1953

I got lucky the other day. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a book in the mail from the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. Its name is The Miller Masks, and it is published by the Fithian Press. Written by Neil Isaacs, this newly published novel is a delight. It is a series of short stories through which Neil builds the character of his protagonist, Jesse Miller. The stories are like laminates, which, because of the reader's increasingly personal involvement, create a character whose persona is everyman, and who grows as each layer is superimposed over the previous. Jesse is a man with whom anyone of our generation can easily empathize as he narrates his stories, which meander through 50 years of his life. I heartily commend it to you for a pleasantly nostalgic interlude. I had the feeling that Neil must have really enjoyed writing this. In addition to his work as a professor of English at the University of Maryland, Neil has written a number of books on sports, scholarly publications, on Old English poetry, Tolkien, Grace Paley and Eudora Welty, another novel and essays which have appeared in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Times and Baltimore Sun and in journals including the Sewanee Review, Virginia Quarterly Review and the New England Review.

John Amerman, along with his wife, Jerry, is featured in an article in the Thoroughbred Times. In it the authors speak of John's successes in business at Warner Lambert, and later as CEO of Mattel. "I retired as CEO in 1996 and stayed on a year as chairman, but we decided we should do something else," states John. So it is not surprising that, having enjoyed wonderful experiences at Hialeah and Monmouth Park as a youth, and later with Jerry at Monmouth Park after their marriage, John would turn to horse racing at this time. So he and Jerry, along with their daughter Anne, starting out first as percentage partners, have built a major stable on their own. They have been buying yearlings at the Keenland September sale, and have now increased their number to 36, keeping 25 horses in Southern California and 11 in the East. Their stable is characterized as getting hotter, as their horses have turned in some impressive victories at Del Mar and at Santa Anita recently.

Madge and Sherwood Salitsky were also featured in a newspaper story. In this, ThePalm Beach Post recounted their love story, which began in elementary school and has grown and prospered through 45 years of marriage. Sherwood retired from his practice of pediatrics 12 years ago after suffering a brain aneurysm. Though Sherwood is confined to a wheelchair, he and Madge keep active by taking courses at Florida Atlantic University's Lifelong Learning Society in Jupiter.

I must sadly report the death of three classmates: Dean B. Brady, H. JohnRosenberger and Richard B. Markey. Our class sincerely offers its condolences to their families.

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