1953

Father Ed Boyle should be writing this, since he's heard from practically everybody in the class. He's back at his office after his heart bypass and is doing well. Ed's work with the Labor Guild is sponsored by the Archdiocese, and its role is to keep labor and management talking instead of fighting. There's a night school for workers telling how the economic system works.

Tom Bloomer had a hip replaced in late February which kept him out of the varsityalumni lacrosse game, but he is off for family visits in Chicago (new grandchild) and L.A. Says he's too busy in retirement and maybe should retire.

I thought I'd have some late-breaking news on the rail impasse from Bill Barlow. He had an offer he couldn't refuse for early retirement from Conrail, where three or four youngsters are now trying to do his job while he's playing a lot of golf. For his entire career he's been a railroad office equipment and computer specialist, starting with the N.Y. Central (I remember their famous Christmas va- cation trains from Norwich to Chicago), then the Penn Central, and on to Conrail. He's lived in King of Prussia for 23 years. He found you can't learn RR operations in school and is sorry that Conrail and railroads are run by non-operating financial types.

How was lunch today? Big Mac? Eggs benedict? Phil Beekman takes another approach. I caught him at his office in Cincinnati after his five-mile lunchtime ran and just before his next trip. He's working about 70-80 hours a week, and most of that traveling, a regimen he is not prescribing for most of us. He says business is perking up except in the Northeast, with which I can readily agree. Phil is president of Hook-Super X, formed in 1986 from the spin-off of 690 Kroger's Super X and Hook drugstores, and since expanded to 1,120 stores from Maine to Virginia and west to Illinois and Michigan. It's up there with Rite Aid, Walgreen, and CVS, and Phil is even favoring us with a store coming to Hanover. Most weekends he joins Nancy at Harbour Ridge and tells me that Howie Pitts is the newest '53 condo owner there.

Trying to scare up some construction business around here, I called Dick Dudley, our renowned architect, in Concord, N.H. He is doing better than surviving, designing several substantial residences in Concord and New London. Among other activities, he's a director (along with Dudley Orr '29) of one of our few solvent banks, Merrimack County Savings.

Fred Whittemore hosted a party at the Lynx Club in N.Y. for Paul Paganucci's retirement from W.R. Grace. Bob Callender,Gus Allen, Bob Malin, Hilti Rosen and JohnCorocoran were there. Pag has returned to Hanover and has resurfaced as leader of the Ledyard Bank, which opened its doors in late May.

Amid the corn fields in Dekalb, Ill., I caught Prof. Tom Blomquist before his next class. He's been a professor of medieval history there for 26 years since getting his Ph.D. at the U. of Minnesota. No need to retire, he says, since teaching two courses, reading, writing and travelling are just what he'd do anyway. He's a specialist in 13 th century Florentine/Etruscan history and goes to that part of Italy every summer. He's well recovered from a heart attack eight years ago. To play it safe, both son and daughter are married to doctors.

This is the last big '53 legacy graduation contingent. Wah-Hoo-Wahs for John Decker, Sam Kingsland, Andrew Douglass, Rob Malin, Michael Crotty, Dan Lena, Nell Wilson, and Karin Markey. Also for our grad students, Robert Douglass, Elizabeth Sigler, and Peter Henderson at Tuck and Bob Henderson in the MALS Liberal Arts Program. As Bob and Ray used to say, "write if you get work."

K-Ross, P.O. Box 436, Lebanon, NH 03766