1950
Someone said, after hearing about the last column, "It's a different you." For the nonce back to normal.
Last month there were precious few alternatives to facing the deadline. A formidable wind chill precluded any outside activity. Today is different. Spring has come in February. Lures abound. So it is time for discipline, for getting down to reality the looming deadline.
The professors were Fred Berthold and John Hennessey; the course was Ethics, "Personal Values or the Bottom Line; Ethical Dilemmas in Modern Organizations." The combination attracted a capacity crowd of alumni, spouses, and friends to an all-day seminar by Dartmouth-on-the-road. The day was stimulating; the intellectual experience, exhilarating; the issues, challenging. There are few better ways to spend a January Saturday in northern New Jersey.
Plenty of snow covered the campus for Winter Carnival, when the class gathered for its midwinter mini-reunion. The carnival theme was "A Diamond in the Rough," alluding both to the College, a place of special beauty in the wilderness, and to the 75th anniversary of the carnival. The center-of-campus snow sculpture was a mountain capped by an emerging cut diamond, its rubble scattered on the slopes below. A climber at the top belayed another scaling one of the facets. A 75 proclaimed the anniversary, a bit redundantly. Although the sculpture was well executed, as usual, its features became clear only in close-up. It was too busy. Furthermore, the multiple symbolism was not readily understandable.
The sun was bright; the air, crisp and cold. The setting was nearly idyllic Hanover. Only a high wind marred activity on Saturday. Many ventured to watch the cross-country racing and the jumping on the golf course. Few, however, lingered.
Total attendance of 40 of our classmates set a new high. Two classmates, Cul Modisette and Charlie Wilkes, were also at the Inn but busy with other priorities.
A critical subject at the class meeting was planning for the fall mini-reunion. A routine item became decisive because of the changes planned. The new date will be September 2022, the Princeton game. The center of activities will be Hanover, not Woodstock; the Sunset Motel, not the Woodstock Inn. Details may change, but the plans include dinner on Friday evening, tailgating at the Sunset just above Wilder Dam before the game, and a clambake on Saturday evening. Set aside the date, reserve your space, and join the gathering. It promises to be fun.
While you are marking your calendar, pencil in our 35th for June 1986. (Someone's counting wrong. It cannot be so many years. Simple subtraction only confounds the issue.) Yet planning goes on under the aegis of Dave Taylor. Already the music master, Tom Ruggles, has signed up old reliable Ted Herbert to play the old familiar tunes in the old familiar style for remembering and dancing. And members of the massed glee clubs are warming up their voices, the better to teach today's youngsters a lesson.
Whitey Burnham, adopted member of '46, was a guest at the meeting in his role as director of the athletic sponsor program. The purpose of this program is to raise supplemental funds "to underwrite the transportation of outstanding prospective student/ athletes to the campus." In describing the program Whitey set the record straight on a few points. Dartmouth is interested in athletics, and it does recruit. However, athletes are accepted only if they qualify as students. Like all members of the Ivy League, the College is a "need" not a "scholarship institution; that is, financial aid is granted only for need, not for athletic (nor any other) prowess. President Dave McLaughlin is interested in sports and wants Dartmouth to field winning teams, but not by violating the principles of the league. Athletics is an integral part of the college program but not an end in itself. If you are interested in the sponsor program, contact Whitey at his office in the gym.
The news is old by now, but sometimes even old news warrants repetition, especially when the news is special. The College has accepted a significant gift to support the John Sloan Dickey Endowment for International Understanding. The Norman E. McCulloch '17 Fund will promote the language and foreign study curriculum and selected activities related to the overall purpose of the endowment. The fund was donated by Neil Mc-Culloch and Sandy McCulloch in honor of their father, a lifelong advocate of international studies after his own experience at the University of Edinburgh after serving in France during World War I.
Tidbits here and there: Jim Vail represented the College at the inauguration of Denison's president. King Kenny attended a Los Angeles fund-raiser for the re-election of Quentin Kopp '49 to the San Francisco board of supervisors. Also seen at the event: VallyChamberlain. No classmate has been in space, but Mac Grant's spirit was there when the space shuttle launched his toy, ERBS (the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite). After more than 25 years in corporate banking WaltFisher, who has been among the missing for years, has become an agent for The Equitable. Wedding bells rang for Dorothy Gough and Frank Lion last June. Although he still peddles some paper and more plastics, DickZeising is happier playing grandfather. Taking a break from the bridge table, the redoubtable Ed Gulick lunched with Georgeand Val Duffy on Penobscot Bay.
It's time to stop, time to step outside and enjoy this touch of spring. Winter is sure to return, but not so bitterly. We'll savor this interlude. For you it's time to dust off the racquets and the clubs for the new season. It's time to enjoy yourself with a moment in the sun. Have fun. And cheers.
A trio of '49s gathered at the home of Bob and Nadine Johnson in Altamonte Springs, Via., to enjoyeach other's company and to share in a newfound interest, "beanbagging." They are, left to right,Gordon Parsons, Bob Johnson, and John Everatt.
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