1973

It may seem like a distant time and place or only yesterday but almost 12 years ago we marched to matriculation on the Hanover Plain. A motley crew. An uneasy time for the College and the nation: Nixon, Vietnam. And there was soon to be a changing of the guard at Dartmouth. Dickey: the alumnus, State Department veteran, disciple of Ernest Martin Hopkins, revered by thousands of alumni, the quintessential Yankee schoolmaster. Kemeny: Hungarian immigrant, Einstein and the Manhattan Project, mathematician-philosopher, determined to push the College into a new era. And now, a vastly different Dartmouth welcomes David McLaughlin '54 to the Wheelock Succession. The class of 1973 wishes him well.

On a more serious note, Jeff Miller must be somewhat irked. 01' Bushlips was waiting patiently by his phone in California for "the call" from the Board of Trustees. Sitting in his law office, counting the holes in his wing tips, taking crank calls from "Dialing for Dollars," the very soul of sobriety. Ah, but it was not to be.

And what about Dave Clark? A corporate lawyer in Atlanta who has visions of returning to another lifestyle in New England. He may leave the law to become a corporate buccaneer in a new environmental control venture in western Massachusetts. But rather than engage in saber rattling in the Berkshires, his heart is in Hanover. Alas, the phone refuses to ring.

Tom Spiliotis. The brilliant maestro behind Bobby and the Corvairs. Graduate of the University of Colorado Law School. Father of two. Counsel to the recording industry in Orlando, Fla. Would he be asked to stand in the shoes of Eleazar? He naps quietly, all day and all night, by the "baloney phone." Will he at least be requested to regroup his famous foursome for the inauguration? No word. And so he boldly calls Parkhurst. He has been put on hold for the past six months.

It's Tuesday morning and Kevin O'Shea is pacing briskly back and forth in the district aterney's office in Elmira, N.Y. The young prosecutor is fingering his snub-nose 38. A portrait of Gordon Liddy hangs on the wall. He is dressed as usual: full rugby regalia. He has asked the receptionist to hold all calls except "the call." Law and order could return to the Green under his stewardship. Giving up, he retires at 2:30 p.m. for brews and team practice.

The Dipper, David E. "Chip" Reese, famous Dartmouth economics major who is rumored never to have attended one class. Poker-playing celebrity, "widely regarded as the best seven-card-stud player in the world," writes the Washington Post. He tells Amarillo Slim that there's an eight-to-five chance he'll get "the call."Amarillo grins. He knows his slim friend will never take it. There are no casinos in N.H. Amarillo takes the odds on $10,000. "Peanuts," says the Dipper. "The call" never comes. No matter, he needed the tax deduction.

Well, for this galaxy of stars and everyone else, maybe next time. After all, John Dickey graduated in 1929; David McLaughlin in 1954. Our number is coming up. Right, Chip?

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