1971

With the recent news of tens of thousands of illegal children pouring over the border from several Central american countries, I decided to call my old roommate Foss Jones. Foss lives in McAllen, Texas, right on the border with Mexico, grew up there, owns and operates a large office supply store. He and wife Becky have a daughter annie ’11, who received a master’s in British politics in England and is now starting a dual degree at Texas—master’s in public affairs from Lyndon B. Johnson School and a J.D. from the University of Texas law school. As for the illegal border crossings, Foss writes, “We are swamped—the bad guys, as in drugs, gangs, non-Western Hemisphere people are getting through. I blame both parties plus the legislative and executive branches. Some of the stuff in town at smuggling houses for people or drugs can be more violent.” Foss goes on to describe a brother- in-law who lives on a family farm close to the Rio Grande and has had three threatening incidents lately. They have the border patrol on speed dial. Foss recently ran into Joe Daly, who “moved from Washington, D.C., to Texas law for the oil biz.” I recently heard from Tom Lovell, now living in Beverly, Massachusetts. Tom and I spent the winter term of our junior year out in the wilder- ness, as part of a short-lived Dartmouth Outward Bound program headed up by Will Lange. I’d like to share more about that experience in a future column, as it was a remarkable time. Tom writes,

“After graduation, as I didn’t relish an indoor job (like engineering), I beat around doing carpen- try, mechanics, tree planting for Weyerhauser, horse-shoeing school in Olympia, Washington, then bar-tending and nighttime snow-making while I built my portable farrier’s rig (anvil, forge, welding and tools on a small Toyota pickup truck), then finally a few enjoyable years shoeing horses on the north shore of Massachusetts—outdoors, working for myself, using my body, meeting people. Then back to grad school at Thayer from 1975 to 1977. Ever since then mostly research and development engineering work, five years at GE large steam turbine—nuclear heat exchang- ers in Maine.” Tom continues to write a lengthy piece on the subsequent 20 years, a fascinating look at one classmate’s many varied careers, but unfortunately too long for this column. Tom is “currently working for Blackstone Instruments, a small company, analyzing data from mature natu- ral gas wells to improve production and eliminate events that mess up the environment. We’re also creating a ‘well stethoscope’ instrument to diag- nose in real time some of what’s happening 10,000 feet down.” Without a doubt, Tom was the most intellectually curious guy I met in my four years at Dartmouth. This from Charlie Collier in Boston: “Have had recent dinners with classmates Michael Maynard and his wife, Ilene, and Mike Fay and his wife, Carol. great times! Sorry to have missed the Naples, Florida, and San Francisco 65th birth- day gatherings. Look forward to seeing everyone in Hanover in the fall.” From Albert Lamarre in Dublin, California: “In mid-June brother Bob and I attended the earth sciences department’s all-classes ‘rox’ reunion in Hanover. There were about 80 geology alums present, including fellow classmate Dave Merritt.”

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