Letters

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "I couldn't have been more disappointed in the Bobby Charles '82 interview. I hope in the future you will bypass the Republican toadies and present more engaging and independent thinkers.

Winning Advice

HAVING BEEN BOOTED OUT OF THE College by Dean of the College Thaddeus Seymour 49A after my freshman year (he had his reasons), I took a belated look at Cal Newport's advice ["How to Win at Dartmouth,"Jan/Feb] that might have saved my Ivy League career. It is a won- derful article, as only someone who really needed the help can know. If I had followed half of the points he made, much anguish would have been avoided.

Rye,New York

THANKS FOR "HOW TO WIN AT Dartmouth." I wish Id had that kind of help 64 years ago.

The one thing I had not learned in high school was how to work hard. At Dartmouth it was a different ballgame, and college standards were much higher. The distractions were also considerable —the first time away from home, nobody to tell me what to do with all the apparent free time, and the lure of the Outing Club. All combined to produce a nearly disastrous first semester for me.

Because I had indicated a possible interest in premed,I came under the purview of Rolf Syvertsen, Dartmouth Medical School secretary. He called me in for a conference and to this day I remember his words: "Young man, you have wasted an incredible amount of time."

Syvertsen was an outdoorsman— and on one of the DOC boards as I remember—so he was willing to hear my excuses, but he insisted I could have plenty of time for classes, study, socializing and recreation if I just budgeted it. We worked out an hour-by-hour daily plan including rigid meal and sleep time. (He was a doctor, after all.) He was right, of course, and my turnaround was remark-able. The only problem was that I kept looking at my watch all the time. I was talking to a date one evening and she said, "Am I keeping you up?"

I plan to send the story to those of my grandchildren still in college.

Dexter, Maine

High Anxiety

WHILE BOBBY CHARLES '82 is ENTITLED to an opinion about marijuana, he is not entitled to an erroneous opinion about its medicinal use ["Continuing Ed," Jan/Feb]. His statement, "The only reason people smoke marijuana is to get high," implying that there is no medical benefit, is false.

I leave it to a qualified medical authority to explain to Charles what the medical benefits of marijuana use might be to patients with certain serious, specified conditions and, having raised the issue, I would like to think that he will research it in a serious way hereafter.

I hope none of his loved ones ever has to suffer with multiple sclerosis as my mother did, but if faced with such an affliction would be able to find and use marijuana freely for whatever relief it might provide, without the stigma and embarrassment that the lack of a reasonable medical exception to the law banning its possession, even in small quantities, caused my mother.

It is only because of small-mindedness, as far as I can tell, that 39 states, including my own, and the federal government still do not have a reasonable legal exception. This is not only an injustice in its own right but is also an effective bar to legitimate research in the pharmaceutical industry, which might bring about the sort of transition from recreational drug to valuable medicine made in the early 19th century, for example, when morphine was developed from opium by a chemist in Germany.

New York City

I COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE Disappointed in the Charles interview. I hope in the future you will bypass the Republican toadies and present more engaging and independent thinkers. In fact his reference to George Bush as a "moral person" is transparent and disgusting. I hope for more genuine, less-scripted interviewees in the future.

Wayland, Massachusetts

I THOUGHT READERS MIGHT BE Interested in a different assessment of President Bush than that of Bobby Charles '82, who described Bush as "a very decisive person" who has an "agile mind."

Walnut Creek, California

Trading Card

IN TAKING THE CON POSITION ON the Central American Free Trade Act ["Is CAFTA Good?" Jan/Feb], Gary Weismann '02 is apparently arguing that only an agreement that corrects all the inequities of Central American societies is acceptable. In doing so, however, he ignores certain realities. In developing countries illicit efforts to avoid import duties are typically a major source of corruption. Moreover, the beneficiaries of usually high import duties are importers and retailers as well as domestic producers for the limited local market. The impoverished masses pay the price.

Studies of countries that have transitioned from high-tariff regimes to lowtariff regimes show major changes in production. Manufacturers have longer, more efficient production runs in fewer items as they shift to products in which they are competitive in a now-much-larger market and abandon items profitable only because of protective tariffs in a limited domestic market. The benefits for Central American countries from CAFTA will include, among other things, less corruption, cheaper and more plentiful goods for the masses, and more jobs at wages sufficient to attract workers off the farm. CAFTA won't undo decades and centuries of an inequitable social system but, as the Chinese say, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step.

Washington, D.C.

Ice Breaker

I WAS DISAPPOINTED TO FIND NO mention of Rachel Rochat'95 in the article about female hockey players who will be representing the Big Green in Turin ["Great Skates," Jan/Feb], Rochat, who has dual Swiss and American citizenship, lived and played hockey in Switzerland for five years after graduating from Dartmouth. She has been a member of the Swiss national women's hockey team for the past 10 years and will be skating with them in Turin in their first-ever appearance in the Olympic Games.

Tiverton, Rhode Island

Binge Benefits

MY VERY SINCERE THANKS TO Barrett Seaman for his article that shines a bright light on "the elephant in Dartmouth's living room"—alcohol and its undergraduate abuse ["Drinking It In," Jan/Feb]. I am disappointed, however, that he apparently did not become aware of the Dartmouth Center for Addiction, Recovery and Education (DCARE),the inspiration of Dr.C. Everett Koop'37.

Perhaps Seaman's article will encourage the senior-most officers of the College to address this critically consequential and age-old problem at Dartmouth.

Ottawa, Ontario

Fan Mail

THE REVISED DAM CONTINUES TO enthrall me.The Jan/Feb issue was of special interest to me. First, there was the letter from my classmate Dave Halloran 53 reminiscing about his and Dartmouth's heritage. Next, I loved the "Campus" story ["Parent Trap"] about new technologies of communication between students and parents. Most of the communications in the early 1950s were by occasional letters and with the hope that when the laundry box came it would have cookies or brownies as well as clean clothes.

"Drinking It In" was sobering (not meant as a pun). The depth of the issues and problems are mind- boggling and the solutions difficult. Author Barrett Seaman did a superb job in dissecting the various segments of the subject and suggesting some possible remedies.

Coral Gables, Florida

The Marshall Plan

I ENJOYED THE STORY ON THE Marshall Islands ["lslands of Hope," Jan/Feb], as I was on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall as Army operations clerk for the 1956 nuclear bomb tests.

I admire the students who teach in the Marshalls, particularly those who go back for a second year. The rats are übiquitous, the heat is always and the doldrums monotonous.

The present welfare system, along with the rats and heat, is going to be tough for some islanders to beat, and employment is a challenge. Perhaps some sort of "winter" tourism, when winds moderate the humidity, is an employment possibility. Visitors could enjoy resorts, combined with history tours such as aerial flights over nuclear bomb craters, museums on the islanders with drawal because of radiation, their return, etc. Some islanders' lives were changed because of radiation; why not use this history to find them employment?

This may be far-fetched, but if one spends a year in the Marshalls, the dreams and thoughts can be endless.

North Stonington, Connecticut

IT DOESN'T SURPRISE ME THAT A Dartmouth graduate would wear a Tshirt with a hammer and sickle, but I am surprised you would choose to show Sarah Wolf '04 wearing one. To me, an aging "cold warrior," the hammer and sickle is as offensive as the swastika. For shame!

Norfolk, Connecticut

DAMs Century

THE SPECIAL 100TH ANNIVERSARY issue of DAM [Nov/Dec] was much appreciated. I am the guy with the overcoat slung over his arm and-holding a placard on page 52.1 wonder if you have been able to identify the gentleman standing to my right with his hands in his pockets. That was a very eventful fall term.

Eureka, California

[SATC] and may well be the guy sitting under the center of the flag stars, hat on, looking straight ahead in the picture of the SATC students on page 9 of the Nov/Dec issue. In addition to me, he sired two more Dartmouth graduates, Sam '52 and Jere '55, professor of history, emeritus, and had six Dartmouth grandchildren. MY FATHER, WARREN DANIELL '22, was in the Stude nt Army Training Corps

His 86-mile walk in 1920 from Hanover to the Massachusetts border was written about in the March 1998 DAM. He was honored at his 75 th reunion (the only 1922 attendee) by then President Freedman.

Dad died in 2000 at 99. He would have enjoyed your Nov/Dec issue!

WARREN DANIELL '48 Concord, Massachusetts

Role Models

THANKS ALL AROUND FORTHE FINE article by Richard Hogarty '55 about Ellie Noyes ["Running Uphill," Nov/Dec]. I was a young, undistinguished teammate of Noyes and I felt his influence teaching by example and helping me to become a better person.

While at Dartmouth I competed year-round and had almost daily contact with my coaches: Harvey Cohn in cross country, Otto Schneibs in winter sports and Harry Hillman in track. I thought of these men as faculty members because, along with all else, they taught me how to live.

Westport, Massachusetts

Still Tripping

YOUR ARTICLE "VOICES CRYING (and Laughing) in the Wilderness" [Sept/Oct], confirms that many of us connected with Dartmouth in special ways during those six days of freshman trip. Maine was not a "feeder" state in the 1960s, so I was one of few to have traveled south and west to Hanover.

As we 10 freshmen hiked along Lafayette Ridge, our two sophomore mentors took delight in describing the relationship between the Emmets and the Pinheads in Hanover. Story after story rolled forth of encounters with Tanzi, members of B&G and others, each one better than the last. Whenever they quoted an Emmet, of course, they would lay on an accent that was a delightful novelty to most of the group.

Not to me. Their Emmets spoke my language. The stories were funny, but the accent was no novelty. I realized that if I hoped to become a Pinhead, I would have to shuck my Maine twang before the freshman trip ended.

For the next two years I led groups of freshmen. With the same enthusiasm as my predecessors, I repeated and embellished tales of Emmets and Pinheads with a few Down East stories thrown in. Drawing from what I had left in the crags and crannies of Lafayette Ridge, I had, if I may say so, one of the best Emmet accents on tour.

Gorham, Maine

ALONG WITH MANY OTHERS, I enjoyed reading various memories of the freshman trip. My experience may be unique in Dartmouth history in that I was involved with the trip in four different ways: as a freshman (1952), as a trip leader (1953), as a Moosilauke Ravine Lodge crew member (1954) and as DOC president (1955).

My recollections are numerous, but most of all I recall President John Sloan Dickey '29 standing tall in front of the Lodge fireplace, speaking to his audience with authority and yet with a tone that brought us all immediately into the Dartmouth community. He clearly was a leader, and yet he seemed one of us.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

THE STORY ABOUT FRESHMAN TRIPS jogged my memory of a follow-up trip our team did that February. We regrouped late one Saturday afternoon for a wintry trek up Moosilauke on snowshoes. We trudged at a snail's pace, not being used to the snowshoes or the cold. By nightfall a full moon came out to brighten our way. However, about half-wayup—at approximately 10 p.m.—it became obvious that we were not going to make it to the top anytime short of daybreak. And that was if we didn't freeze in the meantime.

Our fearless leader, Howie, a seasoned mountaineer, assured us that if worse came to worstwe could all dig snow caves and pass the night under the snow warmed by our own body heat. It sounded like a good idea but got very poor reception. About 11 p.m. we all mutinied, turned around and trudged down the mountain tired, wet and thirsty. Hanover never looked so good as it did at 4 that morning. We even found a greasy spoon open and gorged ourselves. Haven't been back to Moosilauke since.

Copenhagen, Denmark

History Lesson

THE STORY ABOUT DARTMOUTH'S first African-American football player, Matthew Bullock, class of 1904 ["Ivy League Pioneer," Sept/Oct], stirred memories. In the 1950s our company printed a number of books about the Baha'I faith. Bullock was mentioned frequently. I asked my father, class of 1908, if he had known him.

Indeed he had; he had never known a player to be more frequently roughed up by players of the opposing team than Bullock. Was this because of his color? Dad was certainly convinced that it was.

Peterborough, New Hampshire

QUOTE/UNOUOTE "I competed year-round and had almost daily contact with my coaches.... I thought of these men as faculty members because, along with all else, they taught me how to live."

Write to Us We welcome letters. The editor reserves the right to determine the suitability of let- ters for publication and to edit them for accuracy and length. We regret that all letters cannot be published, nor can they be returned. Letters should run no more than 200 words in length, refer to materi- al published in the magazine and include the writer's full name, address and tele- phone number. Write: Letters, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 7 Allen Street, Suite 201, Hanover, NH 03755 E-mail: DAMletters@dartmouth.edu Fax: (603) 646-1209