1963

"I'm glad I came. It feels very good to be here." With those words, Joel Werbel of Warren, N.J., summed up the feelings of nearly 300 classmates (298 to be exact, a new College record) who journeyed from many points of the globe to Hanover for our largest reunion since that warm day in June 25 years ago when it all became history.

Joel's observation, clearly induced by three of the richest days one could ever spend under the sun and stars, came on Saturday evening as it was winding down if hundreds of men, women and children, like Roger and Maureen Parkinson of Minneapolis, Phil and Laura Fisher of Lexington, Mass., Richard and Carol Berkowitz of Westport, Conn., Barrett and Merry AnnJohnson, Tallahassee, David and FereshtehBoldt, Philadelphia, at al, talking and reminiscing with long lost friends till the wee hours, downing a few, and dancing to the wildest bands this side of the Connecticut can be described as "winding down." And if the Heartbreakers, one of two bands imported for the occasion, needed a match, they found it Saturday night in the rockin' ensemble of '63s gathered for the occasion with Bruce Nichols and Brig Buettner as vocals, Marty McMullen on lead guitar, Clark Edwards on rhythm guitar, John Lehman on bass guitar, and Pete Cornish and Bob Haubrich alternating on drums.

They were show-stoppers, those merry troubadours, in a four-day hit that took 25 years to open. And it did on Thursday, June 16, at 10:00 a.m. at Buchanan Hall, an until now hardly-known dorm next to Tuck School that many of us got to know as home for the next four days.

Four years in four days! So many friends, so many impressions, so many activities, and so little time. It was best to just take it one step at a time: a program on Dartmouth parents and children with Bob Baker and Lara '88, Sam Cabot and Samuel '91, JimCogswell and Carolyn '90, Doug Cooper and Bryan '89, Jim Friedman and Laura '91, Skip Mattoon and Ashley '91, and JimPucklin and Barbara '89.

A reception, dinner, "Nostalgia Night," and the debut of the Heartbreakers sent us through Thursday as the '63s streamed in. Steve Anderson, San Francisco lawyer outdoorsman, rode nine hours on a bus from New York.

Steve Macht flew from L.A. to Washington, D.C., to Hartford and drove because when he was a student, he "always came through Hartford."

A stirring "Dartmouth Retrospective" by Professor James Wright after a mini-marathon and breakfast set us off on Friday morning and Steve Macht, Peter Goldman, and Bill Daniels elicited inspirational outbursts at "The New Us" from the likes of Paul Binder (first '63 to win an honorary degree from Dartmouth for founding the Big Apple Circus), Frank deSerio, EdMcCabe, Dave Dawley, Dave Saunders, and Jeff Galper among others.

With John Merrow and his MacNeil-Lehrer camera crew never far behind, we went through a Storrs Pond picnic, dinner, visiting in President Freedman's garden, the Glee Club, and Danny and The Juniors. That was followed on Saturday by either a trip to Mt. Moosilauke or President Freedman in a morning Q&A and a full-house panel led by Dartmouth psychologist Pam Kneisel and panelists Bob and Gayle Baker, Peter and Lillian Stern, and Steve and JoanSwirsky.

We ran again Sunday morning, said fare well at breakfast, and remembered our departed classmates at a memorial service led by Rev. Dr. David Goodwillie.

The campus began to empty but not before some of us began talking about our 30th.

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