Notes from Deutsehland's other Green Party
Before tin husband and I moved to Berlin from Kansas City last summer, we contacted Dartmouth's Office of Alumni Relations and got the names of Several fellow alums already living in Germany. Through e-mail we received practical advice about adjusting to our new lifestyle doctors' names to "bring your own chocolate chips and brown sugar!"
When's the next club event, I wondered, so I can drop in and thank everyone? To my surprise there was no club in Germany, this despite the fact that more than 75 alums live in the country. So we invited the group to our place to get gether. Six of us met in Berlin and had such a good time that by 2 a.m. everyone had volunteered to serve as an officer, including Philharmonic Attache Matt Hunter '81, Sports & Recreation Chair Bob Mackay '56, and Cultural Affairs Chair Fred Flindell '47. Jill Hopper '92 is our young alumni coordinator, since she was the youngest one there and because she's doing her Ph.D. on "party" development in which we thought especially appropriate for the younger set. I was chosen president since I stayed up so late even though I was seven months pregnant, and AmitMalhotra '90 is our secretary-treasurer because he provided the drinks. Linda Gundal'81, who was unable to attend, is our district enrollment director, a job she has been handling for years from her apartment inside a castle not far from Frankfurt.
In October we had our first official club meeting at Heinrich's, a cozy restaurant in Berlin serving everything from horse rouladen to buckwheat pancakes. New faces included professor Brace Duncan, who was leading the fall-term German Foreign Study Program in Berlin, Chris Schnader '90, and David Elsbree '91. We heard stories of characters from Dartmouth's long history of ties to Germany, including the legendary Shep Stone '29, who witnessed the tragic Nazi bookburning at Bebelplatz while a graduate student here in 193 3, was a prominent figure in West Berlin during the Cold War years, founded the Aspen Institute here in 1974, and died just a few months after the wall fell in 1989. Apparendy he was the last alum to get a group together for beers in Berlin, about 30 years ago.
Upcoming club events include a visit from English professor Don Pease, happy hours across Germany, and official club cheering sections for Walter Palmer '90 whenever the Bamberg basketball team comes to a town with at least one alum. Matt Hunter, cellist in the renowned Berlin Philharmonic, has organized a club outing to a dress rehearsal of Tristan and I solde.
If any of this makes you want to visit Germany, look us up at or e-mail me at .
Club members, with ProfessorDuncan, left, gather for theirinaugural meeting atHeinrich's in Berlin.
