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A recent chat with our fellow backstroker of old, Dr. Fred Helmholz, reveals that he is taking things relatively easy in Rochester, Minn., where he is recovering well from prostate surgery. His graphic metaphor for that medical process is "the rotorooter." He retired from the Mayo Clinic 15 years ago but keeps active as a member of the national board which issues certificates for technicians in the field of respiratory therapy, some 27,000 of whom take tests annually. Fred also teaches at the Mayo Respiratory Therapy School, an avocation which he loves. He still paddles about in the pool in his condominium to keep the blood flowing and the muscles pliant. His wife Mary died in 1983, but his three children have been "precious" in easing his single status.

Gordon Ferrie Hull Jr. averred that he was "up to no good" when queried about his present doings. It turns out that what he means is sitting in his twenty-room house at Rockport, Mass., and watching the storms that beat on the coast beyond his door. Technically retired, he has served on the town planning board and does occasional consulting work in astrophysics ("planetary physics about the rings of Saturn and all that stuff"). From time to time when the sea is calm, he sails about in his Pierson boat. The five children of Gordon and Mona (one daughter is married to a Dublin professor) have produced ten offspring with more of the latter in prospect. Gordon's principal connection with Hanover today is through a granddaughter who is an undergraduate. He feels that "things are going not nearly as well as they should be" on campus and raises an eyebrow over the number of courses which "are for the birds." In the current state of society, one has to "keep a sense of humor or he'll be done in," he says. He finds it an "amusing" time to be alive.

The tense international situation brings memories of the days leading up to World War II when people like Carl Hopkins were actively working for peaceful solutions of critical problems by organizing groups such as the Green International. He is not engaged in comparable activities today, he told us recently, but he maintains an active schedule including substantial travel. He has just concluded a report to the University of California which involved a trip to Berlin last summer to study the problems of the Turkish guest workers in that city.

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