Letters to the Editor

Unknown History

In the 60 years since my graduation, I don't think I've written to the Alumni Magazine. However, I am so moved by the wonderful "Unknown History" [January] that I must congratulate all of you on an exhilarating piece of work, utterly fascinating. Thanks so much.

Beaufort. North Carolina

"Dartmouth's Unknown History" was about the best reading ever in our magazine. These accounts from the lives of Dartmouth, its family members and those who have interacted with Dartmouth people were both interesting and enlightening. A periodic update of this type of article—you surely have not tapped "the rest of the story" in one shot—would be appreciated. George A. Haskins '54 Rochester New York GAHOLDHICK@AOL.COM

Initiative Reaction

I'm afraid that the changes proposed in I the student life initiative, even if they don't result in abolishing the Greeks entirely, will amount to a sort of "big brother" attitude—peering over the shoulders of CFS members to limit and abolish most of their fun. Sure, a better way should be found to limit excessive consumption of alcohol, but I believe that can be achieved by enlisting better cooperation from the leaders of the Greek societies.

Houston, Texas JOHN-F-ANDERSON@PRODIGY.NET

Having read the report from the Committee on the Student Life Initiative, I believe that there has been, indeed, a sea change in the way students spend their four years at Dartmouth, from the stinking fraternity basements to the used-to-be-a-single that is now a triple dorm room, not to mention the pressures and social struggles that "full integration" has brought to the campus. The biggest change, however, has been that while the current classes could "think" my class of 1955 right out of the SATs, they appear to be incredibly immature, easily led in the wrong directions and, despite their brilliance and diversity, need a strong College disciplinary plan. I hold the administration responsible if the Dartmouth students of today are not expelled for a year for being drunk and disorderly, for assaults on women, for destruction of College property and for similar acts as described in the committee summary. After all, a classmate of ours was expelled for blowing up a toilet with a firecracker and another expelled for "booting" on the dean. We knew the penalties back then. Are there any now? Or are the students just not quite as good as we were, despite our high school C averages?

Twain Harte, Californla JNBALDWIN@MLODE.COM

Open the Door

The refusal of the board of trustees to permit alumni to attend board meetings constitutes an anomaly which does no credit to the nature of governance at the College. While we are enjoined to contribute to the cost of operating the College and educating students, we're barred from attending board meetings (much less participating by oral statements). Taxpayers support public entities. Most states and cities require open meetings of governing boards that decide expenditures of taxpayer money. The board of trustees decides the expenditure of money contributed by thousands of alumni, yet those same contributors are unable even to observe the consummation of those decisions. Whose college is it, just the trustees' and administration's or all of the alumni's? Clearly the concept of open meetings, available to the College's "shareholders," constitutes an idea whose time has come. I urge the board to alter its allegedly longstanding practice of preventing alumni from attending board meetings.

Redwood Crty, California

Big Dig

We would like to bring to your attention a fifth construction project on the Dartmouth campus to complete the list presented in "A Sense of Place" [December 1999], The salient facts: Project: East Wheelock undergraduate residence hall; Location: East of the current East Wheelock cluster; Size & Cost: 80 beds, with a project cost of $8 million; Architect: Atkin, Olshin, Lawson-Bell; Groundbreaking: April 1999; Completion: August 2000.

Director of Residential Operations Margaret Dyer Chamberlain, Assoclate Provost Dartmouth College

Footnote to Football

The jinx was still on. As everyone in Hanover, and therefore the world, knew, the Big Green 11 of Dartmouth had never beaten Yale. This was 1931, the afternoon before the game in New Haven ["Big Green Glory," December 1999]. Even in '29, the year of the gifted Al Marsters '30, Tommy Longnecker '30, a substitute quarterback, had thrown a misguided missile into the hands of Hoot Ellis, the fastest man on the Yale squad, who then raced for the winning Yale touchdown.

My roommate Eddie and I were Preparing to leave for the game when Charlie Grob '33 approached us. That fall Eddie had brought back from Cleveland a 1924 Jordan sedan, huge and elegant, with an all-aluminum body, freshly painted, dents nicely hammered out, the upholstery in mint condition with its woven, ribbed fabric, each seat spring still securely in place. Charlie looked at the spacious empty rear area and asked if we could take a few copies of the Jack-O-Lantern down to the game. Charlie was on the circulation staff of the Jacko in charge of transporting the College humor magazine to the game. He pressed Eddie's generosity by loading about 20 bundles of Jackos onto the rear floor and seat, each bound four ways by heavy cord and weighing about 25 pounds.

Rain began to fall lightly, then in torrents as night fell and we drove toward New Haven. The road ran parallel and close to the railway, first on one side, then passing at a right angle abruptly through a narrow tunnel under the tracks, only to emerge, turn and run parallel on the other side, a performance repeated frequently as we struggled along, incessantly using the hand wiper of the windshield and peering at the dimly marked edges of the road. Halfway to New Haven, Eddie missed an underpass and as we swerved to avoid the side of the tunnel, the aluminum-bodied old beauty slowly slid into the retaining wall. No guts, that aluminum—the left fender was completely accordioned, and the front wheel was badly toed in.

There was a garage just on the other side of the tracks, and the attendant towed us in. Too bad, he said, you'll just have to take the train. There's a flag stop right here. I'll hang a lantern out, and you wait on the siding. Get on quickly, because they'll only stop a second.

It took several trips for Eddie and me to move the Jackos from the car to the open siding, and the rain poured down every second. The conductor was restless and huffy as we loaded the soggy bundles up the train steps onto the platform. At New Haven it was another struggle from the train to a streetcar, which carried us to the dormitory of a thinly remembered acquaintance from Cleveland who had offered to put us up in the suite he and two roommates shared on the third floor. Eddie slept on a window seat, and I on two Morris chairs looking at each other face-to-face.

The day of the game dawned, still raining furiously. We loaded stages from the dormitory to the streetcar whose destination was the Yale Bowl. Our fingers were creased and burned from the cords on the bundles as we lifted them onto the back platform of the crowded streetcar while the motorman clanged the starting bell in impatience. At the Bowl, we jostled the passengers while handing down jackos to the ground level. We carried them again in stages on a long walk from the car stop to the stadium.

Whew! We finally made it, both hot and wet, and waited at the appointed gate for Charlie. In time he appeared, to our unre- strained joy. There was no joy in Charlie's face, however, but only horror as he gazed at the soggy piles of magazines, with pages glued to each other. "Oh God!" he yelled, "what have you done to my lovely Jockos?" I looked at the water running off Eddie's nose, he at mine, we shook our heads sadly at this lack of gratitude and trudged silently into the bowl where a memorable game was about to unfold.

Albie Booth of Yale ("Little Boy Blue"), diminutive and elusive, dominated the first half with repeated long end runs, terminated by running out of bounds to avoid frustrated tacklers. The halftime score was Yale 27, Dartmouth 10, with the skies weeping copiously for us.

In the second half, however, in wind and heavy rain, an incredible, inspired, shifty-hipped "Wild Bill" McCall '32 breathed new life into Dartmouth, with the Yale defenders slipping and falling in efforts to contain him, creating the unforgettable 33-33 tie.

As we left the stadium, rain still ran down our noses, but our faces bore a smile, and under an arm a splinter of Yale goal post.

Boston, Massachusetts

Tonga Patty's Papaya

Jason Stern's photo of Patricia Ledyard Matheson ["Beyond the Hill," December 1999] reminds me that in 1986 I first saw her far out in the bay at Vava'u in Tonga rowing herself in because her outboard motor had died. A bystander and I on the shore brought her in. During my brief stay I suggested that the incipient skin cancer on her sunny face could be aborted by Efudex cream and I would send her some. Now, mirabile dictu, I have on hand the thin blue airmail letter she wrote to me 13 years ago thanking me for the Efudex. However, her own papaya juice had cured her face before my fancy and expensive chemo medicine arrived.

Yes, around the girdled earth, coincidence, connections, remembrance of things past, of people and places are the pleasurable benefits of aging.

Westport, Massachusetts

Photo I.D.

I was most surprised and pleased to see in "Dartmouth Undying" [December 1999] a picture probably taken in the mid-1920s On Hanover's Main Street of my uncle Herbert Downing of Littleton, New Hampshire (see photo, below). He was a Ford dealer who owned "the only fireproof garage in the White Mountains." The picture shows him discussing a snow vehicle which he had built at his garage and which he and his brother Dr. Arthur "Pete" Downing, class of 1900, used to drive 60 miles to Dartmouth carnivals. Dressed in coonskin coats and far hats, they would stop and have lunch with our family when we lived at 7 North Park Street in Hanover. Herbert's son Jay Downing '44 was a P-38 pilot during World War II who now lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The man standing with my uncle in the picture I am sure is Dr. Elmer Carlton, ophthalmologist at Mary Hitchcock Hospital. These were the days before streets and highways ways were plowed in the winter.

Venice, Florida

Carnival Queen

While perusing through some back issues of DAM, I ran across "Skating On Thin Ice," [March 1998], the cartoon of the 1947 Winter Carnival by my fellow classmate, Paul Newman '45.

My fraternity, Kappa Sigma, had the proud honor of hosting the beautiful carnival queen, Gwendolyn La Tour—the date of brother Harry Davis '44. We also had two lovely girls on the queen's court—actress June Lockhart, who later appeared in "Lassie" and "Lost in Space," and Matilda Nail, who became the "Maid of Cotton" of Texas. As head of Kappa Sigma and the I.F.C. at the time, I was asked by some outside news person if our fraternity had invited a professional French dancer, i.e., Miss LaTour. Amidst a lot of laughs, we assured this character that Gwen was for real! Many years later I met Gwen again when our families lived in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

Greenville, South Carolina

Arrested Development

Must we endure still more in the endless flow of letters that have appeared in the magazine ever since the College administration had. the temerity to eliminate the Indian symbol ["Letters," January]? I have two words for the chronologically adult alumni who are mired in childhood memories of Dartmouth, are insensitive to the pain and embarrassment of Native Americans, and are obsessed with a meaningless symbol apparently needed to give meaning to their lives: Grow up!

Dallas, Texas JLASKKY@FLASH.NET

Go Old Green

I must throw a few words into the perpetual debate about a symbol/mascot to take the place of the Indian. I have long been unhappy with our current use of Big Green. It cheapens my college. It has unfortunate overtones of shallow show biz. While we search for the final solution, can we agree on an interim solution that is better than Big Green? How about another modifier—for example, Forest Green, Mountain Green, Deep Green, Grand Old Green, Ancient Green. My personal favorite would be Evergreen, which has some nice overtones, though the more I say Old Green, the better I like it.

Duxbury, Mass VOXREED@MINDSPRING.COM

One reader's uncle had a better idea for winter carnival.

We welcome letters to the editor. The editor reserves the right to determine the suitability of letters for publication and to edit letters for clarity and length. They cannot be returned. Letters should refer to material published in the magazine and must include the writer's full name, address and telephone number. Write: Letters to the Editor, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 80 South Main St., Hanover, NH 03755 E-mail: DAMletters@dartmouth.edu Fax:(603)646-1209