1947

Friends in '47! This column can be habitforming. President Walt Peterson says another blurb is needed, and this can certainly be called a blurb, even a last-minute blurb. As I write this on October 2, I am reading of our reunion plans which arrived today, from our fine reunion planning committee, Ham Chase and Dick Hollerith. A fine committee and exciting plans, I must say so no more about our coming 35th reunion, June 13-15, 1983, need be said. Except for one thing: Dave Orr '57, master reunion planner, is gathering names of Glee Clubbers of the late forties. So you singers of '47, send Ham Chase your names. Dave is putting together a group for a sing next June with the present Glee Club (after suitable rehearsals). They will be performing at Thompson Arena and making other fun appearances. I hope to hear from many of you still able to sing.

Instead, this column will attempt to set up within each of you the desire and curiosity to return to your source of knowledge (book knowledge!)-the New Hampshire hills.

This has been a very fine New Hampshire year, 1982. Last winter we had the best, deepest, and most consistent snow for cross-country and downhill skiing best in many years. We had our usual few days of 25 or 30 degrees below zero clear, bright, cold mornings, the warmth of sunlight in a protected nook, the excited scurry of chickadees in the snow for our bread crumbs and seeds. And yet there was only one real back-strainer of a storm; the rest were easy to push aside. Yes, I still push snow.

Maple sugaring came early (February 12), and after a three-week lapse hung in through March, with some of the lightest and sweetest syrup in recent years. We made 45 gallons, a medium year for us, but had some good sugaring-off days our kids like to return for this.

Spring came in April, with early sun and no frosts, until one bad time-afrostjune 15 and 16-but fortunately no really bad results. The summer growing season was the best in memory -adequate rain, no droughts, two and even three hay cuttings, but most remarkable -no bugs! Not to say mosquitoes, which were excruciatingly worse this year but I mean no June bugs, no Japanese beetles, no potafo bugs to speak of at all, so that flowers and .veggies really thrived.

My Dottie grows iris, among many other things, and this was a glorious year. Our potatoes, carrots, beans, and squash were the best ever.

Much of our summer is spent in an odd way. We leave New Hampshire's vacationland to go to work, if we may call it work, on Martha's Vineyard. We have over several years reconstructed an older village home with a smaller cottage. Now for the past five years we have rented the house by the week or two weeks, and we stand guard and do the maintenance, cleanup, and bed-making from the cottage.

This summer we had our first taste of ocean sailing, in a small O'Day Mariner, and Dottie and I found we can't do without it anymore. Last week we put the boat away till next year. This summer we met George Cohn and Sally, old-timers in Edgartown.

Now that we're in autumn, we are in the midst of warm, blue-skied Indian summer and our reason for living in New Hampshire is again evident. The colors are glorious!

So you can see our New Hampshire scene is really superb, and it promises to continue into next year. We'd like to see all of you back for one or more events, to renew the independence you had in those years from 1943 to 1949 and to greet old friends, who, believe it or not, you'll find are still friends.

Now, if you don't want to hear or see me praising our reunion committee or blabbering continually on the glories of New Hampshire, then do yourselves a favor. Volunteer yourself to write one column for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. We need column providers-and I suspect that many of us could provide a uniquely interesting column once, maybe twice, but perhaps not want the drag of doing it every time against a deadline. Here's your chance, classmates. Send your name, or column, or section of a column, to me, 63 Maple Avenue, Keene, N.H. 0343 1, and your wish can be fulfilled. If I am flooded with paper, then you'll be on a list -first in, first out. But don't wait; send in your words.

Give us an example, you say? All right, try this: Tell us of the joys, or troubles, of living in Texas, or in New York, or in Washington, D.C., or overseas. Write sage words on your chosen second career, on the humor to be found in the grocery business, on being a lawyer, or on "Why I decided against being an executive." How easy is it to compose poetry? What are the rewards of being a writer or artist? This and more is what we want to hear from John Q. Average Classmate:

I'll close with one thought: Look for the good in everything, as one old timer did. New Hampshire recently became owner of the entire Connecticut River, which separates Vermont from New Hampshire. This meant several is-landsand farmhouses came into New Hamp-shire from Vermont. "None too soon, either," said the elderly, newly-turned New Hampshire resident. "I couldn't of stood many more of them Vermont wintahs!"

HAM CHASE '47

19 East Mountain Road Peterborough, N.H. 03458