1939

Sad to start the new year by recounting a note received from Kathleen Selkirk advising of the death of her husband George on July 26. A sudden heart failure in Camden, Me., where they had gone for retirement. (More in "Obituaries," this issue.)

We had a nice letter from Dick Shaw from Denver, a city that he bills as "rapidly becoming an energy center in the U.S." Dick says he sees little of his classmates and encourages calls if you hit the mile-high city. He has kept in touch with Zeke Hill and Bill Tucker, whom he sees on occasion. Dick is in his 35th year of active law practice with a specialty in the oil and gas and related energy fields. He intends to continue practice for "at least another ten years or longer, depending upon the state of my health, which, I am happy to say, is excellent."

Charlie Davis is coming in for a good bit of ink of late. A short bit ago we wrote of a New York Times article in which he figured, and now the New Yorker magazine comments on his part in the opening of the new home for the Schomburg. Center for Research in Black Culture, a beloved institution in Harlem.

Jim Corner has had some correspondence with Bill Schwingel that he was kind enough to send along to your scribe. Bill, an orthopedic surgeon, had to take some of his own medicine when felled by a dissecting aneurysm of the abdomen, as well as thoracic aorta. He had two emergency surgical procedures, including open heart surgery, in five days' time in July. But at this report Bill was home, walking one and a half miles per day and swimming a number of pool lengths daily. He says he has visual difficulties but is able to struggle through magazines and newspapers (although he is back to word-by-word instead of his usual speedreading). Bill lives in Aurora, Ill., but according to his communication was headed out to another home in Arizona, where he hoped to gain back his strength and perhaps return to surgery. We would have to guess that such traumatic set-backs are almost worse for doctors, who know full well the score, than they are for some of us less-informed souls. Bill says he has run into Charlie Neer, Andy Ruoff, and BudRichardson on occasion at orthopedic meetings of the past. We wish Bill a speedy recovery.

Whit Cushing made a northern swing and writes that he dropped in on Curt and Bobbie Anderson in their new home on the Sound off Stamford, Conn. Whit also reports on an October Air Force magazine which, he says, featured Dave Schilling and his historic leadership of F-80 jets across the Atlantic in 1948. Says Whit, "Dave could have become the top Air Force general had he lived a little longer," and he ruminates that if someone like Dave had headed up the hostage mission, chances are the story would have had a successful ending.

A feature article in the Old Saybrook Gazette concerns Dick Brooks, recounting his early fame as a cartoonist and his building one as a serious painter. This thanks to Bill Webster, who with his sweet wife Bunny joined the Jacksons in a trip to Hanover to see the Yales whip the Green during the latter part of October.

We understand from Bert MacMannis that Ed Oppenheim had to forgo his plans to make the Williamsburg trip when his eldest son, who attends the University of Texas, contracted a strange virus. He is now back in school, so all is well.

We dropped a note to Bob Timbers, who, we noted, suddenly had a Nantucket address. We wondered why. Bob reports that they still claim Stamford, Conn., as their permanent address, but not for long. The house is up for sale. Bob took an early retirement from IBM three years ago, then got a master's degree in English and taught school for two years in nearby Greenwich and Stamford. Then he studied real estate and has now passed the Florida and Connecticut state exams this preparatory to settling in at the Boca Raton area to ply this trade. He is still married to the bride he took in '42 at West Point. They have five children (all graduated from fine colleges, including Dartmouth), three married daughters, and seven grandchildren.

We'll end with a subjective note. Your scribe has contracted to sell his broadcasting empire to a recent president of NBC-TV. As soon as the FCC approves the sale (which could be about the time you read these words), we'll have happily joined the retired set. See you in the March column.

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