1951

Christmas letters, which some find tedious but which I always receive with relish, provide this month's grist. Dave Hilton's lively greeting, generously illustrated with ten photos of his family's 1993 life and times, tells of children and grandchildren from Alaska to Colorado to Philadelphia. He and Ginny visited those places as well as taking a Dartmouth tour to Thailand, Nepal, and India, which he describes as "the trip of a life- time." (Ours was a camera safari to Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania in the seventies. For future columns, what was yours?) Dave is talking retirement—surprising to me as he still has my vote for "least changed since Freshman Week, 1947."

Another packet from Professor Sam Chu reported children in Cincinnati, San Francisco, and, I believe, near Sam and Lucy in Columbus. Sam is publishing his book on Li Hung- Chang (the Bismarck of China) and is deep into another book on the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Sam and Lucy invite you to consider going with them on the Yangtze River Gorges cruise which includes Xian, Beijing, and Shanghai. For details of this two-week event leaving September 27, call Sam at (614) 267-4117. (Thanks, Sam for those two tickets; I'm more than happy to plug the tour. Your lectures and Lucy's Chinese customs and cooking classes make it sound very exciting.) Nancy and Jerry Mitchell of Dartmouth Travel Agency are the sponsors and will also be along.

Pete Bogardus in San Francisco has agreed to prepare a guest column featuring West Coast news. He could legitimately take a pass ("been there, done that"), having been our scribe for several years during the early days. All of you in Mountain and Pacific Time Zones start directing your nuggets to Pete at Henry F. Swift & Cos., 433 California St., San Francisco 94104. We Yankees will look forward, with dizzy, wild anticipation, to reading your exploits.

Ed Sine died last May 28, and his obituary appeared in last month's issue. Ed left Dartmouth his collection of 3,000 original watercolors and drawings by noted British illustrators and 6,000 books illustrated by them, about them, or referring to them. The gift, honoring Ed's friend and mentor Prof. Herb West, gives Dartmouth one of the "top three or four U.S. research collections in the field" of British illustrations during the Victorian period, according to Special Collections librar- ian Philip Cronenwett.

There are still a few days before our winter mini in Hanover the weekend of February 25-26.

As earlier promised, you can contact me for less than the cost of a stamp by Compuserve, . I'll be looking for your e-mail.

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