A Capacity to Cope
Damned Fools
It reminded me of what had made me glad to be at Dartmouth, to know men like Sidney Cox and Tom Vance, and it helped me to understand, looking back at this distance, that the liberal arts school is the place to learn what cannot be taught, a buoyant capacity to cope.
While Plains, New York
THe essay "God Keep Me a Damned Fool," by my classmate Bob Pack, is the best answer to the question "What are the liberal arts for?" I have yet encountered, for it reflects a lifetime's experience as a teacher of youth, as a poet, and as a man. His statement on the place of art in our society is superior to any I have read, bar none not St. Beuve, not Tolstoy, not Eliot. It is clear, it is relevant, it is free of lit-crit cant: it is a joy to read, and re-read. The poems he has explicated—Hopkins, the Book of Job, Yeats, Wilbur—speak precisely to the hoped-for epiphanies of our muddled lives, especially those of us who are teachers, too, as he writes of "a peace...farther shared in the classroom where teacher and student, across the generations, come together in reverence for a beautiful and coherent work of art...are the blessings the academy should offer to those who enter its walls." Where I work, that does not often happen, but when it does, well, God keep me a damned fool, too!
Holyke, Massachusetts
Wilson Boynton is a professor ofEnglish at Holyoke Community College.An Offer Refused
Don't you have anything better to write about than the mobsters? How does the October cover article ["Boswell to the Mob"] serve the needs and interests of Dartmouth alumni? Who really cares anyway? I don't give a damn about this.
Please put more topical stories in your magazine.
Are you trying to glorify organized crime?
Does Dartmouth College have a link to organized crime? Just because a Dartmouth alum devotes his life to writing about it doesn't mean the rest of us want to read about it.
Chicago, Illinois
License to Dump
During our various careers at Dartmouth, neither my father Martin '32, my brother Bill '68, nor I were ever members of the Dartmouth Outing Club. It was gratifying to note the recognition we received in the October "On the Hill" article about Bob Averill's poster collection. While none of us ever used the club's facilities, it was fun to see our nicknames displayed on them (My 1961 Volkswagen proudly carried New Hampshire license plates with the inscription "MUTTS"). Can't wait to see the rest of Bob's art collection.
Scarsdale, New York
Actually, the privy "Mutt's Hole" isnamed after David "Mutt" Metsky '85
I enjoyed the article regarding my son's avocation. You should know that Bob graduated from Tufts Medical School and now practices dermatology not podiatry in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Westhampton, Massachusetts
Your moving tribute to the Man of Letters, Dr. Robert Averill '72, titled "Cathartic Art" is marred by a misspelling of his medical specialty. Probably introduced by some "ink-stained wretch" who does not understand which end is up, it should be written "dermatologist."
Eaton center, New Hampshire
Wevelation
Re the October "Lone Wanger" chronology, here is a trivial addendum that my father (Gerard F. Shaw '15) told me many years ago.
In 1912 all "Pea Greens" were obligated to take Freshman Flygiene en masse weekly under the stern tutelage of Professor Richardson. The first 15 minutes of class would be consumed by alphabetical roll call. Around minute 14 the attendance highlight in my father's section would arrive: "WAGGET," then "WANGER". This pairing would be followed by several hundred obscene feet stamping in careless unison, the 1912 equivalent of a standing ovation.
My father said because Professor Richardson never smiled, no one knew if he understood the reason for the weekly mirth, but he never changed the roll order to avoid it.
Hinghan, Massachusetts
Gray Tissues
President Freedman's "Presidential Range" column for October, "The New Great Issues," totally neglected an integral and extremely important element of Great Issues: the study and understanding of the everpresent bias inherent in all news media and information.
As a result of "Gray Tissues," a truly superb introduction to the real world of political and commercial propaganda, advertising, and misinformation, we learned to rapidly assess the B.S. quotient of all communication.
Each week each senior picked a new news topic and followed it in four or five different newspapers/magazines (preTV in Hanover, of course), contrasting, say, The New York Times's treatment to that of the Chicago Tribune to the Daily Worker to the New York Herald Tribune.
The result: total skepticism regarding all media and most communication regarding its "latent content." "What's he really saying and why is he saying it?" Best course I took at Dartmouth.
New York, New York
Alex, Meet J.D.
Jane Hodges' entertaining, many-layered piece on her search for J.D. Salinger brought me back to an alumni event a few years ago. At one point during some canned promotional remarks which must have been prepared by someone else, the guest speaker from the Russian Department made a coy addition. Not one, but two of the world's most notorious recluses, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and J.D. Salinger, had been discreetly working out of Baker Library. That evening, it was this nugget which renewed my feelings for the place; I can't recall anything else he said.
Just imagine: Solzhenitsyn, who in addition to his years of dissent from the Soviet regime has also been noticeably critical of supposed Western decadence; and Salinger, whose franchise character is the very embodiment thereof. My thoughts do not linger so much on what I would say if I were to ever bump into one of them in the stacks, but on what they would say if they had ever stumbled into each other.
It would make for a great 12:30 Rep!
Armon, New York
Jane Hodles' Search for Salinger reminded me of checking out a Dook of Sappho's poetry while in one of my Greek poetry classes. I remember my excitement to discover Salinger's name on the library card and then to realize he had. derived the title of his book, Raise High the Roof Beams,Carpenters, and Seymour, from the opening chant of Sappho's poem, "Raise high the roof beams, Hymanea, Hymanea."
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Solid Wood
Tempted many times to vent my spleen over the on-campus issues with which Dartmouth has dragged itself through the mud over the last decade and a half, I write instead to applaud your "Tales from the Info Booth" (September) by Everett Wood '38, an article which made me recall for the umpteenth time the single biggest reason I came to Dartmouth a pleasant '79 who radiated her enthusiasm for the College, and who turned my unplanned visit to the campus into a spontaneous, half-day tour of the campus and its environs. I don't remember her name, but her smiling face is instantly and often recalled.
Mr. Wood brings memories as well. He was a permanent fixture at Dartmouth tennis matches when I managed the team, and he was always full of pleasant conversation. Regretfully, we seemed to talk more about the matches or the weather, and having now read his brief but impressive bio at the end of "Tales," I wish for the chance to listen, to hear some of his tales from the wide, wide world.
I, too, miss "the old days," and I left Hanover 42 years after Mr. Wood. I have problems with much that goes on today at Dartmouth. But God bless Mr. Wood. We need more like him lest the old traditions fail.
Dallas, Texas
I read the Alumni Magazine and find that there are very, very few articles that directly affect my life here in rural Alaska. "Tales from the Info Booth" was one of them.
As an undergraduate, I felt like I was living on the moon while at Dartmouth College because there were precious few moments when someone actually knew anything about the 200 plus small, rural villages that are scattered outside of the city of Anchorage, Alaska. My hometown is one of these small dots on the map.
During one of my summer terms, on a Saturday morning, I spent about half an hour talking with Everett Wood at the booth on the Green. After ask- ing where I was from, he actually knew where my hometown was located! I was pleased to find out that he flew jets over the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Region of Alaska on his way to Asia. Growing up, I would wonder who flew those jets and where they were going.
I am glad to know that Mr. Wood is still volunteering and speaking with people of the world. It's a public-relations plus for Dartmouth to have such a personable person who actually knows something about where students and alumni come from.
Bethel , Alaska
Chapter and Worse
A sa lay preacher,I am appalled by the number of people claiming to be Christians who hold the faith up to ridicule. As a DAM reader, I am dismayed by the number of people who, after four years of unparalleled educational opportunity, do not think clearly.
In a letter in the October issue, Evalyn P. Bennett cites lovely but irrelevant poetry to suggest that by excluding creationism from a lecture series the College promotes idolatry, and then adduces 2 Timothy 3:16 and misquotes from Deuteronomy 32:4 to argue that Genesis 1 and 2 comprise an accurate description of the origins of the universe.
Such reasoning requires either ignorance of the text or gross intellectual dis honesty, for the first two chapters of Genesis differ sharply on many detail
If "orthodox Christians" insist on a God of truth who direcdy inspires scriptures that contradict one another, I shall be glad to be counted among the unorthodox.
Foster, Rhode Island
What Is Pathetic
Allen Barret Jr. ("Letters," October) berates the men's basketball program for the "pathetic" won-loss records of the past. After seeing the team play last year at Princeton he was "embarrassed" to admit to his son that that was his Dartmouth team on the court.
As a member of that team, I too am embarrassed for Mr. Barrett. As the captain of a 1-12 team at mid-season, I, along with my teammates, accepted the record as a challenge. We drew strength from each other when no one else gave ns a chance, and had a 9-4 half season. One man said to me: "In 25 years of watching Dartmouth basketball, I have never seen a team look like they were having so much fun."
Why do we go to watch our cherished Green play? We go because we share a common bond with these students the Dartmouth Experience. We go because, like the fine young ladies and gentlemen on the court, we also spent hours in the '82 Room or the Tower Room of Baker Library; or spent a spring day canoeing down the Connecticut River and jumping off Ledyard Bridge; of ran around the homecoming bonfire as pea-green freshmen; or spent a late night drinking with friends in a dorm room or fraternity. We go to cheer our teams on to victory, but we go widi the knowledge that Dartmouth is still the greatest institution on earth, win or lose.
Maybe Mr. Barrett should explain to his son that athletics means more than wins and losses.
Culver, Indiana
Ellie's Love
Ellie Noyes '30, Dartmouth's track coach for many years who died in October, had extraordinary gifts that touched the lives of his team members and that contributed to his own success. I ran for him in the mid-19505, when the team had not been strong for some time. But the great majority of us who came out as freshmen in the winter of 1953-54 stayed for four years, mainly, I believe, because of Ellie, and by the time we were ready to graduate, we had become downright competitive.
Yale and Harvard dominated in track back then, and that last winter for my class we lost indoors to Harvard 54 2/3 to 54 1/3, the kind of score you never forget. They thought they'd beat us by 30 points. At Cornell, we won a quadrangular meet that included Colgate and Syracuse, and in the final relay at that, with our All-American half-miler Doug Brew '57 carrying the team.
Ellie stood out for several reasons: skill as a psychologist, keenness of eye and wit, knowledge of the sport, and—above all, to me the respect he showed to every fellow on the team, regardless of age or ability.
One day he spotted me at practice, prancing down the track, and he asked: "Have you been reading books again?" I had this time one with photos of a technique bound to shave tenths of a second off a 100 yard time. "Look at the way those kids run," Ellie said, pointing to his five-year-old and a chum scampering on the grass. "They run just the way you should, naturally, without thinking about it, and they've never read a book." His advice stuck, and it helped, just as it had when he told me, the day we met, to stop running with clenched fists and to relax, with the thumb and forefinger lightly touching and all the energy going into speed, not grit.
I daresay all of us who shared his company loved him, because we knew that, without his ever saying it, he loved us.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Get On Line
Several years ago I telephoned a senior official at the Kiewit Computation Center to inquire about alumni participation in computing at Dartmouth. The reply ("We don't support alumni") surprised me, given the level of alumnsupport for the College, the computer literacy of her graduates, and the myriad potential uses for technology in linking the Dartmouth family roaming the girdled earth. Perhaps now that the information superhighway is at least as wide as the Lyme Road, the College should consider expanding the use of technology tools in alumni affairs. The Alumni Fund, for example, should encourage communication among Fund staff and class agents by including relevant e-mail addresses with fundraising materials. The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine should consider publishing E-mail addresses for College officials, for authors and subjects of DAM articles, and for class notes editors. At present, e-mail addresses appear sporadically in items published by the College. We can (and should) increase our communication within the Dartmouth family by sharing these addresses more freely.
Chicago, Illinois
The Alumni Relations office is considering a number of services for alumni; staytuned. Dartmouth already has a homepage on Mosaic. If you'd like to send amessage to anyone on the College's e-mailsystem, address it to: firstname.lastname@dartmouth.edu
Rushing Society Field
Recently my, wife (Alabama '70) and I noted with a certain horror in the October issue of Dartmouth Life that seven frosh were arrested for "rushing the field."
She, from experience with the crowds at Bryant-Denny, and I from my quiet times in Hanover, were both caught for a moment in sympathy and compassion...for all sides.
Then, we gasped as the article painted the true villain: Society! Good Heavens! These young people were not to blame at all.... NO ONE wrote them a letter to tell them they ought not engage in this dangerous and stupid practice! NO ONE told them at the game there might be consequences! WORST OF ALL, the upperclassmen egged them on; how could they resist? Clearly they should be excused.... NOT!
Whatever happened to common sense? Whatever has gone wrong with the admissions process that so many with so little walking-around sense could be admitted to our fine alma mater? Does the logic of these young people extend to motor vehicles? Does a honking horn at a red light permit one to barge into the intersection willy nilly? Do not responsibility and reason enter the minds of people under 50? 40? 30? 20? I was peacefully sitting in Tennessee, enjoying my Saturday Why am I even partially to blame for the folly of seven miscreants?
What is next? Will it be Dartmouth's fault that someone flunks out after not studying, because no one told the idiot cracking a book is part of learning? I hope not, but I fear otherwise!
Brentwood, tennesee
Attractive Malaise
The placing of Mr. Lawrence Treat's letter at the penultimate position of the May "Letters," (pages 46-7) and your laconic apology, confirm the existence of the underlying disorder in your office that gave rise to his discontent and demonstrate a cavalier attitude toward your serious contributors.
It is unfortunate that your Editorial Board filled with illustrious through the veneer of the slickly and attractively produced DAM.
I regret becoming upset at the treatment Mr. Treat received from you and your staff, but I expect a more courteous response from a Dartmouth College-associated organization.
Jersey City, New Jersey
