1932

Imagine attributing "Dartmouth Undying" to Richard Hovey! (As someone did on the staff of Dartmouth Life.) Well . . . yes, I can. Among young people the authorship of great Dartmouth anthems must be pretty unimportant. To one old bird it is very important, but that's because I remember Franklin McDuffee '21.

Thanks, Professor McDuffee, for my abiding love of the Romantic poets. By the time I was majoring in English, I had finally learned how to study. Right after class I used to review voluminous notes scribbled an hour before. I really "hit" the final. To my surprise, Bob Ryan did too. McDuffee seated students alphabetically, so Bob sat next to me. He never took a note. Amazing.

Bob was a brilliant guy, talented in many ways. Who remembers that he won first prize ($60) in an experimental theater one-act playwrighting contest? (Carlos Baker came in third.) Amonth before our graduation three prize-winning plays were presented in Robinson Hall. I was taking Warner Bentley's play production course, and, by a fluke (we drew straws), it was my good fortune to direct "The Visitor" by Robert B. Ryan. Kim Flaccus '33, in the title role (Death), looked sinister in Professor Skinner's Inverness cape, the only Inverness in Hanover, maybe in the United States. (I borrowed it myself and dutifully returned it to the professor's house on Rope Ferry Road.)

In the fifties I came across Bob's typed script of The Visitor among my souvenirs. He was then supplementing what must have been a substantial motion picture income by appearing in a stage company production of Timon ofAthens. I returned the manuscript with apologies for keeping it so long. "It still reads well," he wrote me, or words to that effect. "I believe I could have gone in either direction, playwrighting or acting." Ah, the road not taken.

But to go back: did you ever thank a teacher or coach for all he did for you? I wish I had been thoughtful or mature enough to make a bow to Franklin McDuffee, Royal Case Nemiah, or Anton Raven, among others. I note that William H. Spoor '46, honored at the kickoff dinner for Will to Excel, gave recognition to his mentor, coach Elliot B. Noyes. Good to be thanked while you're still living, right, Ellie?

Let's do more reminiscing at our 60th next month, gang. See you there.

Box 286, Grantham, NH 03753