt Reynolds has been a frequent guest because of the filming of some heavy sport car scenes at the nearby Atlanta Speedway. Also on hand at the hotel was Robert Redford, since he was involved in the filming, too.

Larry reported that the resort business in his area is excellent and that room occupancy is holding up higher than last year at this time. It seems that Atlanta has an active Dartmouth Club, but there are no other '54s around. If your travels take you to Atlanta, I am confident Larry will put you up in grand style. But watch out for mid-May accommodations, however; it seems that a contingent of ten Dallas Cowgirls will be checking in for a few days to knock off a water skiing exhibition at Lake Lanier, at the hotel's front door. Larry told me that he will volunteer as a security guard during their visit.

Larry passed along one more item. He now boasts the greenest golf course in Georgia, due to the fact that the Gary Player-designed golf course at the hotel was accidentally seeded with 45,000 extra pounds of rye grass seed this fall. It popped up a rich green in March, while every other course in Georgia was a dull brown.

In the January/February issue of the Alumni Magazine, there was a plea for unusual automobile license plates that reflect a Dartmouth relationship. I had spotted a few of these vanity plates at the Yale-Dartmouth game this fall, like "Dart 55" and "Wa-Hoo," and sent photographs up to the editor with the suggestion that a picture story might be written if there were enough plates that related to Dartmouth. If you have a good vanity plate that is connected in some way to Dartmouth, send a snapshot of it to the Alumni Magazine, 212 Nugget Building, Hanover, N.H. 03755. Impressive two-letter, no-number '54 owner plates such as "FA" (Fred Alpert) and "GM" (George McLaughlin), both in Massachusetts, won't count in the Dartmouth competition.

That's all for now. Signed, New York Registration "JLG-59." (Someone in the Empire State has that elusvie "JLG-D54" plate that I want.)

39 Walworth Avenue Scarsdale, N.Y. 10583