1935
I am now a fully qualified expert on the symptoms and aftereffects of a disorder best described as the "Feast and Famine Syndrome," My last two or three columns have required extensive editing to fit them into the 800-word straitjacket that has been ordained for class notes in our age group. This column starts with the minimal resources of two letters and a green postcard (plus another card that fell between the pre-reunion cracks due to my own obtuseness, about which more later).
No master of the loaves and fishes technique, I have elected to delve into the past for filler material and trust you will find this as interesting as I did. After all, whether my news is three months old (thanks to the Magazine's 60-day lead time), or 20 years old is purely a matter of relativity.
As to the "current" news, a letter from Vank Price provides the welcome intelligence that the Great Class has acquired two new adopted classmates: JacquelynnBaas, director of the Hood Museum, and Shelton Stanfill, who succeeded adopted classmate Peter Smith as director of Hopkins Kenter. The Great Class has more class than ever!
The other letter, from Jim Berkey, is a copy of his fund-raising appeal to his Tuck School classmates and conveys the bad news that Jim has undergone openheart surgery, plus the good news that he has made a full recovery and is not only back in harness, but planning to resume skiing and tennis come spring.
The green card is from Sel Hannah, the class skimeister, advising that his granddaughter, Eva Pfosi '88, as captain of the women's ski team, represents the Hannah family's third generation on the Hanover slopes, Sel's two sons having skiied for Dartmouth in the sixties. Classier and classier we get!
That being all I have to report from current sources, I decided to follow the lead of a local paper and take a look at what the Great Class was doing 20 years ago. For this information I am indebted to the Big Green Eyeshade Men, in the pages of some old copies of the "Tear Bag." As a matter of fact, it was in 1966 that DeroSaunders joined Reg Bankart as coeditor a synergistic arrangement that gives us a class newsletter that has at least three times the quality of any other.
One item in a 1966 "Tear Bag" has a certain current relevance because the aforementioned Lost Postcard came from Rocky Rockwell last April. It is worth reprinting in full: "On April 14 I stood at the North Pole for a couple of hours. While there I walked around in a big circle passing through all the time zones plus tomorrow then back to today. Reached the Pole by stages in a Twin Otter plane a workhorse of the Arctic from Resolute, NWT. Saw my old roommate Link Washburn and wife Tahoe in Washington recently after a lapse of some 40 years. Link is an Arctic authority, and he and Tahoe have been going to Resolute each summer for several years for postretirement research." (A photo of Rocky at the Pole appeared in the October 1985 issue of the Magazine.) The 1966 article had to do with Rocky's recent (as of then) trip to Europe, during which he and his son had made an ascent of the Matterhorn. Rocky commented then that he thought his time from the base hut to the peak (four and a half hours) was better than his time 31 years previously. And now the North Pole? Still classier we get.
Other items in those 1966 newsletters: Bob McLellan's hole in one on Wood-stock's Jack-O-Lantern CC's 185-yard seventh hole (with a four-wood I would have needed a two even in those days). Question, Bob: any more since 1966?
George Colton's elevation to the exalted position of vice president of the College. Chick Harrison's horse falling into a neighbor's swimming pool (shades of Charlie Tosi's horse-in-the-bathtub story!).
Ruby Field's publication of a cookbook of "Favorite Dartmouth Recipes." (Reg claimed he was using it himself makes one wonder what Babs did at suppertime.) Question, Ruby: any more since? I'm looking for nourishing recipes that require no more than 10 minutes preparation plus two in the microwave.
Fall reunion statistics (34 classmates) and Alumni Fund figures ($47,200 for the class and $1,938,000 for the College). We've come a long way since!
Statistics on scholarship students (the principal beneficiaries of our Alumni Fund contributions): higher scholastic achievement than the class average; president of the Undergraduate Council; president and editor of The Dartmouth; senior class president; Palaeopitus chairman; captains of the football, baseball, basketball, and ski teams; football and baseball managers; and a bunch of Phi Beta Kappas.
I suspect the statistics haven't changed all that much in 20 years. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?
Peace and love to you all.
1936 50TH survival with class
Box 986 Sag Harbor, NY 11963
