1944

First on our list of items for last month's column was a visit with Joan and Eric Barradale, but somehow I started writing on page two and they got left out. And you can't leave the Barradales out of anything, believe me. They are down-river a ways, in Guilford, Vt., just below Brattleboro. Eric is a dentist and Eric and Joan together are tree farmers and cross-country skiers and house restorers and genial hosts and crackerjack cooks and bottle-washers, to say nothing of bottle-pourers. And the two of them would be the envy of anyone's physical fitness program; their idea of a relaxing afternoon is 25 miles cross-country on skis.

Even though I'm insanely jealous, I'm happy to go on reporting early retirements. If my informants are on- their toes, Olive and Harry"Ted" Colwell should be retired to East Middlebury, Vt., by the time you read this. They will have left Pelham, N.Y., and the Chase Manhattan Bank, for Vermont, and you will be surprised to hear that East Middlebury is just east of plain old Middlebury, and that's where Middelbury College is and where the two Colwell daughters went. Son Harry IV was a Dartmouth '7B. East Middlebury is just a loaf of bread away from Breadloaf Mountain, so you can bet there will be some skiing in the Colwell years to come.

Penn Frost called to get an application form for this.summer's Alumni College and noted in passing that he was past working full-time. "Semi-retired" is the way he put it. He gave up selling sports equipment and is now handling physicians' and vets' supplies, sometimes working two or three days a week, or half-days five days a week, depending how he looks at any particular week. Wife Ruth gets her M.A. in English in a couple of weeks, capping nine years of night school. Nice going, I say.

Then, strolling down Main Street we see Artand Alice Kiendl, who in June will desert Buffalo, N.Y., for the rocky coast of Maine, thus winding up Art's 187 years of deaning and headmastering. He's currently headmaster at the Nichols School, in Buffalo. Art already looked the part of a retired sea-captain, with a black cap at just the right jaunty angle.

Not one bit jaunty was the sad news from Gordie Ross in Canton, Ohio, that his wife Ellie had died March 9. "She had cancer for ten years," he wrote, "and fought a gallant fight. We did many wonderful things in those ten years, and I feel good about that. This includes a second home in Hancock, N.H., and a trip to Europe last summer, something she'd always wanted to do." Sympathy and a tug from us all, Gordie.

Jim Lang kindly filled us in from California. "I changed jobs and company just before Christmas [he's now western area sales manager, Telecommunications Division, California Microwave, Inc.] and so I don't get east very often. I did get to Boston in February to visit my daughter and made a quick trip to Hanover and back. I was impressed with the industriousness of the students. The library was quite crowded." Just like our '44 days, right?

Speaking of California, Dave and Grace Nutt flew from N.J. to L.A. over Christmas to visit son Ty '74 who, they said, was "struggling along making TV films." Flying in quite the other direction over Easter will be three of the Nutt's daughters, going to Rome to join up with a fourth sister who is there on a Loyola University foreign semester. Dave is still on the New York City commuter run, and advertising is the name of his game.

A funny letter in from Malcolm McLoud, relieved that the College had picked Dave McLaughlin '54 as the new president and not him. "It was the same last time the College of Cardinals gathered to pick a new pope. 'What on earth shall I tell them if they want me to be the new pope?' I caught myself saying to myself. Now that Dartmouth has passed over this superannuated '44 in favor of a vital and vibrant '54,1 can relax, go back into my stupor, and forget the 'Sherman Speech' I had all rehearsed for the occasion."

Word on a couple of offspring: the late JimDonnelley's daughter, Barbara '77, has been in Rome for over a year now, working very hard as the A.P./Dow Jones financial reporter. And Jim Dammann's son, Jamie '75, is reported in a class newsletter as "working for the State of New Hampshire on wood-fuel energy programs." No hint as to where he's rubbing sticks together.

That's it. Blessings.

209 Parkhurst Hall Hanover, N.H. 03755