1941
It's my pleasure to present your once and future newsletter editor, Don Hagen. Don wrote "Dope From the Duckboards" from 1956 into the early sixties and has agreed to take over again. I'll tell you that Don and Jane live in Sparrow Bush, N.Y., on the Pennsylvania border near the top of the beautiful Delaware Water Gap, but beyond that he'll speak for himself.
He will officially take over this month (May) when a bunch of us gather in Hanover for the annual Class Officers Weekend. Whatever '41 business is transacted will be reported in due course by Don or me or both.
This is the last edition of class notes that comes your way until fall, so we shall try to squeeze in all items from this season that linger in the files. First, though, I should offer an apology to many of you. A lot of news items that you wrote on dues notices are still in one of Lou Young's desk drawers; in the confusion of winter travels by Youngs and Harveys, we never effected a transfer of the second batch of such missives, and so they'll have to remain unpublished for a while longer. Please don't let that inhibit you from checking in next time around. Hagen and I have the comfort of a lovely backlog for the fall.
Meanwhile, we still have here an earlier letter from Betty Darbee on resettling in North Carolina: "Here in the Columbus-Tryon area there is a handful of Dartmouth alumni and widows, and we have all attended gatherings in Hendersonville of the new Dartmouth Club of the Western Carolinas.... I am handling Bob's estate myself and with all the medical bills, my time is spent mostly on business matters."
And then a current letter from Monk Larson, Baldwin, N.Y., who plans to attend Alumni College again this summer and would love to hear from any of you who might like to go for the first time. Apparently such group recruiting shaves the tuition for all concerned. For the rest, Monk writes:
"On the reunion panel I talked about retirement and then found myself doing a fulltime stint for a year on the faculty at Hofstra. Happily back to the ranks as an adjunct, I'm teaching a graduate course on law to educators. Otherwise, an arbitrator, hearing officer, and a little law biz; writing editorials for the church newsletter, and getting back into poetry; lots of tennis; and we have a studio working on top of the garage out back. That 'we' brings up Barb, who is worrying us into getting ready for a trip to Spain and Portugal in May. Daughters Brooke, Kim, and Jodie are variously occupied in the area, gone from home base, and David lives and works in northern Westchester. The family now includes a grandson."
Last winter I took my own visiting grandson to the Old Lyme Library of an evening to visit with Robbins Barstow and finally catch his lecture on "The Wonder of Whales" lots of audiovisual materials, fun for the kids, and educational for the adults. Rob, as you remember, is volunteer executive director of the Connecticut Cetacean Society and was just back from an International Whaling Commission meeting in England. When not promoting the cause of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, he still earns his living as director of professional development for the Connecticut Education Association, a post he's held for 20-odd years.
More recently, Bill Hammond passed this way, visiting Bill Broer in Cheshire, Conn., and winding up some business there. Last fall, he and Evelyn abandoned Connecticut to live in Inverness, Fla. They'll still have one foot in New England, though building a place in Sargentville, Maine, at.the north end of Penobscot Bay, where they expect to summer.
Finally, I'd better swallow my embarrassment and confess the tale of how I almost killed off Dick Wheeler. Early in the year, a notice arrived from the College that Dick had recently died in Denver. With a deadline looming, I hastily wrote the news into that month's column, sent condolences to Betty, ordered a memorial book in Dick's name, and thank heavens dropped a note to his close friend, George Flather in Washington, D.C. The letter to Betty was delayed by a bad address (part of the cause of the snafu); but George, bless him, promptly called me and said in effect, "I just talked to Dick on the phone. He was sitting down to lunch after a morning of golf. He sounded like he was alive."
In time everything got cleared up, the of- fending paragraph was excised from the ALUMNI MAGAZINE at the last moment, and Dick and Betty promised me and Alumni Records absolution and remission of our sins. On the bright side, we came out of it with an update on the Wheelers. Turns out Dick sold his Colorado T. V. and radio properties several years ago, and they retired to Rancho Mirage, Calif., with a home at the Mission Hills Country Club. "Obviously we play a lot of golf, but there are many other things to do as well. When it gets too hot, we take off for Montana, to our summer home in Glacier National Park."
Other news from George Flather wasn't as good. He is still gainfully employed as an officer of the Union Trust Company in D.C., but at the time we spoke he was convalescing from circulatory problems which had resulted in the loss of a leg. He was hoping to be back at work soon. He and Carolyn are now living in Gaithersburg, Md.; George E. 11l '72 ("Gef') lives nearby and works in the computer business.
Box 331 Essex, Conn. 06426
