Readers React

Rites of Spring

Thanks for your hard work in putting together the Nov/Dec. 2013 issue. I enjoyed the frank discussion of the difficult times faced by Dave Bonga ’74, Howard Bad Hand ’73, Bill Yellowtail ’69, Drew Ryce ’74 [“Strangers in a Strange Land”], Jared Thorne ’03 [“Pursuits”] and Buck Henry ’52 [“The Graduate”] while they were undergrads at Dartmouth.

As early as my freshman winter I had come up with a little ditty to the tune of Metallica’s “One” that went: “Dartmouth/ imprisoning me/ all that I see/ absolute horror!” I remember the oppressiveness of those never-ending winters and the total revelation of spring as the temperatures rose to a balmy 40 degrees and the snow finally began to melt. You had to—had to—stay outdoors. It was that sweet.

Being from Hawaii, I often felt out of place. It wasn’t until my senior spring that I looked around and realized that everyone (with the exception of the New Englanders) felt that way. The Southerners didn’t quite belong. Heck, even the New Yorkers were a little out of sorts, as Buck Henry’s experience reminds us.

The weather, the intense pressure of the place, the insular small-town environment in the midst of late adolescence can make for a difficult transition. Yet I somehow manage to have incredibly fond memories of the place, so it’s nice to hear other people’s survival stories.

Honolulu, Hawaii

Oh, Henry!

“The Graduate,” written by Ty Burr ’80 about Buck Henry ’52 is well written and enjoyable to read.

There are two points of clarification that deserve mention, however. First, deep in the article, this statement is made, “Buck was not only in The Jack-O-Lantern, but he appeared in lots of plays with someone named Sam Harnett, and they were celebrities on campus.” This quote is attributed to Robert Rafelson ’54. The “someone” was Sam Harned ’52. In addition to being an active member of The Players, Harned was also editor-in-chief of The Jack-O-Lantern. Sam passed away in 1976, but he was a wellregarded class leader and he deserves correct identification and recognition.

Second, in the credits no mention is made that Burr is married to Lori Yarvis ’82. She is the daughter of Louise and Dr. Martin Yarvis ’52. The Dartmouth bond is strong.

Hanover

Your profile of my classmate captures his fey personality, but it misses his role as film critic for The Dartmouth. (I was editor-inchief at the time.) Several times a week Buck contributed memorable reviews that defined what is meant by “pithy,” since we gave him only the space remaining under the op-ed pieces. At times he was reduced to a single, memorable line: “Freud with six-guns.” Or, “Among those pregnant was Barbara Stanwyck.”

His reviews were part of the paper’s colorful features section. Our sometimescontroversial music critic was Burton Bernstein ’53, Lenny’s brother.

New York City

Hallelujah! That expresses my excitement when I opened the Nov/Dec issue of DAM and found the fine article about Buck Zuckerman. He sure was one of kind and I remember him well. He was a frequent contributor to The Jacko when Alex Hoffman ’50 was editor and I was business manager. Buck would frequently show up in the office. He wrote articles and stories for other Dartmouth publications as well.

His fabulous movie, The Graduate, is and will always be a Hollywood milestone. My best wishes to him. May his past be but prelude of what is yet to come from his incredible pen.

Chicago

Your interesting, entertaining article lit up a mental Jack-O-Lantern image: Zuckerman sitting on the floor of our cluttered office on the second floor of Robinson Hall, next to Harned—Buck wearing his goofy leathersheepskin pilot cap with brim turned up and both earflaps sticking straight out. Probably it’s about midnight and Sam and Buck are dreaming up the next Jacko version of their wacky serial about Frankie Finefellow and Georgie Goodguy—nerds who kept inviting lovelies to campus, only to have their dates snaked at the Deke or AD house. There were frequent such hysterical scenes, with these two comics screaming out lines while tears rolled down all our faces.

The greatest coup early in my Jacko tenure, which had to be the brainchild of Zuckerman, was the wonderful parody issue of the Harvard football program that several of us sold to the unsuspecting crowd at an away game as it hurried across the cold Harvard bridge to the big game.

Those were the daze!

Princeton, New Jersey

Sam Harned, who died way too early, was, in my opinion, the undergraduate equal of Buck. I don’t know of any of his work that survives. Their joint oration at the old pine stump at graduation in 1952 was the funniest work I had ever witnessed. In that preelectronic day, is it possible that anyone recorded it? Please?

Port Chester, New York

EDITOR'S NOTE: Because the College did not record graduation speeches prior to 1953, no such recording exists in the College archives at Rauner, which would welcome any privately held tapes.

Defending Tengatenga

I read with dismay about the “unhiring” of Bishop Tengatenga as the new leader of the Tucker Foundation [“Campus,” Nov/Dec 2013].

In the Bible God doesn’t single out homosexuality as being worse than any other human failing, but He does say it’s wrong. To fault the leader of a Christian church for agreeing with God seems contradictory.

The fear, of course, is that someone who disapproves of a given behavior might act hatefully toward those who engage in that behavior. Tengatenga’s track record indicates he is one who is able to respect, love and even sacrifice for those he disagrees with. He would have been a good role model at Dartmouth in how to deal with diversity.

It’s sometimes difficult for me to understand why God says that certain behaviors are wrong, especially when they don’t seem to harm anyone. When I was at Dartmouth I certainly felt God was highly intolerant in His stance against premarital sex. Since then I’ve come to see there could be downsides I was unwilling to consider at the time.

I would not venture to explain why God says homosexual behavior is wrong, but the question for all of us is always, who is wiser and more loving, us or God? Why would we fault a Christian leader for being true to his God?

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gaming the System

Kudos to Denis O’Neill ’70 for his beautiful and heartbreaking piece “The Lottery” [Nov/Dec 2013] as well as to DAM for publishing it. I was a member of Chi Phi (just before its name change to Heorot), and I remember both the house and the atmosphere at that time very well. We all thought Vietnam was total bullshit, and for anyone who had the misfortune of being shipped over there, we could only hope and pray that he’d keep his head down and return, body and mind intact.

Flagstaff, Arizona

I read with mixed feelings the exploits of my Heorot/Chi Phi fraternity brothers in “The Lottery.” Obviously, the drive to avoid military service was strong and widespread.

In the Chi Phi classes of 1965-67, duty and old-fashioned patriotism were in much higher regard. Many of my fraternity brothers volunteered to serve, recognizing that we did not have the luxury of choosing to fight only wars we like.

From memory (sorry if I have missed anyone; way too many hours in that basement!) my Chi Phi brothers from those years who stepped forward include: Jonathan Feltner ’67, Andrew Ley ’67, Beirne Lovely ’67 and Kevin Trainor ’66 in the Marine Corps; Clancy Hatleberg ’65, Joel Eiserman ’65, Laurence Duffy ’65, Scott Cheyne ’66, Donald Macaulay ’65, Ed Rubel ’64, Robert Wilson ’66, Robert McCoy ’67, Robert Jacoby ’64 and Tim Jones ’66, Jonathan Greene ’65, Th’66, ’67, Tu’74, in the Navy; Peter Rosser ’67 and Win Johnson ’67 in the Army.

Surely they—most of whom deployed to Vietnam—and the many others from Dartmouth who voluntarily served deserve at least equal recognition to counter those who say the Vietnam War was fought only by those who could not avoid it. More than 24 members of the classes of 1962-69 served in the Marine Corps alone in Vietnam. Others from earlier classes served there as well.

In 1968 I was privileged to be the last Dartmouth person to share a couple of beers and laughs with Marine 2nd Lt. Bill Smoyer ’67 as he was passing through Da Nang on his way to assume command of his first infantry platoon. Ironic, given your story, that he too was the captain of a Dartmouth hockey team. He was killed a few short weeks later in his first major firefight, wearing my cherished North Vietnamese Army field pack. Days later I had the crushing task of telling newly arrived-in-Vietnam Marine 2nd Lt. Bill Jevne ’66, Smoyer’s Dartmouth hockey teammate and best friend, of Smoyer’s death. Burdened with that terrible loss “Jev” went forth to command his own infantry platoon.

There are many issues stirred by “The Lottery” that I find difficult to reconcile.

Oakton, Virginia

All That Glitters

I’m not quite sure what Judith Greenberg ’88 is trying to say in her warm, contemplative article, “Golden Girl” [Nov/Dec 2013], about seeing a still-beautiful former classmate during their 25th reunion. Ms. Greenberg states her misgivings that as a college-age individual she lacked a certain wisdom gained subsequently via her journey to middle age, yet the image thing still seems to affect Greenberg. She goes on and on about how the golden girl looks. And that’s a bit of a shame. I would have loved to learn more about Greenberg and something—anything—from her mature wisdom.

New York City

Townie Memories

Thank you for the graduation photographs published in your July/Aug 2013 issue. I was especially touched by the bottom right image captioned, “In 1936 vendors hawked commemorative photographs to the more than 3,000 guests who attended Commencement.” If I am not mistaken, the vendor shown is “Benny,” who was part of my earliest memories of attending Dartmouth graduations with my father, Emil Rueb, owner of the former Camera Shop.

On our way home after the ceremony my father and I would always stop to say hello to Benny, who would then take a courtesy photo of my father and me. Benny must have been a jovial, friendly man because I always enjoyed our contact with him. Of course, when I met him, it was in the 1950s; Benny was much older than in your photo.

I hadn’t thought of him in all these years, but seeing him in DAM reminded me of how this Hanover “townie,” now Dartmouth widow of Oscar Romero ’69, loved the Commencement festivities and the tradition of seeing Benny.

Hanover

Letters Revisited

I salute Richard Owen’s courage in standing up for his religious values [“Letters,” Nov/ Dec 2013], and I endorse his sentiments decrying the content of your “Modern Family” stories in Sept/Oct 2013. I look forward to each new issue of the magazine, but was turned off by the in-your-face presentation of the homosexual lifestyle. You should be celebrating the achievements and contributions of Dartmouth’s incredible alumni body, not their domestic arrangements.

Brooklyn, New York

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