1929

Our mini-reunion on the September 19 Princeton game weekend will find the Hood Museum with an exhibit called "Dartmouth Alumni and Friends Collect." Merrill Beede and Web Goodwin will have collectibles on display. All of you who are in town, do come to the Executive Committee meeting on Sunday morning. We hope to see our latest member, Rusty Ayers, unless he's at a meeting of the elders of his Cherokee tribe.

Some of us were disturbed at the graphic reports of the College's program against AIDS as shown on the Today and Phil Donahue programs. Dr. John Turco, head of our College Health Service spoke to our Cape Cod club in February and showed the segment of the Today show. Seventy-five alums and wives agreed the College is doing what it must. Al Finlay, Matt Rock, Bill Magenau, and I sat together and were proud of Dr. Turco and his work.

The Kaffee Klatsch picture in the March issue showed Dick Black, Earl Fyler, LarryLougee, and Phil Mayher. Did I miss anyone? I'm told the whole Klatsch agreed on what the College is doing about AIDS.

We don't all agree on things in Hanover. I was shaken when one of our widely honored classmates said, "That McLaughlin is almost as bad as Hopkins." My unwavering respect for Hoppy and Dave is undimmed. The speaker would scorn John Moxon, who bought up the bookstore's whole stock of Hopkins at Dartmouth and gave it to the library to make sure every Dartmouth lover could read it.

Jim Hodson's daughter Julie wrote that Jim's wife, Hessie, died on January 5. Jim's special mark on '29 and on his world has kept many of us in touch with her for years. She leaves Julie, a daughter, Elizabeth Dare, of London, England, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Art Clow died on February 7. Art and I met before Dartmouth and both entered Western Electric after graduation. He rose to its top ranks and was a key figure in its war efforts.

Moxon and Ripley disagree again over the furor about our Alma Mater. We do agree with Max Culpepper, our outstanding coordinator of music, that our rousing, easy to sing tune is perhaps irreplaceable. Max says, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water!" Most of our women students are wonderfully tolerant about our traditions, but two-thirds of them voted to have, eventually, a song that doesn't cut them out.

Why don't we use words that let some of us sing the old version while others (including me) sing in almost undetectable union: Come, for Dartmouth give a rouse for the College on the Hill, For the lone pine above her and the loyal ones who love her. Give a rouse, give a rouse with a will, For our love of old Dartmouth, undying love for Dartmouth Though 'round the girdled earth we roam, her spell on us remains. We have the still North in our hearts, the hill winds in our veins, And the granite of New Hampshire in our muscles and our brains.

You'll hardly notice the difference. It'll do 'til something else comes along. Let some of us old timers bend first.

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