1944

Wait a minute! Hold the phone! Two things. First, at the annual Class Officers Weekend, April 17-18, the class of '44 won the Dartmouth Class of the Year Award best damn class there is!

And second, best or not, the College has us just one step away from storage. Alumni records has told me there's no more room in Hanover, and so the files and folders from the class of 1943 and older are kept in a warehouse out of town. To storage. And '44 is next in line.

Storage! Give us a break. We're just mellowing, for crying out loud, getting fine tuned. Storage, schmorridge, porridge...

So we're counting down some. When George Bruce died in January, a raft of us journeyed to his Essex, Conn., service: Bill and Liz Craig, Swampy and Blanch Marsh, Pinky and Ro Corroon, Al and Jean Winkler, Chuck Glines, Fritz Hier, and the late Alex Gillespie's son, Jim.

Those of us in the Hanover environs are in especially good hands. Dave and Ann Patterson's daughter, Julie, has been appointed physician and director of geriatric programs for Kendal at Hanover, a retirement community out on Lyme Road. Open wide...say ahhh. Cough?

A long way from the hammock is Jack Jenness, chairman of the Boston staff of the Institute for Management Studies, who from Rye Beach, N.H., continues to organize and lead management seminars all over the East Coast.

Bob Callan's Christmas card reached back: "Since our 50th Reunion I've been in touch with some old buddies I hadn't seen or heard from in 50 years: Phil Brown, Frank Ames, Jim Averill, Ed Roewer, Bruce Dean, John Callow, and Whit Wells (now deceased)."

Al Cook's widow, Bea, has been busy with the project of leaving Al's extensive personal neurological library to the Dartmouth Medical School. Problem is space: Al had a zillion volumes and there are only a half-zillion shelves available in Hanover.

A nutty, no-brainer statistic and question: Whatever happened to our '44 Aliens? When Henry Allen died in January, he was the last of our five Allen classmates. Art Allen died in 1978, Dick Allen in 1980, Bob Allen in 1985, and Durand Allen in 1994.

By contrast, we had five Morses and all are still alive; we had six Browns and only one, Dave, died in 1990; we had four Joneses, one dead; the six Smiths are three and three; seven Davises (one Davies) and only one dead; five Clarks, two are gone; four Campbells and one dead; and all four Prices, four Wilsons, and three Rices very much alive and kicking.

And let's keep it that way, I say....

A recent issue of The Daily Dartmouth carried a 50-years-ago item: "A pan of margarine left on a stove resulted in the destruction of the Sachem Village home of Mr. and Mrs. J. Lan MacDonald '44. Undergraduates have organized a relief campaign." We just called Digger in Florida for a recollection, but no answer. He must be cruising. So are we. Out of here.

Three cancer deaths, Bob Conroy, Charlie Jack, and Fred Page. Our sympathies.

That's it. Blessings.

Fritz Hier, P.O.Box 24, Lovejoy Hill, Cornish Flat, NH 03746