1951

50 YEARS AGO—Remember? We freshmen were just trying to shed our pea greenness, emulating the Hanover maples, when it seemed that forest fires threatened all of New England. Fabled mansions in Bar Harbor, Maine, went up in smoke, and in our New Hampshire, those planning to drive to Cambridge for the Harvard game were warned that even main roads might be closed at any moment, and able-bodied auto occupants impressed into fire fighting on the spot. I volunteered for a DOC fire crew and we spent a long night clearing flammable underbrush on a ridge somewhere down by Lake Sunapee. As the crew track headed back to Hanover late Saturday afternoon, Charlie Russell dropped off at his home in Georges Mills and invited me and his roomate, Paul Meyer, for marvelous steaks his father grilled in the fireplace. Then came an unexpected bonus, a check for about $80 from the state for that adventure, and I husded down Main Street to buy my first pair of skis (Groswold hickories with bear-trap bindings) at Art Bennett's. It was a great snow year and we beginners were flopping about in rec class on the golf course before Thanksgiving. ... Those were great days.

All around the world, friends of Bob McCabe are celebrating the news that he and Susan have a new six-year lease on the apartment he's occupied for years. It's in the heart of Paris, a sixth-floor pad with Lost Generation atmosphere and an incomparable view—Sacre Coeur in one direction and Eiffel Tower in the other. Lu and Peter Martin had a warm reunion with Bob when President Freedman addressed the Dartmouth Club of Paris last May. As well as being classmates, Bob and Peter are fellow Time Inc. alumni. Toni and Dick Barnes saw the McCabes in July. While they live in Washington, the Barneses have kept the modest (Dick says) third-floor pied-a-terre they found years ago when Dick was posted in Paris for NASA, and try to get back there a couple of times a year. Retired from NASA now, Dick keeps his hand in as a space consultant, and is particularly active fostering international cooperation in the use of those amazing navigation satellites which feed you your exact longitude and latitude as you inch your car through rush hour traffic or tote a backpack receiver up Moosilauke.

Al Blomquist became county manager for Pitkin County (Aspen), Colo., 24 years ago. He left fulltime government to own and operate the Chalet Lisl ski lodge soon after, but never ceased being an outspoken environmental activist. He forged a unique and admirable identity, even for that town of immense fortunes and immenser egos. In recent years he labored daily on his own to dig and maintain drainage ditches in his favorite public park. When it became known Al had terminal cancer, the Aspen Times ran a pithy farewell interview and the city council passed a pre-memorial proclamation honoring him.

Al died July 14, and Coloradans Betty and Ed Post and Sandy and Bruce Bryant represented us at his memorial.. Obituary to follow.

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