1943

As I write this column (midDecember) Louise and I are about to depart for New Orleans to board the riverboatDelfa Queen for a week cruising the lower Mississippi and experiencing a Cajun Christmas. Ports of call include Oak Alley, Natchez,Vicksburg and Baton Rouge. It should be different! A recent Greenie that Howie Leavitt forwarded to me was a note from Janet Woodward addressed to me. Her late husband, Ted Woodward, died some 12 years ago but was my close friend through grade and high school before we entered Dartmouth. It was timely in the sense I recently attended a Framingham High School 65th reunion at which I was the only D'43 on hand of five who matriculated and graduated from the College. John "Jug" O'Connor, the other living Framinghamgrad,is in a Nobscot (Framingham suburb) nursing home. One of the high school reunion attendees had been to see John and reported him in good spirits. Alittle more nostalgia: Bing Donaldson told me recently that John Robinson is recuperating from a digestive disorder in a nursing facility in Chatham, Massachusetts. John, along with Bud Miskell and I, are three Cape Codders who were part of the Dartmouth Squadron—50 guys who joined the Army Air Corps as a unit and shipped out of Fort Devens, Massachusetts, for Nashville, Tennessee, in January 1943. John made it through pilot training while Bud and I ended up as navigators. All of you were recent recipients of a letter authored by Bob Ehinger and Bob Field dealing with the Native American studies program, an initiative of our late classmate, Fred Stockwell, and a worthy cause, as is the Dartmouth College Fund (what you and I know as the Alumni Fund). Perhaps I can blame it on the Christmas season but as you should gather from the contents of this column classmate news is scanty! The good news is I have no new deaths to report as of this writing! Stay well!

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