1944

The countdown continues. Our 50th Reunion is just eight months away. You are reading this in November, wherever you are; we'll be looking for you in Hanover in June, however you get there.

An August note from Dan Kingston, a firstever, rates a Pleasant Surprise of the Month. Dan spent three years in the Army Air Corps, and finished college at his hometown University of Buffalo. He spent most of his career in the grain business (Farmers Feed Company), finally retiring to Easton, Md., a year ago. Dan's lifelong hobby has been retriever field trials, and he and his dogs have competed all over the country.

Karl Sorg writes ecstatically about retirement in Eugene, Ore. (near a son and four grandchildren and the ocean and mountains), although he does miss the East ("where I'd been planted over 70 years ago"). "I read lots," he says, "write short stories, do volunteer work with the local hunger program and with a local Episcopal church, and cheer on one of my soccer-playing grandsons. I've got to; his dad is the coach!"

Charlie Spallino is all heart, but his thoughtfulness didn't win me many brownie points with our Cornish Flat postmistress. After reading of Sigma Chi's liking for Pabst beer back in 1942, Charlie sent me a Pabst Bomber, from 1992, in the mail. I guess the cap blew from being fizzed around a lot, resulting in a pretty sodden, smelly package. The postmistress wonders about my drinking habits.

Shame on me: I neglected to report a year ago that Bud and Mibs Summerfield had been in Hanover for part of our October mini-reunion. Now retired, Bud spent his life in the automobile and truck business and still lives in Flint, Mich. Last March the Sarasota Dartmouth Club had the good sense to elect Ernie Rice as club president. Word has it that the club was never in better hands.

Permanent fixtures on the local scene these days are Peg and Frank "Berl" Behrle. Pediatrician and professor Berl closed up shop in Montclair, N.J., this past year and moved north to their summer place in Eastman, just 18 miles south of Hanover. Berl and Peg have been longtime regulars at Dartmouth home football games, and now they're taking part in a whole bunch of Dartmouth activities.

Two Morses this month. (Straight from the Morses' mouths?) Mac Morse writes from Dallas, saying that he gave up private flying some ten years ago, trading it in for a two-masted cat-ketch which he sails off the Gulf Coast in Florida and around old family haunts on Cape Cod. He's also keeping in shape via an aerobics class, and his group, the "Town North Kickers," occasionally performs for the elderly. "Most of our audiences," he says, "get a lack out of seeing us make fools of ourselves while enjoying it so much."

Harry Morse describes residence in Florida, where he plays lots of tennis, summer in Massachusetts, and visiting children in between (and beyond). He has sons in Saudi Arabia, Concord, N.H., and San Antonio, and daughters in Ft. Lauderdale and Boise, Idaho.

Two deaths: Jack Handy died September 2 in Redding, Conn., and Rod Morgan October 9 in Hanover. Our sympathies.

That's it. Blessings.

PO Box 24, Lovejoy Hill, Cornish Flat, NH 03746

Morse's aerobics group, the "Town North Kickers," occasionally performs for the elderly. FRITZ HIER '44