1951

Underwhelmed by the number of classmates who responded to my request for summer of 1949 experiences—like, zip—I got on the phone, from which came several stories. My call list was made up of classmates who had not appeared in my class notes since I began writing them in 2001 (I have kept track). Dave Barker was the first one I reached. He fondly remembers that summer as his fourth and last as a Boy Scout camp counselor on Minnesota’s Lake Pepin. He related that the camp is no more because of industrial pollution. An Eagle Scout, Dave believes his grandson may achieve that honor as well. Bill Birkenmeier began his short U.S. Marine Corps career that summer after classmate Bud Lang encouraged him to sign up for the Platoon Leader School at Quantico. In that class were classmates Mike Choukas and Andy Timmerman. All that led to his active duty in 1951-53. I caught Bill Bobbs at home in Columbus, Indiana, and he was quick to remember that summer. Ted Eberle recruited Bill and Fred Chandler to be guides/counselors at a canoe-trip camp in Minnesota. They got paid, of course, for this and it was their hope to come back someday with wives, if possible, to relive the experience. Unfortunately, Bill said that never happened. At Dartmouth for only his freshman year, Bill Blodgett recalls his summer of 1949 to have been his first acquaintance with his future wife. They went their separate ways but after a Navy tour of duty and her graduation from nursing school they rekindled the romance and were married. After calls to eight different answering machines I finally got a live response from Joe Baker. Five years older than most of us, Joe was a submariner, captured by the Japanese, who spent the rest of the war in Japan. After returning home he entered the banking business before matriculating with our class. His summers were at the first National Bank of Boston.

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