1949

68 Country Club Drive San Francisco, CA 94132

While visiting daughter Christine in Newark, Calif., Kay and Nels Abrahamsen favored your correspondent with several hours on memory lane, as well as stringent comment about contemporary affairs of government and public policy. Their daughter Laura '85 was recently married, and son Erik, a graduate of Hobart-William Smith Colleges, practices law in Cleveland. At Hobart, incidentally, Erik roomed for one semester with one of Deke Jackson's sons. Christine is a television news editor at Channel 36 in San Jose.

Speaking of Deke Jackson, Jeanne and he have moved to Glenbrook, Nev., on the east shore of Lake Tahoe. Deke remains robustly active in underwriting and similar financial affairs in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere.

Nels Abrahamsen also reports that long, lost classmate Bill Marden and his wife, Joan, now reside during the winter months in Panama City, Fla. Bill, known as "The Whippet" in his intramural basketball years at Alumni Gymnasium, retired as a practicing architect in Albany, N.Y., earlier in the year. His permanent residence is in Cambridge, N.Y., and we await further scintillating details of Bill's life since he was last seen at our 15th Reunion.

The indefatigable Nels advises that AL Sullivan, originally from Dorchester, Mass., former navy pilot, has been practicing his skills as a professor at Lyndon Johnson's alma mater, San Marcos State College in San Marcos, Texas.

Although his obituary was iterated in last month's issue, there is more to recall about Cal Titus. Ted Barnett wrote me in March, recalling that Cal and he grew up in Glencoe, 111., although there was "a tremendous disparity in our ages" (Cal was a year older), and 10-year-olds do not "hobnob" with 9-year olds. Cal broke the rule by always giving Ted a "big warm smile." (Ted wonders whether Cal's romantic interest in his sister had anything to do with that kind treatment.) Their neighborhood playground featured "the world's largest moveup scrub game," with at least 25 outfielders and a dozen or so shortstops. From right field to batting consumed about 45 minutes, but everyone with a modicum of athletic ability played every day. Cal's role, whether in deep center field or at shortshop, was relay man, since he possessed "an arm rivaling Joe DiMaggio, Terry Moore, Frank Demaree, and Wally Berger." In Ted's words: "Ground balls were perfunctorily shoveled to this flame thrower. And woe to him who was on the receiving end of one of those missiles. The sheer velocity made them very, very heavy. They bent a lot of fingers back, including mine." Some years later Cal and Ted were seniors at Dartmouth. Leaving a Dragon party at 4:00 a.m. for New York City, where each had a date, they sailed "through the cold night in a drafty old Ford convertible that was Cal's pride and joy even though he was but part owner. His demeanor was that of some Italian duke at the wheel of a vintage Alfa or Ferarri. Fie was slit-eyed and alternately sucking on a Chesterfield and some 99-cent Lebanon-liquor-store zinfandel. As we rolled coolly through Connecticut, just beginning to taste the upcoming weekend, the sleek yellow phaeton literally blew up, exploding in a shower of shattered cylinder heads and valves. We didn't know for a few moments whether we were dead or alive. There we sat, in open-mouthed horror, engulfed in thick, black smoke. Cal, who had lost everything, realized that this was vintage Laurel and Hardy. Blazer covered with zinfandel, he leaned back and whooped with laughter.

"So, here's a guy with a helluva arm and prince of a personality and he's gone. I feel badly for Denise, and I feel badly for everyone who knew Cal." Thank you, Ted Barnett.