1945

At the Alumni Fund Head Agents Weekend back in November, John Leggat was one of the retiring head agents to be awarded the Chairman's Citation. John, who has since moved on to the class presidency, presides over a group which includes some pretty distinguished fellows; and I shall give you right here and now some "fer-instances."

If you missed the review of Evan Connell's most recently published volume, The WhiteLantern, in the November issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, do go back and read it. Evan, according to the reviewer, professor of English Chauncey Loomis, has mastered the art of digression and diversity of subject matter. Professor Loomis sees the theme of The WhiteLantern and of its forerunner, A Long Desire, as "endeavor the human capacity to persist with obsessive, often absurd, drive after goals that sometimes are magnificent, sometimes ridiculous." The reviewer concludes that regardless of success or failure, Evan perceives accomplishment resulting from "the endeavor itself as an exercise of the human spirit."

Back at the New York Times, critic VincentCanby led the charge of his colleagues that devastated the highly touted motion picture, The Gates of Heaven. The gates and the movie closed after one night, sending the movie's director and backers scurrying home to Hollywood to ponder the question of whether or not running the production budget into multi-millions automatically results in quality motion pictures.

A.B.W. (who once-upon-a-time penned the Day By Day column) thinks not.

Now we come to his Honor, Richard Owen, scolded in this column for being a reunion noshow and for being too modest and uncommunicative about his accomplishments. Shortly after that went to press, I learned that Dick's 12-year old son was struck by a car on the evening before the family was planning to leave for Hanover. I have been in touch with Dick since then and am pleased to report that David has recovered well after three months in a cast. In fact, David, along with his nine-year-old brother, is following in the footsteps of his mother, Lynn Owen, performing in New York's Metropolitan Theatre. David and two other boys who sang the three genies in Zauberfloete were heralded by the Daily News reviewer as "easily the best such trio I have yet heard at the Met." Lynn will be back at the Metropolitan this fall singing principal roles in Wagner operas, while Dick has recently completed a new opera, The Death of the Virgin. This composition, concerning the 1600 Caravaggio painting of that name which hangs in the Louvre, was a finalist in the New York City One-Act Opera Contest, competing with over 300 entries.

Dick's full-length opera, Mary Dyer, which deals with the case of a Quaker woman hanged in Boston in the 1600's, premiered out-of-doors and subsequently was produced by the New York Lyric Opera Company. Both Dick and Lynn, who sang the lead, received critical acclaim. Dick's interest in Mary Dyer most likely arises from his legal training and his vocation as a federal judge. One almost forgets that he has been involved in decisions from the bench which have gained national attention.

In 1944 Dick and I held a mini-reunion of our own in the Pacific. We met actually for the first time under the wing of a B-24 on Eniwetok, where we were staging for a bombing raid on Truk, known as the "Gilbralta of the Pacific." We were in different squadrons but in the same bomb group. Two or three years later, in Sachem Village, we reminisced over Shirley's cooking and Dick's special salad.

Now, how about these fellows: John, Evan, Vin, and Dick? Don't they make you fell proud to be a Dartmouth '45?

They sure do they, and many others.

P.O. Box 39 Atkinson, N.H. 03811