1933

Interesting to be back here after 45 years. It's a long way from Hopkins to Freedman, but perhaps not so far from Cannell to Teevens. We're sorry that Waxy Wright's eye problem is the occasion of our return, but we're happy to report that in spite of gradual loss of sight, he remains upbeat and follows the stumbling course of the Big Green footballers with fingers crossed.

After a pleasant chat with Mary Frances(Bacon), a Hitchcock nursing alumna, we recently bearded her husband, Reverend Robert L. James Jr. at his quarters at the Conwell Foundation at Temple University. Bob, a 1937 graduate of Yale Divinity School, served as campus minister at Temple for 25 years and, upon retirement, moved as an advisor and researcher to the foundation which provides upgrading for students coming out of the Philadelphia school system by furnishing services and support which fit them to join the mainstream of higher education. Three to four hundred graduates a year enter this vitally productive program and the results are tangible and visible. Kudos to you, Robert.

Ned Lord provided another example of golden-age sprightliness when our call found him upon a ladder preparing for threatened storms by covering up holes in the facade of the 186-year-old Lord homestead in Limington, Maine. Anne, his wife, left off painting their massive cookstove to summon him from his perch. Both are well, but Ned, old chubber that he is, deplores the admission of females to that former bastion of masculinity, Cabin & Trail. Also laments the adiquity on campus of the "three letter word."

In the midst of euphoria, a reminder of the common fragile state of 1933 came with the news that Bob Mitchell had just suffered a mild stroke. In mid-November he was in Newton-Wellesley Hospital, but was expected shortly to leave for a course of rehabilitation. He was reputed to deny that the political demise of his idol, Mike Dukakis, had anything to do with his attack.

While accounts of septuagenarians necessarily touch upon the ills the flesh is heir to, we are fortunate to have at least one spirited member on the distaff side who scoffs at physical disabilities. Reliable reports picture Ginnye Mackey disregarding a healed broken hip and a recently fractured wrist and, as a femme fatale in a long gown, dominating an adoring crowd from a high bar stool at the recent wedding of her grandson. Wah hoo wah!

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