1974

1974

Classmates, I am writing to you after Christmas, shortly after a warm, rainy burst melted all the snow and left us a brownish green landscape as we await the advent of 2021 and the hope of a new year. With pandemic relief (social, political, financial, and medical) in sight, yet the winter surge persists, unabated, while the entire nation emulates New England and hunkers down until spring.

Class president Matt Putnam sends greetings: “Happy New Year! Having reachedthis point where I know that each day is a gift that I cannot buy, I find myself more appreciative of the good fortune I had to meet so many in our class and share the Hanover Plain for our time on campus. In the context of remembering I’ve sent letters ofthanks to former teachers and sought out their quotes of wisdom. Here is one from President Kemeny: ‘If you have a large number of unrelated ideas, you have to get quite a distance away from them to get a view of all of them, and this is the role of abstraction. If you look at each too closely you see too many details. If you get far away things may appear simpler because you can only see the large, broad outlines; you do not get lost in petty details.’ ”

Mike Thomas reports on the working group regarding accelerated mortality among Black alumni. He and Bill Geiger, Rocky Whitaker, Walt Singletary, Rick Ranger, and Gerry Bowe were joined by Nathaniel Hagler and Bill White. “Duringthis period oftime not only have the disturbing mortality rate statistics proven to be accurate for our class but similarly so for the classes from 1973 through 1977. To say 2020 was anything but normal is an understatement, as we all now know. Group milestones were set, reset, and reset again. Progress we expected—for charting a clear course to a defined objective; engaging the College administration as well as subject matter experts on sociology, health disparities, and social change; and reporting on exciting progress—was delayed but not deferred. Advancement in these areas is the first order for 2021, along with a renewed commitment for more active facilitation ofthe group’s objectives.”

Chris Pfaff encourages classmates to read Rick Ranger’s most recent newsletter since it was so well done and notes that there was a nice tribute to Ellis Rowe in the latest Call to Lead Campaign piece on financial aid and included some nice quotes from his wife, Toni, and son Marcus.

Jim Taylor is sad to report that we have been unable to make any connections with the incoming freshman class of2024. He is looking for suggestions on how we might reach out to them virtually until the pandemic is past.

Finally, we have lost another classmate since our last column. Please see Rick Sample’s class obituaries at www.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com.

Hope to hear from more of you in 2021. Blessings.

—Philip Stebbins, 17Hardy Road, Londonderry, NH 03053; p.stebs@comcast.net

Philip Stebbins