Frost-Bitten Californian

Robert Frost '96 was New England born and bred, right? Wrong.

Frost eventually did adopt New Hampshire and Vermont, and vice versa, but he was born in San Francisco, in 1874, and lived there for the first—and formative—11 years of his life. And that is why for the last 30 years an organization called the California Friends of Frost has been promulgating the poet's West Coast roots.

The founder, president, and executive secretary of the organization is G. William Gahagan '35, a friend of Frost's when the poet lectured at the College and later, when the younger man was an instructor in John Sloan Dickey's Great Issues course. Twenty-five years ago Gahagan wrote and produced an hour-long film documentary on Frost called Once by the Pacific— not surprisingly the title of a Frost poem. Earlier there had been the tencent Frost stamp of 1974, which Gahagan got then- Senator Alan Cranston of California to sponsor. Not to forget the Robert Lee Frost Plaza at Market and California Streets in San Francisco that Gahagan got then-supervisor now- Senator Diane Feinstein to back. There's the Frost Medallion he created to stimulate interest in poetry and literature among school children. And right now he's working on a play about Frost. An important goal: to widen understanding of Frost's early years in California, "a terrifying time when his alcoholic father was dragging him around to some pretty tough bars."

So, this octogenarian Gahagan doesn't have time for much else, right? Wrong again.

Bill Gahagan is one of the country's top-ranked senior tennis players, having competed in the nationals several times and having made it to the finals once. Continued victories are a goal, although it's getting a little tougher to find partners of the right caliber.

Nine years ago Bill returned to Hanover with the class of 1935 for his 50th reunion, and that leads to still another goal: to return for his second 50th in 1999. For Bill Gahagan, a Dartmouth dropout like his friend Frost, eventually graduated with the class of 1949.