1942

This is my maiden voyage in this space, so I hope you will bear with me. At the moment I have no idea what heading I should steer—like a captain who watches in horror as he fumbles his sealed orders over the side. At our 50th Reunion my mentor and counselor Proc Page promised to give me an early and thorough briefing on my new class secretarial duties. Unfortunately, I'm told, he has been held up by an onerous task on his native Burlington heath: something to do with studying the probability that a small, white, pock-marked ball can be induced to fall into a series of holes by flailing at it, sequentially, with a club. We should be proud that one of our classmates still has the energy to take on such a burdensome assignment.

Fortunately, my confidence has been raised by a letter and packet received from a "guardian angel" at the DAM, including a most readable stylebook summarizing the spelling and usage preferences of this fine publication. The last style book I read was the Dartmouth's, 54years ago. It was so fascinating I read it from cover to cover. The last style book I read was The Dartmouth's, 54 years ago. I can still see the motto: "Accuracy, Terseness, Accuracy."

But this is not like writing for a newspaper. The DAM lead-time is two months, so I'm writing this in July and you'll be reading it in September! By that time the Fantastic 50th will seem a distant memory. Proc covered it in his last column (and Lipp in the Newsletter), but I do want to thank all of you who took the time to seek out Betty and me and say nice things about the 50th Reunion Book. We really appreciated that, and also the many letters and postcards from classmates and widows after they received their books in May.

Ken and Delia Lesure were looking forward to attending the 50th but had to cancel at the last minute after deciding that the emotional component would be likely to upset the delicate balance of his very rare cardiac condition. But, Ken writes, "Last weekend was a real Dartmouth weekend for me. Joe Logan and Dave Allen called on Friday. That evening Dick Page '54, the first of my students to go to Dartmouth and now a member of the Board, called to tell me he had arranged to have a professional photographer take a picture of him and Melissa Blackman in front of the Hopkins Center. Melissa, granddaughter of Bob Blackman, was the last of my 91 students to go to Dartmouth. She just finished her sophomore year and, in die family tradition, she is the manager of the varsity football team. The next morning I had a call from Krete. In Monday's mail I received a letter from the entire Blackman clan and also a lovely letter from a member of the class of '92, one of my penpals in the program instituted by Ad. So I was at the reunion in spirit." We missed you, Ken, but are glad you had all that warm support from your friends.

Warning to all '42s: there won't be a column here next month unless you write to me! I promise to reply. Or NOT to reply, whichever you prefer.

Alex Fanelli,56 Cityside Drive, Montpelier VT 05602