1948

It is now April in Hanover. Remember? The snow is gone (maybe), and Softball may once again be on the diamond at the senior fence. Which recalls one of the most genuinely well-liked citizens of the Hanover plain in our day, Dean Neidlinger. It's been mentioned herein before, but I'll never forget the ball he hit one evening almost fifty years ago in a game between the Friends of the Library and the College Athletic Supporters, a tremendously high, arching drive that landed at the far northeast corner of the green and bounced onto College Street where it promptly disappeared. Just one of the memories of our dean whom so many admired as one great guy, one who was an outstanding citizen and did so many good things for the community in addition to carrying out his sometimes very difficult job for the College with vigor and understanding. So many times, for example, we saw this man, always with a cheerful grin even when chilled to the bone, standing on a freezing winter hillside for hours checking slalom gates for high school and Dartmouth ski competitions! It's probably true they just don't make 'em like Pudge anymore. Your writer last saw the Dean in Hanover on a June day in 1973, that infectious smile still intact, and I little dreamed then it was to be the last time we spoke. It's a pleasure to remember this marvelous man who contributed so much to the Dartmouth of our time.

Mac MacGillivray, always a source of reminiscence about Dartmouth life of our day, remembers one black, moonless night deep in the countryside outside Philadelphia when he and buddy Bob Carpenter had hitchhiked a ride. In the blackness the ride came to a sudden, wild halt when Bob's side of the car was smashed in as they hit a horse. Or was it a horse ? George says they neither saw nor could find a horse, and the only way they knew it was a horse was when the local farmer, awakened by the crash, told them his stallion had kicked off the barn door and disappeared. The car was so badly mauled, however, that Mac now wonders if it was an elephant. This mystery was probably one of the subjects Carp and old friend Lew Stilwell talked and laughed about when Bob used to drop by at Lew's place on West Wheelock in the wee hours after closing the restaurant where he worked on Main Street.

Two '48 classmates at Shaker Heights High in Cleveland before heading for Dartmouth went in separate directions after Hanover, but the parallels in their careers are noteworthy. Bob Jeavons, now of Denver, is often mentioned here in connection with his career in personal finance, his devotion to and nationwide leadership in the cause represented by the National Arthritis Foundation, and his continuous support for his College on the Hill. Scane Bowler, for long of Florida's Clearwater area, has likewise spent a lifetime in finance, mostly in mutual funds, where he was an early pioneer via Pioneer Western Corp. Scane also serves worthy causes through his work with retarded and autistic children as well as in helping people "cope with the reality of dying through Hospice," the same group with which Rod Susen has been so outstandingly active in San Antonio. (More next month.)

Olympian Colin Stewart, resident of Avon near Vail and Beaver Creek, has retired as an architect but still flashes his skis down the mountainside and would love to hear from any '48s visiting his area of Colorado. His phone is 303/845-7931, and he will be sore at Walt Cairns if Walt loses the number again this year.

Speaking of friendships, all of us reluctantly note with great sadness the recent passing on of old stalwarts Eric Swanson and BobTracy. Their class's deep sympathies go out to the bereaved families.

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