1944

Our man in Saudi Arabia for the Iraq crisis has been Syd Bowers, consultant to Saudi Aramco and formerly chief geologist for the company when it was owned by four U.S. oil companies. Syd joined Aramco in 1949 and has spent a good part of his life in the Middle East. He was quoted in the August 23 issue of The Wall Street Journal as saying that Saudi Arabia would have no problem pumping an extra two million barrels of oil a day from its almost unlimited supply of crude.

Nearer home, wife Anne and I had a splendid three weeks in Alaska during July and August: we drove in a rented car from Anchorage to Seward to Homer to Kenai to Wasilla to Denali State Park to Fairbanks to Glennallen to Valdez to Whittier to Girdwood " to Anchorage, and then flew home to New Hampshire.

We weren't the only ones to have fun in Alaska. Rog and Shirley Feldman and Mickey ana Betty Smith also headed for the 49th state, as did Bob "Arizona"Miller, who we understand tootled around in his own camper. Any others? Do let me know.

The Smiths and Feldmans hooked up during visits to Glacier Bay, Anchorage, and Kennicutt Lodge northeast of Anchorage. The Smiths were happily visiting their lawyer son, his wife, and their grandson in Anchorage. There was a flight around Mt. McKinley, and then a fateful ferry ride, on which Roger Feldman fell and tore his thigh badly. He required hospitalization in Juneau, subsequent operations in Boston, and crutches back at their place on Martha's Vineyard.

Mickey is still earning his keep at General American Investors in New York City. The Smiths have sold their house in Chappaqua and are renting in Poundridge and apartmentizing in New York. Mickey is also chairman of the board of the New School for Social Research "The most exciting challenge of my life," he says and the Smiths have a second lawyer son working for public interest groups in Vermont.

We called the third member of that Middle Mass undergraduate triumvirate, Smith, Feldman and Al Myers, and Al is still in harness at Prudential Bache in Boston. He almost joined Mickey and Roger in Alaska, but instead headed to St. Louis, Mo., and a first reunion (45 years later) of his wartime PC 1120 group which fought in Leyte and other Pacific engagements. Amazingly, 20 members of Al's original crew were tracked down and made the reunion.

Other bits and pieces. Lem Arnold in Van Nuys, Calif., had to cancel his and Ellie's annual summer trek to Rhode Island because of an accident on his 10-speed bicycle which resulted in a broken collarbone. Herb Wolff, highly motivated and a highly un-retired lawyer in White Plains, N.Y., swept through New England playing in senior tennis tournaments, and incidentally guested with another 40-love tennis afficionado Eric Barradale (and wife Joan) in Guilford, N.H.

Mel Friberg still heads the family granite business in Barre, Vt., and he and merilyn have also bought a pad at Eastmans in Grantham, N.H. We were working the ticket booth at the Cornish Fair in August when they came up for a ducat.

Judge Monte Basbas took early retirement last April as Newton (Mass.) district court judge, one year before mandatory retirement age. Monte had taken a fair amount of flak for the past few years about his courtroom procedures, not unusual in Massachusetts politics.

Rally and Liz Scofield came through Hanover and the White Mountains visiting their daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. The Scofields live in Saint Michaels, Md., Rally having retired as a manufacturer's rep ten years ago. "I don't miss working one bit," he says.

We have just learned of the death in 1982 of William F. Abrams Jr., from a brain tumor.

That's it. Blessings.

P.O. Box 24, Lovejoy Hill, Cornish Flat, NH 03746