Movers and Shakers

Heavy Lifting

UNLESS THESE OLD '52 EYES ARE mistaken, your picture of furniture luggers on page 17 of the September issue includes Buck Henry at the right, and is that John Pegg in the plaid shirt? Bringing up the rear could be Lee Coulter. Oh, that these old backs could still handle such tasks.

And isn't that number 44 Chipper Chapman on page 27's article by Phi Psi's own brother Jud Hale '55? "Those indeed were the days, my friends."

GLEN ROCK, NEW JERSEY

Keep the Pipes

A S A GRADUATE OF DARTMOUTH and a Tuscaroa Indian, I do not believe that the breaking of clay pipes is demeaning to Native Americans. Since Dartmouth College was developed to educate Native Americans, I feel the ceremony of breaking clay pipes should remain a vital part of the Dartmouth experience.

WELLSBORO, PENNSYLVANIA

Health Angles

SUZANNE, SPENCER'S "I COULDN'T Risk Graduation" ["Graduate Chair," Summer] was appalling. Neither she, nor her friends, nor the faculty involved in her scam seem to have the slightest sense of personal responsibility or integrity.

Upon discovering that her health insurance would terminate with graduation, Ms. Spencer conspired with a professor to fake a non-graduation. The professor agreed to give Ms. Spencer an "incomplete," even though Ms. Spencer was perfectly able to complete the course. The clear intention was to maintain a temporary fiction that Ms. Spencer needed more time as a bona fide student, having additional substantive coursework to complete.

This arrangement between student and professor is surely a moral fraud and comes startlingly close to flat out legal fraud. The scam is hardly the crime of the century and most of us have probably done as bad or worse at one time or another but it is disturbing that Ms. Spencer gives not the slightest hint that either she or her pliant professor gave even a moment's though to their deceit.

"After X-rays and eye tests, I finished my course and got my diploma," she avers blithely. See? It's easy if you play the angles. A lot easier than paying your own way.

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

In defense of Suzanne Spencer, she waspaying her own way the College's healthplan is not free. Her professor suggestedthe incomplete because of Ms. Spencersunusually heavy courseload, not because ofher insurance situation.

A Song Poisoned

STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK my bones..." Who doesn't remember how that childhood rhyme ends? Part of the fun of being a parent is passing on to your own child traditional songs and rhymes that you learned once upon a time. It's amazing how all those old things come back to you.

I was playing with my toddler, singing the familiar counting song "This Old Man," when I came to the chorus and suddenly something came flooding back to memory:

With a knick-knack, patty-whack, SEND THE BITCHES HOME, OUR CO-HOGS GO TO BED ALONE.

Try as I might, I could not remember how the real song went. The traditional chorus was blocked from my mind by those words from my freshman year at Dartmouth.

I wonder how many other alums of my era have had joyful moments with their children poisoned by memories of old wounds. Let's hope that we raise our children to be sensitive to the feelings of their future classmates. Because, although the opening verse cheerfully suggests that "names can never hurt us," in reality, they can.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Ledyards By Degree

AN ADDITION TO YOUR TRIVIA file on John Ledyard: I have heard that, although other Ledyards had matriculated at Dartmouth, only one had succeeded in being graduated until Richard Ledyard made the grade in 1950.

CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

According to College records, no otherLedyard matriculated after the exploreruntil descendant John Peregrine Ledyardarrived in 1935. He did not graduate.Richard Ledyard did indeed graduate in1950; his son, George Ledyard IV, received a Dartmouth degree in 1974.

Cheerful Harry

ONE OF THE DISADVANTAGES OF living far from Hanover is the changes one misses. When I was here in the early eighties I was in Thayer Hall and enjoyed the picture of Harry B. Thayer sitting on the lawn of his house in New Canaan, enjoying a good scotch and soda on a sunny day. I am sure it was a scotch and soda because I knew the man; he was my grandfather and he had an appreciation of the proper uses of alcohol at the proper occasions.

The picture is a cheerful contrast to the usual "dollar-bill" portraits one sees of influential personages in places attributable to those personages.

A cheerful picture in a room devoted to pleasant uses as was the dining room where the picture used to hang. It seems that during renovations the picture was taken down and given to the Hood Museum for storage where it now is in storage.

I submit that H.B. Thayer should be restored to an appropriate place in Thayer Hall. I am assured by the administration at Thayer that this would be a proper and pleasing thing to do. I would like, now that I live in Hanover, to be able to visit the old gent occasionally and see him in a mood such as I remember fondly.

I would be glad to contribute any nails and hammer needed.

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

First Alumna

I ENJOYED THE PROFILE OF Professor Susan Ackerman '80 in the October issue ["Syllabus"]. I'd like to draw your attention to an error of fact, however. Susan is not the first alumna on the tenure track at Dartmouth. Ursula Gibson '76, a physics major at Dartmouth who graduated in 1975, received her M.S. and Ph.D. at Cornell and went on to join the faculty at the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center, was appointed associate professor of engineering sciences at Dartmouth in 1989, one year prior to Susan Ackerman's arrival.

Many on campus fail to realize that the tenure-line Thayer School faculty hold dual appointments in Arts and Sciences, and form the Arts and Sciences department of Engineering Sciences, offering the undergraduate major.

ASSOCIATE DEAN, THAYER SCHOOL

Which Tribe?

A RECENT EDITORIAL FROM THE Washington Post by Ben Nighthorse Campbell, U.S. Senator from Colorado, protesting the name of our local football team, the Washington Redskins. Senator Campbell's complaint is with the use of the term "Redskins," which he finds derogatory, not with the use of Indian mascots per se. He writes, "Many Native Americans, myself included, do not have a problem with the use of specific Indian tribal names" and notes that "the team logo is not offensive but the name is."

If most Native Americans, or even most Dartmouth Native Americans, feel this way, would it not be appropriate, in light of Dartmouth's founding as a school for Indians, for the Big Green to adopt as their mascot the proud, noble, courageous American Indian? While being referred to as if they were natives of South Asia is not the highest compliments we could bestow upon our country's original inhabitants, I believe it is a term they have come to accept. It is certainly no more insulting than being known as natives of a continent with an Italian name.

RESTON, VIRGINIA

Share of Tripoli

I ENJOYED "PRODIGAL SON" IN the Summer issue. Not long after learning of Ledyard's demise in Egypt I read a book titled To the Shores ofTripoli The Birth of the U.S. Navyand Marines.

A major character was U.S. Army Captain William Eaton, a Dartmouth graduate. As we all know the words "From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli," it was pleasing to learn that the Marine expedition that marched to the "Shores" was led by a Dartmouth man, and that he started in the same land that saw the death of Ledyard.

NEWARK, DELAWARE

Somehow Connected

PERHAPS THE MOST DYNAMIC OF the magazine's regular features are the Letters and the Class Notes, written by direct descendants of Dartmouth lore. The letters remind me of dramatic monologues, highly charged snippets of lives somehow connected to this college in the mountains. Compare the writers' language, notice their styles, and discover not only the differences but also the similarities inherent to sharing an alma mater.

Then, perusing the Class Notes section, notice the progression of voices from the brief '18 column, through the '20s' concerns with nursing homes, the '40s' grandchildren and retirements, the '6os' promotions and travels, the '80s' newborns and other full-time jobs, the '90s' collisions with the real world. I love the references to people and buildings whose magical influence has persevered.

The Letters and Class Notes, comprising a timeline of memories and personal connections, read better than a history book.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Could that be Buck Henry on the right,moving without comment or irony?