1949

Herb Gramstorff and Johnny Everatt are trying to resurrect the Florida minireunion, which was popular once but then kind of died. They are exploring a seven-night cruise through the Caribbean for next March. Sounds interesting. Herb and Ann will be north for the summer and also attending the wedding of Punchy Thomas's lovely daughter, Krista, who is their goddaughter. Ray Truncellito, our esteemed president, needs additional volunteers for our 55th reunion chair in 2004, as well as a minireunion chair for 2003. He points out that as the class shrinks and we make that inexorable move closer to the front of the Class Notes columns (we are now on the fifth page), we need to pull together to make sure that the next 10 years continue the great Dartmouth experience. Some great news! This column contains NO report of class deaths. Trunce also tells me that Punchy Thomas has agreed to chair one more fall minireunion. Details will be in the newsletter, but the dates are October 11-13, for the Yale game. It is time for some of you people who live nearby to make one of these events (are you listening Len Britton and Loo Dana?).

I just finished re-reading Carl Hiaasen's great Florida satire, Tourist Season. One of the really bad guys in this storyis acrazy,knife wielding Cuban revolutionary name Jesus Bernal, reputed to be a Dartmouth grad best suited for the cause since he can type. Checked the list and he was not 49. Probably one of Jack Kent's pals in 'so.The Tuck School class of '5O, made up mostly of '49ers (guys like Lee Branson, BB Crawford, Bill Johns, Stu Sayre, etc.), now numbers 78 on the right side of the grass. We set a new record for our class with 51 percent participation in this years' Tuck Annual Giving Campaign. Paul Bjorklund, axe in one hand, smooth sweet-talking potions in the other, reports good progress for the '49 share of the Alumni Fund, but sure would like more. He has agreed to head up the 55 th reunion tax collection, never catching on that his sometimes balky back might be caused by carrying these fund raising duties for so long. The great news in the Bjorklund family is that in April the indomitable Ginny was given a kidney transplant, and as I write this, she is doing well indeed. Had a nice chat with Carll Tracy and Barbara, and they reported activities with their family that would have been daunting for anyone, but they managed their parent grandparent duties like the great folks we all are. Back to Paul Bjorklund, he reports that in our class, the name "Robert" is the most common and all were born in 1927. Can't you envision Paul, sitting in his den, green eye shade canted rakishly, going down the list to cull out these important facts? What has become of us? Meanwhile, I read that one American man in every four is called John, William, James, Charles or George. See what you can do with that, Paul.

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P.O. Box 1194, Grantham, NH 03753; bjndougtoo@aol.com