1941

It's still mostly thunder from the right that rolls across the pages of DFTD one letter-writer hung a "self-RIGHT eous" label on me, of all things (my emphasis) and The New York Times carried "Dartmouth columns" October 26 and November 6. The first, by Edward B. Fiske, had this heading: "The thrust now at Dartmouth is to make the life of the party think about the life of the mind." Allan R. Gold started the second one this way: "A bitter war of words between Dartmouth College and a rightwing student weekly has erupted again, this time over a satirical column likening the school's president to Adolf Hitler, and the effects of his campus policies to the Holocaust." This "war" was a subject of "60 Minutes" a while ago, and all of us have received a copy of the November 5 letter from the chairman of the Board of Trustees to the president, as well as two reprints from the Review.

What is the writer of class notes to make of it all? Readers of these notes, aware of opinions previously expressed here, will not be surprised to learn that I empathize with the Trustees' "resentment and anger" and understand why they are "shocked and outraged at recent statements in the Review ..." (see Gold above). And I'm glad the board decided "to speak out" against what it perceives to be "unfair distortions, ignorance, and moral blindness." So, too, for classmates, always, right or wrong, but not to the detriment of the class by opting out of the 50th two and a half years hence. C'mon guys, hang in there, tune in at the campus, see for yourselves what's going on. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Bill Hotaling reports a changing of the guard for the Big One: Steve Winship will co-chair with Bill in lieu of Bob Koenig who unfortunately had to cut out for health reasons. More about Roy Rowan from Dick Krolick via Bob Harvey: under contract with Time, Roy observed basic troop training in the Soviet Union, his article appearing in the magazine last November. Roy, by the way, currently heads up the Time-Life Alumni Society. Bob passed up the mini in favor of Barbara's high school 50th. (Next fall's get-together will take place October 13-15. Mark it down right now.) Correspondence with Bruce Brown about meeting in California, and a note from Alan Stern. Slow going with the epitaphs, however. None from the class, but Bob Nutt '49, DAM's alumni news editor, offers: "He was always over-programmed." And I recently came across Dorothy Parker's "Pardon my dust." How about that.

Dan Provost had to back off from the mini because of his wife's illness, and GusBroberg presided at the class meeting. I didn't make it, you may recall, because of hospice orientation for volunteers. Hospice, I learned, more than providing care and comfort to the terminally ill, "is about waking up to ourselves and those we care about before it is too late, for we need to be fully awake before we can say 'hello,' and saying hello is a necessary prelude to saying goodbye." Shalom.

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