Backstairs and Blooms

IT is 7:30 on a Monday morning when Douglas McBain pulls his pickup into his employers' driveway. This is moving week, and there will be plenty to do as soon as his bosses awake, but McBain has promised me that he could talk for a bit if I showed up early. As he unlocks the cellar door, we begin to talk about his employers -the Kemenys and his job house-man and gardener.

Officially, McBain is a Buildings and Grounds employee, responsible for the gardens, house plants, major cleaning, and general maintenance of the 25-room, redbrick president's house. As he changes from boots into a pair of work shoes, he describes his job more precisely as "doing whatever the president and his wife want me to do." For the Kemenys, this has involved everything from moving furniture to running last-minute errands to serving dinner to honorary degree recipients such as Walter Cronkite and Captain Kangaroo.

A Lebanon, New Hampshire, native, McBain grew up in Largo, Florida. Today, he retains aspects of both regions the friendliness and easy-going manner of a southerner along with the resourcefulness and practicality of a Yankee. And although McBain speaks with the familiar New Hampshire twang, "y'all" slips in quite regularly.

Returning to Lebanon in 1956, McBain began working for the labor crew at Buildings and Grounds. He frequently filled in when Ralph Putnam, the previous grounds gardener, was on vacation. When Putnam retired in 1963, Christina Dickey requested that McBain be given the position. Later, cultivation of the house plants was added to the responsibilities. Chided occasionally by his former co-workers about the cushiness of working at the president's house, McBain shrugs it off by explaining that he is one of the few College employees who works seven days a week, since the plants must be tended daily.

McBain talks readily about gardening and plant cultivation as we sit in his "office," -a basement room crammed with gardening tools; catalogues offering bulbs, seeds, and flowers; books on horticulture; barrels of gravel and potting soil; and dozens of potted plants filling every available horizontal space as well as specially designed plant racks, all bathed in electronically timed fluorescent light. The sliding glass door, which provides the room's only natural light, is almost completely blocked by the foliage in front of it. All these office plants are actually spares. Whenever a party is scheduled, whatever is in bloom is set up in the upstairs conserva-Tory, where an exquisite collection of flowers and greenery is displayed.

Horticultural efforts are all geared towards commencement, when thousands of students, parents, and alumni will be invited to tour the president's home and gardens. Mcßain already is making a mental note to order pansy seeds to be planted in a few weeks as borders for commencement, 1982. He has just begun his race against time to have the flower beds ready for this June. As soon as the weather is warm enough, dozens of begonias which have been grown indoors over the winter will be set out in the six-by-twelve-foot, heated cold frame to harden for a few weeks before being replanted in the outdoor beds. Because so many plants are needed for the June festivities, this process will be repeated continually throughout the spring.

The highlight of the presidential gardens are the orchids which McBain has tenderly cultivated during the Kemeny years. While Mrs. Dickey preferred African violets for the conservatory, Jean Kemeny requested orchids because the president's father used to grow them. An entirely self-taught gardener, McBain readily responded that he would try to grow a few. After a bit of reading on the subject, he discovered that there are over a thousand varieties of orchids and that they can be quite difficult to cultivate. He remembers thinking, "Douglas, what have you got yourself into?" But his green thumb prevailed, and today there are between 30 and 40 orchids in the president's collection, including lady's-slippers, yellow-fringed orchids, and white orchids, which are worth up to $250 each. McBain estimates that if the College had to repurchase the entire collection of plants at today's prices, it would cost close to $5,000 assuming that the Christmas cactus, which is over 50 years old, and the two hoyas, which are at least 20 years old, could even be replaced.

In addition to flowers and house plants, McBain tends the president's vegetable garden. During the Dickeys' tenure, McBain kept his own compost pile behind the garden, regularly turning it by hand, so that it could be spread on the plot in early spring. Since then, he has convinced the College to compost the leaves raked up each fall. Mechanically turned and aerated, this leaf compost now benefits all the gardens and shrubs on campus as well as the president's vegetables.

Accomplished furniture restorers, Douglas and Joyce McBain comb summer yard sales for recoverable treasures, operating a booth for collectibles and furniture at the West Lebanon flea market on his weekend days off. Regarded as some of the better caners in the area, they regularly receive work from throughout New England. When questioned about what type of chair he would select this June as his gift from the College in recognition of 25 years of service, McBain quickly responded in favor of the Boston rocker, mentioning that he already had the more traditional captain's chair. He had found one at a flea market and refinished it Dartmouth seal and all.

While John Kemeny has frequently contended that he could not have been president without Jean, she will readily claim, "We could not have done this job without Douglas." The sole full-time employee at the president's house, he looks after all the little things going after the paper each morning, making sure there is gas in the car, shoveling the walk, and somehow seeing to it that last night's dirty dishes are not there when the Kemenys wake up in the morning. He plays an important part in the larger tasks required for such occasions as commencement and reunions, when his hours generally double. McBain also serves as the Kemenys' chauffeur when they are traveling to airports or speaking engagements in the Northeast. Jean Kemeny brags that he is a "superb driver and, more important, he has never breathed a word of the things he has heard discussed while driving places." Although McBain can claim a perfect record for making planes on time, he does remember oversleeping one morning when he was scheduled to pick up President Dickey at Boston's South Station at 6:00 in the morning. When McBain drove up, a half-hour late, the president was standing and waiting ... and laughing.

Not all Mcßain's encounters with Dart- mouth presidents and their families have been blissful. As Jean Kemeny relates it, "when we moved in, Douglas had never met a cat, and he knew he hated them." Now, 11 years and a dozen cats later, "he feeds them, pats them, and takes care of them as if they were little children." McBain has even gotten a cat for his daughter, maintaining that he likes them only because they "keep the moles out of the garden."

McBain awaits the McLaughlin presidency with anticipation, clearly hoping to stay on at the president's house. The next few months promise to be hectic as the Kemenys move out and the McLaughlins move in. No one is sure whether or not the house will be open for commencement and reunion visitors, nor where presidential functions may take place during the transition. Nevertheless, Douglas McBain will keep the conservatory plants in beautiful shape, care for the flower beds, and sow the vegetable garden, hoping that initially, at least the McLaughlins will appreciate things as the Kemenys had them. Meanwhile, noting McLaughlin's previous position with Toro, I ask McBain if he thinks there is a new lawn mower in the wings. He shrugs "don't know" and then, with a quick grin and a slight twinkle in his eye, he adds, "snowblower's an Ariens."