1948

As I write this, it is the last day of October Halloween. But, much more importantly from this old Dartmouth man's standpoint, it is also the day of the 90th playing of that old classic that dates back to 1884, the Dartmouth-Yale game. By late this afternoon we'll know whether today's Dartmouth seniors will ever have participated in a victory over their ancient adversary from New Haven on the football field. (The opportunity was lost, 24-3).

Old friends of Joe Marple's who haven't been aware of his situation will be saddened to know that the little guy had an unfortunate accident in 1973 when a heavy box fell off a shelf ten feet above him and landed on his head. The injury, a detached retina complicated by his diabetes, tragically led to blindness three years ago. His wife Grace told me that the situation forced Joe to retire and that he now leads a pretty quiet life, much of his time spent in using his good hands on mechanical jobs around the house and indulging in his love for music and math. Joe and his family live in Mahopac, N.Y., where he would enjoy hearing from and about his fellow '48s.

Ed Tarca has run into temporary tough going as his electronic-engineering work has dis- appeared due the current depression. He and Geraldine live in Vancouver, Wash. Ed has also lived in Philly, Los Angeles, and Portland since receiving his degree from Thayer back in 1949, when he left Hanover. He had first arrived in Hanover in the V-12 six years earlier, in 1943, fresh out of Milford High. One of his good friends in Hanover was Earl Sutherland, with whom he roomed in Hitchcock and who also became an engineer. Ed expects things to look up economically and sends regards to Earl in Palos Verdes, as well as to his other old friends from Hanover days.

Another son of Eleazar's who has made his life on the West Coast is Mel Cheesman, now of Olympia, Wash., where for some time he has been a professor of government and education at St. Martin's College. Mel earned a doctorate in education at the U. of Idaho. He has some definite ideas about the current state of public education in our country, as well as directions to be pursued to improve it. He's currently keeping his eye open for an appointment where he can expand his research activities in this field and is "somewhat critical of the manner and direction in which our public schools have moved during the last two decades." He's "raring to go" if the opportunity should be presented to "pull together my theoretic formulations" and write them in manuscript form. He also is looking to such a research post to enable him to repay Dartmouth for the fine start he was given in Hanover. Good luck, Mel.

Stan Churchill sounded great. He's a veterinarian in the small northern-Vermont town of Orleans, about ten miles south of Newport, in the area where the Clyde, the Willoughby, and the Black rivers provide some of Vermont's finer trout fly fishing every spring. Stan grew up in the small town of Whitefield, N.H., went to Cornell Veterinary School after Dartmouth, then moved back into the rural northern New England scene he and his wife Eleanor and their two boys love so well. Says he's busy most of the time, but not so busy he can't enjoy the life of service he lives. (Took him a while to get to the phone when I called, as he was in the ticklish process of pulling a fine bone from the throat of a neighbor's terrified dog.) Stan hasn't seen other '48s in many years, but understands that insurance agent Hal Shea is in the thickly-settled metropolitan area of Vermont, the capital Montpelier. He also recalled with a laugh that first semester during the summer of 1944 on the top floor of Wheeler when he and Bill Pendill roomed together and '4Bs down the hall included stalwarts such as Walt Cairns, Dick Greene, Pete Headley, Joe Holzka, Art Kosse, and Carl Ward, plus others whose identity he couldn't immediately recall.

I've been asked where the proposed new Dartmouth symbol, the Artichoke, as mentioned in the last issue of these notes, came from. The June 14, 1981, commencement issue of TheDartmouth was the source. The article pointed out that in attempting to find a replacement for the Indian, the student Undergraduate Council held a poll on campus last spring to test the popularity of three specific symbols Timber Wolves, Vikings, and Woodsmen and to invite write-ins of other suggestions. Some 1,943 students cast ballots. The 738 write-ins plus the "None of the Above" votes exceeded the votes cast for any one of the three specified candidates. Thus no new symbol was elected. It was humorously intriguing to this reader that 106 write-ins chose Artichoke and that 137 chose the excluded Indian. One alum phoned me to suggest an Artichoke yell for the team! Campus life on the Plain obviously still has humor humor which sometimes masks an underlying serious issue.

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