1927

It was great to get back to Hanover again on May 2 and 3 for another sniff of the sweet smells of New Hampshire in the spring. This last visit was for the annual gathering of class officers. You were represented over the weekend by Ken Murray, Charlie Paddock,Tom Gillespie, Paul O'Connell, Bob Williamson, Frank Strong, Steve Tracy, and their respective wives Ruth, another Ruth, Dot, Helen, Peg, Evelyn, and still another Dot. In addition to the usual meetings and dinners and the presentation of alumni awards, we were delighted to hear John Kemeny again and also an inspiring President-elect David McLaughlin '54, who emphatically renewed our confidence in the future of the College.

We did miss two things, though, as we strolled about the campus: there were no seniors sitting on the senior fence (although it was still intact in its usual place) and we saw no other groups of eager beavers sitting on the steps of dormitories or fraternity houses intently carving their initials on their own or on someone else's senior cane. (You do remember those canes, of course, with the carved Indian head for a handle.)

Florida seemed to be where the action was this past winter, and the biggest 1927 bash of the season that came to our attention, as reported by Tom Gillespie, was a pow-wow in Siesta Keys on March 5, when Chuck andMarie Baker hosted no less than 15 classmates plus the wives of 13 of them and the widow of another at a gala luncheon in the condo where they were spending the winter.

Cam Clokey, in writing that he immensely enjoyed reading Jean Kemeny's book It'sDifferent at Dartmouth, reminded us that we haven't yet had that pleasure and prompted us to buy a copy when in Hanover this past weekend. In thanking us for his latest birthday card, Cam also noted that he celebrated his 75th with Bud and Dot Wesselmann in Plant City, Fla., which is midway between their two homes. A card from Bud arrived a few days later with the news that he and Dot will be spending the summer in Hanover once again. Their granddaughter Debbie is graduating from Dartmouth this June, having spent the past year as a senior fellow for the purpose of writing a novel.

Our wanderer and former outing clubber, Ed Johnson, was all over the planet Earth, and all by himself, too, for five months of 1980. Here is a partial list of the far-away places that he explored, starting from California: China, Mongolia, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia, Siberia, Poland, Germany, France, England, then Malta, Greece, Israel, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, and India. And all of this, which included much hiking and mountain climbing, was with a game leg that Ed almost lost during World War 11.

We've had several long and welcome letters from our long-time musician and drummer-boy friend, Jack Andrews. He and Nancy are presently happy and well in Springfield, Mass., but busier than most of us in the summer, which they spend 230 miles north of Springfield in South Hero, Vt. There they have a main cottage on the lake, three sleeping guest cottages, a tool house, and a variety of sail and motor boats. As Jack put it, "Keeping this up, together with entertaining friends, in-laws, children, grandchildren, and relatives, understandably, keeps us pretty much out of mischief for six months of the year."

Avery Keenan's widow Mary also sent in a warm letter saying how much the "Speak" and the ALUMNI MAGAZINE articles mean to her. She still claims Wellesley, Mass., as her home base but takes regular trips each year of several weeks each to visit her three children and nine grandchildren in Connecticut, Virginia, and California. She spent a very lazy 12-day vacation last October on the Greek Island of Rhodes. Mary missed the 'BO fall reunion but she promises to make the one this coming October.

We are sorry to have to report the deaths of Masuo Iwanami on March 20, Thomas Kennedy on March 22, and Leon Loeb on March 25.

Memory jogger: With commencements going on all around us at this time of year, we wonder if you remember about the first commencement in Hanover. It was June 1771, just 210 years ago. Four students took their A.B. degrees, and all four had emigrated from Yale in order to graduate from Dartmouth. By that date, a good deal of the land on the Hanover plain had been cleared, and the place had begun to take on the appearance of a college, even though the buildings were few and the undergraduates numbered less than 50. It was 20 years later, in 1791, that the original Dartmouth Hall was completed

Have a good summer.

11 Rolling Lane Wayland, Mass. 01778