1948

As these notes are written in late September, the foliage on the hillsides around Hanover is beginning to develop its fall colors. The drive up the Connecticut River's Vermont side toward Fairlee presents a moving panorama of nature's beauty along the successive ridges on the opposite bank above the wide blue ribbon that takes one's breath away. As a son of Eleazar, do you remember how it was?

Years ago I counted 30 '48 medical doctors. One of these is Dr. Dwight Burley, who in 1952 moved to the Miami area where he finally retired last March after 42 years of service to his community. He still lives in Coral Gables but has a condo and boat in the Keys and still loves the skill and excitement of saltwater angling, often for big ones. Dwight also likes tracking the wary bonefish on the flats off Miami—"the best there is"—and would find a good guide for any '48 who wants to try this demanding sport.

Bill Campbell ofMontclair, N.J., attended Yale's V-12 and after his discharge stepped up to Dartmouth. He reminisced about his two years in 402 S. Mass, "the most popular room in the College because you could see when Thayer opened." He, Bob Neuberg,Roy Wilson, and Tom Huggins '49 roomed there while Dick Dahl and Sam Wilkinson lived at the end of the hall, and Jack Mahoney roomed nearby, making for a rousing group. Bill recalls that Dick sold grilled somethings off his room hotplate, which this intrepid entrepreneur called dahlburgers; he swore they contained meat. Roy and Tom wore a groove on old winding Route 5 to Holyoke, where both had girls they later married. These ladies introduced Bill to Jean, whom he eventually made Mrs. Campbell. Bill had to laugh years later when his daughter at Holyoke, who later married a Dartmouth man, complained to Dad that modern 1-91 between Holyoke and Norwich was temporarily closed, and poor Jim had to use slow, old Route 5 instead. We both agreed this ancient country road, driven by countless Dartmouth men in our day to Holyoke, Northhampton, etc., had a character missed by the kids today. Which again brought up that single-lightbulb coffee stop in the lonely blackness of 3 a.m. north of Brattleboro, known to so many undergrads in our day from their return to Hanover in the wee hours for that awful eight o'clock. Bill still remembers his South Mass friends and days with great glee and was glad to get Bob Neuberg's phone number.

Which leads us slightly east of Route 5's Bellows Falls to the Granite State's tiny hamlet of Alstead. Here retired Professor Pete Batchelder currently resides, where his forebears lived. This after a career teaching foreign languages at nearby Keene State Teachers College. Pete is alone, however, and is thinking of moving back to Hanover or to Peterborough where the sidewalks may be out a little later in the evening.

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