1938

1938

Greetings and very warm wishes on a very cold day (-7 degrees). We are on the verge of welcoming in a new year— 2018. Lest I forget, I wish all of you a very happy, healthy and blessed new year.

Letters of a freshman (circa 1935-36): “The festival is well underway. Early this morning a bunch of us went out to Moose Mountain, where the downhill race was held on a steep, narrow trail. We took shovels and rakes in a futile effort to make a few scratches in the glacier that the boys had to ski over. We had some mattresses also to put around the trunks of certain crucial trees, but inspite of it, one poor lad was taken off on atoboggan. Now don’t get the idea, Mother, that all skiing is like that. No one would think of skiing on this tree-lined sheet of ice unless it were a competition. Dick Durrance won the race. When I saw him he was going fast with feet wide apart, ‘stemming like hell’ with flexible knees and throwing a spray of ice from his biting edges. Ted Hunter was second, more graceful and seemingly faster, turning by a sort of swaying motion. In the afternoon I volunteered to be an icicle in the woods—i.e., a checker in the cross-country ski race. One man didn’t see the fence, fell all over it and blocked the path for two other runners who wound themselves up in the saplings trying to stop. Warren Olivers was the first I recognized. He almost had to make the trail as there were scarcely any marks in the ice to indicate where the course was; he was too big to get between the trees—man, he has a useful vocabulary. Then Howie Olivers came like a white ghost through the trees and won the race by two minutes; Dave Bradley took a second, ploughing his way along with a good deal of damage to the forest. I’m darned tired! Let others fight their way into tuxedos and clamor for a dance with Avilla Brooks, the recently crowned Queen ofthe Snows—I’m for a quiet bed!”

Oh, yes, these were, indeed, the “good ole days.” Blessings to all!

—Jean M. Francis, 2205 Boston Road, 0-139, Wilbraham, MA 01095