1930

Right on my mid-August notes deadline for the October issue I received the final report on the 1986 Alumni Fund. It shows 1930 leading the pack, just two donors short of 100-percent participation. However, an added page says, in caps, "The Class of 1930 Achieved, Once Again This Year, 100 Percent Participation," and they apologize for an error in their report. To the best of my knowledge no other class has ever done it twice. Congratulations to Ave Raube for a great job, and a WahHoo-Wah for a great class!

One of my rewards for sending something to Alex McFarland is the nice letter of thanks I get back from daughter Carol Seidler, though I wouldn't want Alex to think that's my reason for doing it. Carol says Alex is in excellent health, alert, well organized, very interested in his mail and other news, and does a daily three-mile ride on his exercise bike. He was elated about the Celtics' victorious season, and views the Red Sox with hope. It would be great if he could be elated about a Dartmouth team too.

I got a double reward this time, as Carol had just had a call from Dick Bowlen, who she says is just a vivacious and thoughtful as ever. Dick sounded "just great" and reported that he and Gwen are getting along all right.

Most of us have been aware of the universal acclaim bestowed upon Pat and LizWeaver's talented daughter, Sigourney, for her lead role in the movie Aliens, even by those critics who took a more restrained view of the movie itself. LeeChilcote sent me a long article from the Detroit News, which reports that Aliens took in $13.4 million in its first five days, and "those close to the negotiations" say Sigourney was paid almost a million dollars plus a percentage of the profits. (Does Pat claim her as a dependent?) The News adds that the producer refused to make this sequel to the 1979 classic, Alien, without Sigourney playing her original role.

I had a fine letter from Bill Fenton, who, you remember, lost his bride of 50 years last April. He reminisced about their early days and about a trip in the English countryside he and Olive took a little over a year ago, enclosing an interesting article he had written for ClearwaterCurrents about "A Trout Day on Beat No. 1, The Arundel Arms, Devon, England." Knowing of no serious competitors in the class, I appoint Bill the 1930 Isaak Walton. Though he and Olive were regulars at our June reunions, Bill has not been a participant in the fall mini-reunion, because it frequently conflicts with the Conference on Iroquois Research, which he started in 1945. Maybe this year?

The itinerant Chuck and Bobbie Jacobs have just returned from a two-month swing around the Pacific. First they visited friends near San Francisco, just like other people. But then: a Royal Princess cruise to Alaska; then Fiji; Sydney, Australia; two days by train to Alice Springs; nine days in Australia's Northern Territory; Singapore; Kuala Lumpur; Bangkok; an 11-day Pearl cruise to Brunei, Kbta Kinabala, Cebu, Manila, Whampoa, and Hong Kong; Hong Kong for a week (good place to get your laundry done); 12 days in China, including a five-day Yangtze cruise; Hong Kong for five more days; and finally homeward with a stopover in Seoul. For the second time they had planned to go around the world but had to settle for this little jaunt because of preparations for new editions of their South Pacific and Far East Digests. OK-I travel too, to Woodstock via Clearwater, Fla.

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