1955

As is evident anytime any of us drive back up to New England, particularly to Hanover (but you can go a lot of other places and see the same), there are an awful lot of mountains and hills and a great many trees covering those mountains and hills. And, in spite of what Vermont and New Hampshire have to say about the color of each state, those hills are generally white in the winter in both states and green the rest of the year, except for that season after winter and before spring when everything seems to be grey. So it was nice to see Ted Chadbourne, down from Bethel, Maine, to help sell trees (actually trees that had been cut up into nice, tidy little shipshape pieces which he markets as boards). Ted is running the family lumber and sawmill business, P.H. Chadbourne and Company, a job he comes by honestly (or at least it's in his genes). The Chadbournes started one of the first sawmills in America in 1634, and their present operation was founded by Ted's grandfather. The power source started as steam, then went to gas, then electricity. Ted has now gone back to steam-burning wood residue and is using his newly installed German system to sell, over the next 12 years, $20 million worth of electricity to Central Maine Power Company. That's a lot of trees to make a lot of boards to make a lot of wood residue to be able to create enough steam to make enough electricity to charge the local utility $1.8 million dollars a year. Some may want to credit this to Ted's M.B.A. from Harvard, but the more logical suspicion is all those Yankee genes piling up on one another and coming up with a nice, logical answer. Next thing you know,"Ted will be just cutting up wood to be able to make the steam to sell the electricity and forget about the boards. Perhaps the best fact of the whole installation is that they have a smoke stack 100 feet tall, probably the biggest thing in all of Bethel. Charlie Warner has to move over slightly to allow Ted's youngest, Teri, who has just turned five, to join in this select group of youngest kids in the class.

But there is good authority that trees are not the only subject that comes to mind when driving around New England. In the March issue of Yankee Magazine, Jud Hale is off and running again, saying, "It was not all coincidental that our search for available homes on village greens in southeastern Connecticut just had to begin in Hanover, N.H." The reason was fairly obvious, for that "Vox Clamantis in Deserto" is Jere Daniell, who can back up his opinions with facts and who has added credentials coming from Maine. It was a clever way for Jud to find out that "smalltown New England" brings to mind a white church with a steeple which, of course, sits on .the village green. (For those of us educated in a small New England town with a white church not quite on the Green, our immediate recollection is either of a bonfire on the Green or trying to stay on the duckboards during schlump while Hanover melted. Unless, of course, it was road trips to girls' colleges which did sit, more or less, on town greens, but then again we are diverted from the image that Jere talks about.)

However, John Bassette is more interested in images, for he's in the real estate business in Quechee, Vt. He has the good fortune to have his son, John, UVM '84, in business with him. It may be the best of all worlds. John indicates he has just listed Joe Gahra's property in Newbury, Vt., without saying whether Joe is coming or going. Bob MacFadyen, John's roommate, still communicates regularly. Bob is still with WESVACO and is moonlighting in securities.

Up the road in Killington, Pete Sarty on his second try got elected to the Vermont House as the representative of a four-town district. As Pete comments, "It surely wasn't on Ronnie's coattails, as the Democrats swept the state, including the governor, (the first woman) in the state's history!" Pete is now spending four days a week in Montpelier and "trying not to go crazy." (Having spent New Year's week skiing in Killington with the temperature at 62 degrees and the mountain melting, in a huge thaw, Pete is obviously determined to diversify from a ski shop alone.)

And then there is John French in New York City, not far from the biggest village green in all the land, who has just become a partner in the law firm of Beveridge and Diamond on Park Avenue. (That's OK, of course, but where is the white church with the steeple?)

Of course, Paul Zimmerman, who lives in Chevy Chase and who is now practicing corporate and litigation law with the firm of Wolf and Wolf in Washington, has probably the tallest steeple in the land in the Washington Monument. (Of course, it's not really white, and it certainly isn't a church, but it is set on a very nice village green.) Paul indicates that his son, Jeff '81, is an assistant district attorney in NYC and his other son, John (Columbia '83), is a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. His daughter, Julia, is a sophomore at Cornell, which leaves him and his wife, Margot, caught between missing the "action" at home and loving their independence. (Nice quandary.)

Which is all to say if you really want to know about village greens, you have to read Jere's article. It's in Yankee Magazine.

The class of 1954 turned out in record numbers for a mini-reunion in New York City. For the namesof those pictured, see the class of '54 notes.

1800 Valley Square Road Newton Square, PA 19073