1938

Inevitably there's an element of risk in commenting on a happening before it's happened, but I don't think a person is taking much of a chance in giving high high marks to Amazing 1938's forward-facing 45th. I don't believe that there can be anyone who was there for the continuing conviviality at arid around the 1938 tent at Gile . . . through everything that went on Monday through Thursday . . . from Hanover and vicinity to Quechee . . . and back again who doesn't recall those events with happy nostalgia. There should be gratitude, too, to Reunion Chairman Bob Reeve and his well-organized, hard-working committee. It takes a lot of planning ahead, and thanks are due Bob and his crew from all the others of us who attended and enjoyed.

So our 45th is a happy memory or a lot of happy memories. An event that isn't quite over, yet, is this year's Alumni Fund drive, together with the culmination of the Campaign for Dartmouth. As a reuning class, our goal was set high. Let any of us who haven't yet contributed toward the achievement of that goal do so between when you read this and the end of the reunion fund campaign, June 30.

Another annual occurrence in the immediate offing as this is written is Class Officers' Weekend. Class organization, and the effective conduct of class business, requires, like reunions, a certain amount of planning ahead by our class officers and executive committee. A report on this year's Class Officers' Weekend will be carried in next fall's class notes. Carl von Pechmann offered me interesting background information on 1938 class secretaries in a recent letter. The Baron was 1938's first class secretary, 44-plus years ago. He was followed by Warty King, and then by John Emerson.

Now, 44 or so years later last month, that is spring came, and welcomely, to Damariscotta, as it always does. Anne and I were glad to have crocuses in bloom to greet Gil and Fran Tanis for an all-too-brief visit. It was good, as always, to see them and to talk about our children and grandchildren. They are the best and kindest people.

Now "sumer is icumen in," as I thought it was Chaucer said, but I learn it was Anonymous. In any case, may all your summers be happy ones.

The class notes section of the September issue of the MAGAZINE carries reunion reports of classes that had reunions the previous June . . . and that includes us. Read there in greater detail all about our feisty 45th.

Box 159 Damariscotta, Maine 04543