1938

OPEN & SHUT CASE. A clipping from the Boston Herald describes a bizarre accident in Saugus, Mass., occasioned when a drawbridge on Route 107 suddenly popped up without benefit of human guidance and demolished the Mercedes that slammed into it. The only reason for mentioning the subject is the bridge itself. It is named, alliteratively, the Beldon Bly Bridge, as in Beldon G. Bly Jr.

DEDICATION ABOVE AND BEYOND, ETC. Via our proactive cruise director comes this example of The Spirit of '38 a la Russ Dow: "Enclosed, my check for registration for the mini-reunion. If by chance I am unable to attend, please put the deposit in the class treasury." Nice, huh?

A prince, and more, Russ was crowned King Regent of the Pioneers of Alaska last summer. The coronation announcement carried this revealing sign of the times: "Royalty please bring robes, crowns and tiaras."

Russ also trekked to Fairbanks to help the Pioneers with the Fairbanks Golden Days celebration and, earlier, to Juneau as a local delegate to the State Convention of Retired Federal Employees. Sounds like Russ is driving a pretty husky schedule.

MOONEY-REUNION. Turn green, DickFrancis—Fran Mooney has you topped. The Mooneys hold two reunions a year, with 25 or so of the clan attending. This year's first was in July. The other is being billed as "Thanks giving in October," inasmuch as Fran will be spending the real turkey day in Vermont, visiting the last remaining member (age 93) of his mother's family. In between such gatherings, Fran built a new house and has been working on a new dock/beach area. Fran and Gin were in York Harbor, Maine, in June, to help celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Jim and Ginnie Garvey, as were Bill andKay Main.

HI, NEIGHBOR! Class secretaries as a genre often have it tough. They have to search, dig, pry, even threaten, to uncover an iota of news. So when news comes at them, unsolicited, they should be excused for being flabbergasted. So it was with the perpetrator of this column when a tap, tap, tap on his hedge-clipping shoulder was followed by a "Hi, I'm Hal Rasmussen, class 0f '38." Seems that Hal and Sally have bought the house just across the street, and Hal recognized the name of a fellow classmate on a whale house-sign.

Hal has been living in picturesque Rye, N.Y., and was in the process of moving to gay, exotic Old Greenwich, Conn. Carrying on his association with things medical (he served with a WW II medical battalion in Europe), Hal has been doing volunteer work at local hospitals.

CLASS ACT. As quondam professor of English like, you know, plus does anybody remember what that is? at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., Dick Niebling probably ruled on a few of the dreaded Fatal Errors (of grammar) that guaranteed automatic grade failure on a paper, in years gone by. Anyway, Dick, who retired after 30 years of professor-ing and chairing the English department, first dove into town politics and now mostly "putters around."

"Puttering" includes a visit to Hanover to attend a Haydn concert at the Hopkins Center. He mentions seeing Bob Reno and DaveBradley occasionally.

Gene Waggamam, 15 Shore road, Old Greenwich, CT 06870