1953

Ah, reunions! Fiftieths don't exactly come and go, but they are worth the wait. Renewing longtime friendships, ripened and developed with time, and sharing your views and experiences with your peers, concepts and expe- riences which cover such an extended period of your life provides for you a unique and valuable perspective.To be able rekindle some old feelings of youthful exuberance and joy is sublime. The College, having undergone a major metamorphosis in the interim remains remarkably unchanged in a physical sense, though additions and improvements are obvious to even the most insensitive. Hanover is still Hanover, bustling yet serene, and, in concert with the College, warmly embraces its old inhabitants. There are benches now, where we once stood and watched intramural sports, and this is good. Commencement at the Bema has given way to the front of Baker, which has stepped aside for the center Green as the population has increased. The weather is, as always, perfect. The graduates haven't changed all that much except that about half of them are of a different gender, and that is good. The faculty look about the same as I remembered them, only a little younger. The 50-year reuners appear very much more youthful and energetic than I remember our predecessors.These are my thoughts and expectations as I write this little piece attempting to meet an April deadline for publication in the July/August issue. These fanciful thoughts and descriptions of mine will be revisited in a more realistic manner in our Class Notes column after the reunion, along with an in-depth description of many other events.

Jim Boen's response to the news that Ralph Hines was riding his bicycle from Tempe, Arizona, to Hanover to attend the reunion illustrates the type of remembrances and feelings that our reunion inspires. "Ralph wasn't my closest friend at Dartmouth, but we had something in commonrisk taking. We shot arrows at each other from behind trees (to see how cowboys felt), walked on our hands down the dorm hall and knocked on doors with our feet to confuse the occupants, and lifted weights in his room so much it smelled like the locker room of a losing football team. Lastly, he was right there when I broke my neck, held my head and comforted me until Doc Pollard arrived. That's a special bond." And with that, Jim confidently predicts that Ralph will make it.

I'll conclude with this small excerpt from Longfellow's address to his classmates at Bowdoin, on occasion of his 50-year reunion:

"The night hath not yet come; we are not quite Cut off from labor by the failing light; Something remains for us to do or dare; Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear; Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode, Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn, But other something, would we but begin; For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day."

4 Schuyler Drive Jericho,NY11753;(516)938-3616;marksmoller@hotmail.com