1965

Lots of activities occurred through the winter. The 17th consecutive CarniVail happened March 4-6. Writing before the event, I can only assume that it will go well with Steve Waterhouse leading the way. Bill Webster reminds us of the annual Trip to the Sea, which will take off from Hanover May 15 and make it to Connecticut after five nights on the river. The trip is open to all classes now and even admits a kayak or two. For more information, google “SE Connecticut Dartmouth Club.” Also, Gerry Hills ’68 has started a bare-boat sailing trip that will be cruising out of Tortola in the Virgin Islands May 5-14. It’s open to alums this year if space is available. To see more, google “Dartmouth Club Virgin Islands.”

I have had several eloquent answers to Ted Bracken’s question from the Alumni Council about how the Dartmouth experience had shaped our lives. Lee Arbuckle wrote of his classmates, “Some were very rah-rah at all times, others directed in David Riesman’s terminology. A few were totally individualistic, inner-directed…most of us were somewhere in between.” Importantly, the College accommodated both ends of the spectrum. He continued, “I dropped out of school midway through my fall term of junior year knowing I had to have more real world experience to find myself. Dartmouth had my head bursting.” He joined the Peace Corps, went to Colombia for two years and returned to Dartmouth to find “an astonishing amount of change. Only after about six months did it occur to me that most of the change had taken place behind my eyeballs or in my gut or in my heart.”

Stu Keiller returned to Dartmouth after 45 years to become chair of the ’65 bunkhouse project. “Classmates rallied to the project with their financial support,” he said. “More importantly, the warmth and enthusiasm with which they embraced the class effort, and me personally, made me realize Dartmouth had given not only an education, but a fellowship that will endure for life.”

Finally, we have word of the passing of two classmates, Les Pratt and Bill Boukalik. David Jones and John Fyler remember Les as a thoughtful guy with a keen wit and a touch of Vermont in his speech. Bill was remembered by Larry Hannah, Bob Cox, Kent Salisbury, David Mulliken, Rich Beams, Bob Burke, Michael Quadland as serious, down to earth and a good friend. David Mulliken said of Bill, “Makes me realize how extremely fortunate we are to have counted one another as brothers during our time in Hanover.”

A happy reminder of those connections, even under sad circumstances, was Rich Beams, Frank Burk and me realizing we all took Professor Booth’s Chaucer class, that each had kept the text through the years and that our kids were universally terrified that we were wont to declaim, “Whan that April with its shoures soote” at odd moments in life.

Please keep the thoughts coming!

6051 Laurel Ave., #310, Golden Valley, MN 55416; (763) 568-7501; johnbairdrogers@comcast.net