1945

Resident eases out of Post Office Box 39, peers around uneasily, sees his shadow, and crawls back in. The crisis in Poland refuses to go away. Congress debates Reaganomics. Chicago sighs under the weight of snow and cold. Detroit cowers under the weight of unemployment. New York hisses at interest rates. The press debates Reaganomics. Forty-fives hibernate.

Winterfest 1982 . . . four decades after a "scaled-down" Winter Carnival.

The post office sells three-cent stamps for 20 cents. A letter these days gets more luxurious travel and more ports-of-call for its money. No more bumpy, noisy rails . . . up, up, and away through the friendly skies . . . and days in dark, lonely, Zip Code-less corners ... no respect for lead time and deadlines. The letter, exhausted from its journey, lies limply in old 39. It is from Craig Cain, who posted it in his home town of Evanston, Ill., on November 10, 1981. It is now December 4, too late for the deadline for the January-February issue. (Is it nearly April outside your living room window? Now you know what lead time is all about. I hope.)

Craig has enclosed a report of a mini-reunion of the 'Leven Leb held at Lake Geneva following the 35th in Hanover. The 'Leven Leb, Craig explains, refers to the address of off-campus housing the group enjoyed for "a short while just after the Navy arrived." (We must be back in the forties again. I express doubs to myself that such an address even exists today.) The report has been prepared by sundry wives and is presented herein uncut and uncensored.

"The Illinois contingent of the 'Leven Leb '45s held its second annual reunion at the Harvard (oops!) Club on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. Lest you get too upset, the Harvard Club was founded 105 years ago by summer vacationers from Harvard, Ill., Milk Capital of the U.S.A.; and there is a statue of a Holstein cow in the town square to attest to this.

"In any event, Eleanor and Tom Armstrong, and Jocelyn and Craig Cain joined Ruth and Jack Reeves at their beautiful summer residence for a long weekend of reminiscing, sailing, and general unwinding, to say nothing of BIG GREEN FELLOWSHIP. Missing were Marge and Cam Gray, Dottie and Jim Kehoe, and where are you, Bob Moyer?"

I do some investigating. I can tell the girls that if Bob is a '45 he has managed to escape the College computer. Goes for Cam, too. Anyhow, I guess they hibernate like '45s.

Christmas cards with "newsletters" penned by spouses of old friends . . . subtle shift like the sands of time . . . away from offspring with I.Q.'s nearing the genius level, setting up dental offices, starting up the Exxon ladder, writing dissertations for a second Ph.D. ... to grandchildren, lovely, sprightly, gifted, stepping in the footsteps. Oh yes, come on, will the real champion grandfather please stand up? . . . did once before . . . in Thayer Hall . . .reeling off all those names and ages. Stand up again . . . right here in this column ... for posterity . . . for the annals of Dartmouth 1945. . .and for my vindication.

And one Christmas card that deserves special attention. Right there, inglorious technicolor, familiar smile and all, Moose Rowan is reclining in a hammock under Carolina pines . . . Moose Rowan, occupation "retired," with a road map shading his belly. Do all roads lead to Hanover? Perhaps not. "Paz en la tierra' connotes neighboring lands to the south. Joan stands at attention, obedient, prepared to caddy and guide Moose through the 17th, 18th, and 19th holes.

The good life . . . and the sudden realization that the 40th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day has come and gone.

I contemplate retirement . . . not old enough for Social Security . . . too old for I.R.A.'s . . . pension, perhaps? ... no way . . . too peaceful for military . . . too private for public . . . too independent for industry. But how about editors and journalists, chroniclers of doings, guardians of traditions? (The D.A.M., they tell me, is published by the Dartmouth College Association of Class Secretaries . . . allusive . . . illusional . . hardly a sound bargaining unit.) But I go ahead anyhow and quiz the powers that be.

Strange reaction. First . . . fits of uncontrolled laughter. Then . . . they "don't like my sense of humor."

Now tell me, how can that be.

P.O. Box 39 Atkinson, N.H. 03811