1942
Received word that the class lost FredWorthen last month. This comes as a sad surprise to those of us who saw him at reunion in June. His obituary was in the September issue.
Ran into Ed Hawkridge at the Town of Wellesley's recycling center on a nice summer morning recently. Ed looks great, as do we all, and reports that being a lawyer is a lot more fun than it was being a steel warehouser. We have to give Ed credit, for he did his law school bit after age 50. By that time of life, your secretary's brain had petty much solidified.
Ed McLaughlin, a long-time lawyer and Massachusetts political insider, lectured this writer at length in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. His subject was Ted Kennedy's chances in the fall of 1984. Ed was obviously a competent commentator, but we decided not to divulge his observations and predictions, at least in print, here.
Roy Eldredge, now an institution as the pediatrician of the town and environs of Hingham, Mass., said that he enjoys medicine and children as much as ever and has no plans to ease up. His wife Susie allowed that his attitude was a good one, "for I "wouldn't let you quit anyway."
Harry Bond, surely the bard of the class, is easing off the pressures of professing. He said, and I believe him, that it is tougher and tougher to interest this computer generation in Oedipus Rex. Harry has a nifty retreat on a wild Canadian river, 500 miles north of Hanover, where he plans to fish for salmon, photograph the moose in his front yard, and put down on paper his version of the eternal verities.
Ed Doty, administrative vice president of the University of New York in Buffalo, says that he likes his work, his associates, the travel, and the perks. He also enjoys living in Ocean Park, a Buffalo suburb. The snowfall records of the area don't faze him a bit. So he's working to 70, at least.
Ed, incidentally, is an example of a dramatic career change that worked perfectly. He went from Dartmouth to atomic bomb building in Los Alamos, to a job as senior vice president of General Telephone and Electronics. He then chucked it all and plunged into education. No ruts for Ed.
Jack Tobin has to be the class's most accomplished cyclist. He lives in northern Vermont, where all the roads go straight up or straight down. On these cliffs, a perpetually youthful Tobin does 100 miles per day. Your secretary could never keep up. He almost blew a gasket shoving his ten speed from Boston to Newfane, only 150 miles of modest hills, in two days. Anyone wish to challenge Jack?
Bob Schuette has a hobby which will curl your hair, if you have any left. He's a glider pilot. He took it up at age 57. "That's nothing " he said, "I knew a guy who got his license at 80." We were working our way through a Caesar salad when he continued, "It's easy. The tote plane hauls you up to a predetermined altitude, say 2,500 feet, and cuts you loose. Then the thing to do is to look for a thermal, a rising current of air, which will take you farther up, up, and away.
"At the same time," he said, "you have to keep the nose down enough to maintain airspeed, for gliders stall, too, you know. And," he cautioned, "you must always remember to keep enough altitude so that when all else fails, you can get home. A friend of mine who did not," said Bob, "had to squeeze into a soccer field."
When not airborne, Bob is the publisher of the Way land-Weston Town Crier and the Sudbury Town Crier, which together blanket three of Boston's western suburbs. He started this venture from scratch in 195 1. Proc Page of the Northeast Kingdom is another '42 publisher. For years Proc and his wife got out Essex Junction's Suburban List, a weekly newspaper for the Burlington, Vt., area. If I understood correctly, the Pages have sold the newspaper and are continuing to run the printing operation which they built up with it.
So, there you have it for this month. Get your own name in lights next month. 'Tis easy to do. Just call, write, or cable this class secretary, and we'll have you in the limelight, coast to coast.
August 14 was proclaimed Luis Zalamea Day" in Dade County, Fla., by the MetropolitanDade City Commission for his 40 years as a bilingual journalist, poet, and novelist. Presenting theproclamation to Zalamea (left), class of '42, is Metro Dade Commissioner George Valdez.
15 Indian Springs Way Wellesley Hills, Mass. 02181
