Quick Links
Sections: Dartmouth College Fund, Feb 10 Mini, Green Cards, Women's Initiative, 61st Day Virtual

'61s: Nyla Arslanian, Babson, Baker, Birney, Bleyler, Bloom, Boss, Cantley, Conger, Daley, Dayton, Dechert, Eberhardt, Hargraves, Holbrook, Jaffe, Marriott, Marrone, McArt, McKee, Moore, Murphy, Naegele, Rich,P, Rogers, Rozycki, Snider, Weaver, Wheeler, Wilson,

We did it again—yet another splendid Virtual Mini-reunion! Laurels to be heaped upon Pete Bleyler, most ably aided by Pres. Maynard Wheeler, MD and the ever cybercompetent Harris B, McKee, PhD. The proceedings were recorded and you may watch by clicking on this link:  Feb 10 Mini-Reunion Recording.

Whether you choose to watch the entire presentation is up to you, but must note that we went to school with some extraordinary freakin' fellas (and gal)—and the Women's Rugby panel should reassure you that today's matriculants are well worthy of the erstwhile title "Dartmouth Men"…  See for yourself.

Mutt & Jeff (LtoR): Alan A Rozycki, MD, Walt Palmer '90. Roz ran into son of late teammate Scott Palmer '60 at the Inn a while back

Let's do Green Cards first  Arthur Bloom <arthurbloom1@verizon.net> advises: "I have been reading novels by a Dartmouth graduate named Peter Heller ['82]—The River and The Guide. They are thrillers buffered with the ethos of Dartmouth as it existed in the 1950s. Class members interested in fly fishing will find them particularly wonderful.  For the rest of us these novels illuminate the fact that John Sloan Dickey was often seen wearing a red-checked hunting shirt and the fact that we were all subjected to William Faulkner's "The Bear." i remember thinking to myself "who cares about this stuff?" Well, Mr Heller cared, and writes brilliantly."
Ron Boss <ronboss@aol.com> cards: "Totally retired and enjoying life, spend winters in FL, still watching my grandchildren as they bloom. Have been very fortunate that some have gone to Dartmouth. Larson Bennett's daughter graduated 2 years ago, played lacrosse for the Big Green for 4 years, and now works for Bank of America in NYC. Was a great player. Her young sister will attend Dartmouth in 2022 and play lacrosse also. Regards to all."
Herbert L. Cantley <cpbuilders@bellsouth.net> notes briefly: "Please change my address [to Mt Pleasant, SC] due to a recent move. Thanks, Larry Cantley"

Curt Dechert's <dechertyc@att.net> newsy November note was so long he had at append an addendum in an envelope. "I'm doing fine with Yolanda in Reno, except for the effects of a crazy skiing accident in early 2018, at age 79. The details: I was skiing well on advanced runs at Mt. Rose area near Reno, and decided to go down a steep stretch I hadn't skied for a while. When I hit an icy patch my skis skidded out from under me. I fell easily without injury, but wound up on my back, sliding down headfirst without a helmet. I couldn't stop or slow down or see ahead, and kept sliding faster until I woke up lying still with the ski patrol checking me out even though I felt fine. I learned later that I slid my head hard against a tree I never saw, and apparently the impact took away any sense of pain. The patrol took me down on a sled and lifted me into a helicopter which flew me to the hospital in Reno. I still felt fine, but tests showed I had received several serious injuries including a couple of cracked neck vertebrae.  Rehab took more than a month, and I started getting around in the hospital using a wheelchair and later a walker. When finally back home I kept using a walker, and I still need it for balance whenever I stand up or walk around. I no longer drive or fly, and sadly no more skiing. I even stopped playing oboe many years ago, after a long stint with the Reno Pops Orchestra.  Yolanda has been wonderful taking care of me and handling household and yard chores I can no longer do. We no longer travel outside the Reno area, and with the pandemic I mostly stay in the house anyway. We both take precautions against the covid virus, but are able to meet with friends weekly for a restaurant breakfast. So life is different but still pretty good.  Best wishes to '61s, and keep traveling the roads still open to you.
(tc, hope you still enjoy living in Medford. Yolanda & I went by there fairly often. Our youngest daughter graduated [magna cum laude] from Southern Oregon U in nearby Ashland. Now she lives further north in Salem. My older brother moved years ago from Milwaukee, WI, to West Linn, next to your former residence of Lake Oswego. So we have a little connection to Oregon, and we like the state a lot)"

Special Recognition Award. Oscar displays his well-deserved class award presented November 6, 2021.

In addition to Oscar's Special Recognition Award, the class made an Award in November to Henry Eberhardt and in February to David Birney. Their citations, slightly abbreviated are as follows.
Henry, you have been an active member of the Class of '61 since we graduated...Your involvement with the College began shortly after graduation, when you became involved in the College's stepped-up efforts to advance and expand the fundraising efforts of the Dartmouth College Fund (DCF), eventually being promoted to head of the College's DCF efforts...You have helped to guide the unusually small-sized Class of 1961 in its emphasis on participation. This has resulted in the Class' consistent DCF success during the past 10-12 years...as the leading alumni class (or runner-up) in the achievement of the yearly DCF participation award. Further, the Class' participation rate...has been nearly twice the participation rate of the College as a whole. Finally, for almost every year the Class has achieved its DCF dollar goal, and often its "stretch" dollar achievement goal. In summary, Henry, you have made a valuable contribution to the Class of 1961, both as the long-term co-chair of the Class's DCF committee and as a valuable member of the class' executive committee.
                            Dated: November 6, 2021 

David, by graduation in 1961, you were the lead student thespian at the College, with major roles in almost most every stage show. After graduation and over several decades, your career as a stage actor developed impressively, yet your involvement with and commitment to Dartmouth and the Class of 1961 never wavered. In 1996...Class President Oscar Arslanian called you to...develop a potential class project which would improve the performing arts at Dartmouth...After much thought and discussion, you and Oscar created a class project far greater in scope and depth than initially anticipated:...to endow...a fund which would sponsor performing artists in the American tradition to visit the campus for 2-4 days, during which time they would both perform publicly and meet personally with performing arts and musical arts students…plus...faculty members from both disciplines.
The...project was approved overwhelmingly, but with trepidation, by the Class's then leadership group. The 1961 Legacy for the Performing Arts Endowment was born! After significant time and effort by you and Oscar, the endowment was fully funded...and presented to the College...in June 2001. After more than 20 years, the Endowment's current fund balance is approximately $2 million.
The visiting performing artists program at Hopkins Center has been highly successful from inception and has expanded significantly...due substantially to your relentless and continuing efforts.
                                Dated: February 10, 2022 

Bob Snider <robert.snider20@gmail.com> : "Carol & I sold our home in Framingham and moved into our summer home on Cape Cod. We appreciate the Cape now during the off season. I continue to write for The Boston Broadside, a conservative newspaper (actually, the only conservative newspaper) in Massachusetts.  I have reached the age in which most conversations end up being medical reports. I had bilateral total knee replacements in 2006 and will be scheduled for a hip replacement in a few months. Pretty soon I will be at least 50% replacement parts!  A healthy New Year to the class, free from Covid!"

As the year-end holidays drew nigh, Joan Jaffe (Doc Rozycki's squeeze) drafted these cogent thoughts about the season:
I have mixed emotions about The Holidays—the jam-packed days before and between Thanksgiving and New Year 's Eve.
My personal history of Christmas lies lightly on a firm past of Hannukah when I was a child and indifference as a young adult.  But when I had a child of my own, I embraced a deep nostalgia for a Christmas I had never experienced.  Heavily influenced by a taste for Victoriana and an idealized past which never was, I longed for plum pudding and a candle-lit Christmas tree.  I liked Christmas carols and loved Christmas Eve church services, the nave bedecked with holly and pine and ivy.  Plaid blankets sprouted on my couch and my rolling pin unfurled cookies, shortly clad with red and green sprinkles.
Films like "The Bishops Wife," "Miracle on 34tth Street" and "It 's a Wonderful Life"—all of which I owned—played each evening and I swam in a sea of sentimentality that seemed to rise from another version of myself.
Forty years on and life is different.  There are only whiffs of nostalgia left for me.  It seems more important now, than ever, to celebrate the present moment.  I appreciate my friends more each day, particularly those of my own age.  The arc of time which we share knits us together and our shared memories have built a stage on which we will perform out the rest of our lives.  Yes, I 'm grateful for the present, in some ways better than the past and perhaps—though I hope I 'm wrong—better than the future may be."
Which elicited the following from your lowly scribe: "I feel she sums up not only the kinds of yuletides we savored as kids, but also what the celebration has become—and how our reaction to the recognition of time 's fleet passage intensifies with each passing obituary . . .
As Christmas was the only special day I had growing up, it took years and years for me to finally accept that it wasn't ever 'my' day, but rather everyone else's big, big day.  Once I came to that understanding, Christmas became more meaningful and deeply satisfying, and my birthday faded into the apocrypha.
But as a little speckled towhead out there in the middle of the vast Pacific, I threw m 'self into the spirit of the season, my silver soprano often featured in the annual Punahou Christmas pageant, never felt gypped that we weren 't buried in snow—but was always disappointed on 12/25, after presents under the scrawny Orygun Doug Fir were opened, as my big day promptly disappeared.  As a kid, I could never figure that out."

Dartmouth College Fund (DCF) Thanks to all of you classmates who have already contributed to the DCF. As March begins, our class leads all classes with a participation of 35.1% and our gifts are running more than $100K above last year's on the same date. It's appropriate that we should lead all classes because our goal of 72% participation is higher than any other class. The DCF is our way of supporting scholarship aid that makes Dartmouth affordable. If you haven't given yet, here's a link that will make it easy to give online. (It also provides information about other options.) Click on How to Give or copy and paste https://www.dartmouthcollegefund.org/how-give . If you have questions, please contact Co-Head Agents Harris McKee, Henry Eberhardt, or Roger McArt.

Speaking of Punahou, here's a '79 grad delighted to be in the limelight shining upon the Deputy Director of his Foundation on the left coast, our own classmate Vince Wilson:

LtoR: B.O., Vince.

Ol' rugger Laurie Herman '62 reports from Vero Beach, FL, in late January: "We had a very nice dinner tonight with Bill & Marcia Mazeine who wanted to pass their best wishes to you. Also Sally & Hoyt Goodrich '58."
Rozycki's sweetie Joan had another captivating article in The Valley Noose, re. free will, concluding with: "And this raises a larger question: how much free will or freedom do any of us have?  If we are controlled by impulses too strong, too deep, too insistent, aren 't we all at the mercy of our biology?  Is free will, for my dog and for me, an illusion altogether?"
Roz: "the 'Free Will' discussion has been going on in this household for the 3+ years Joan and I have been together.  I 'm a biological determinist—she a 'free-willer'."
But perhaps the best summation comes from Alan's Med School roomie Bill Couser (H'61), to wit: "I'm totally with you. It's all, at some level, chemical. We can adapt, try to control, do tricks to up-regulate some genes and down-regulate others, and the effects they mediate; but in the end it's the genes that call the shots. Max is a great, loving, caring little dog—like Nonnie. But he frantically digs holes in the yard in search of something important to his ancestors eons ago, but no longer there. It's the genes. Joan's story sounds a lot like the wolf hybrid story—which I've had some unfortunate experience with. Wolf hybrids can be handsome large dogs that can form very close bonds with their owners (feeders) exactly as you describe with Nonnie. But unfortunately they have a tendency, governed by their wolf genes, to attack strangers they view as coming too close—almost always children who see them as regular dogs. And their bite, it is said, is about 4 times the strength of a German Shepherd. So instead of lacerating flesh, they mangle limbs, bones and nerves, leading frequently to loss of extremities for the bitten kids.

Here's some more dog stuff (guess who's big on pups?):   

          Praise of a Collie
by Norman MacCaig

She was a small dog, neat and fluid —
Even her conversation was tiny:
She greeted you with bow, never bow-wow.

Her sons stood monumentally over her
But did what she told them. Each grew grizzled
Till it seemed he was his own mother's grandfather.

Once, gathering sheep on a showery day,
I remarked how dry she was. Pollóchan said, 'Ah,
It would take a very accurate drop to hit Lassie.'

And her tact — and tactics! When the sheep bolted
In an unforeseen direction, over the skyline
Came — who but Lassie, and not even panting.

She sailed in the dinghy like a proper sea-dog.
Where's a burn? — she's first on the other side.
She flowed through fences like a piece of black wind.

But suddenly she was old and sick and crippled ...
I grieved for Pollóchan when he took her for a stroll
And put his gun to the back of her head.

A Brace o' Dashing '61s (LtoR): Oscar, Terry Rogers (O: "Terry was visiting his daughter down here and spent a morning with us")

In from Chuck Dayton: "Here's a photo I found while digitizing my old slides.  Bob Naegele, Rocket Bob Moore and I drove to Fort Lauderdale in March of 1959.  I won't be in the country for the March 1st photo/mini but you might want to post this one. Naegele's dad went looking for us on the beach one night where lots of college kids hung out. He said there were so many zippers going up and down it sounded like it was raining."

More tales of spring trips south—Rich "Paisan" Marrone: "Roman Gabriel was the only NC STATE footballer who was not required to 'do' spring football, but rather took over the mound in baseball, where his towering presence was just a tad intimidating…
our spring trip my junior year included a double-header with NCSTATE, with Roman starting the first game...I remember him brushing me away with a fastball, which he followed up with a slider that hung a bit high, allowing me to crush it over the left field fence...he was not happy, and we won the game… My other 'big league memory' was 'robbing' Joe Bellino of a tremendous homerun, only because at the time there were no 'walls' surrounding Dartmouth's diamond...as soon as I heard the crack of the bat, I, in center field, turned and ran—as fast and as deep as possible—and then, instinctively, thrust my glove up and, to my amazement, the ball popped into its upper net, and the crowd went nuts...every time we old '61s meet, that catch takes center stage...and, yes, the Heisman Trophy winner was not too happy either...he was a heck of a catcher, and we jawed quite a bit after that catch, exchanging expletives, all with a touch of humor…"

Returning to modern times, Mike Murphy submitted an article from the Wall Street Journal by Bob Hargraves. Well worth your attention:
If You Want Clean Power, Go Fission
Nuclear accidents happen, but the risk of harm is minimal. 
By Robert Hargraves
Jan. 26, 2022 6:28 pm ET
134

Cooling towers at the Tihange nuclear power station in Huy, Belgium, Oct. 26, 2021. (PHOTO: THIERRY MONASSE/BLOOMBERG NEWS)

Fission is in fashion as drawbacks of intermittent wind and solar power emerge. Fifty-seven nuclear plants are under construction around the world. The European Union is greenlighting new financing, while Boris Johnson in the U.K. and Emmanuel Macron in France have endorsed new domestic construction. China promises 10 new plants a year.
As the new reactors come into operation, some accidents may leak radioactive materials, but the radiation won 't harm people. We need to educate the public so that mass hysteria doesn 't stop progress toward reliable, economical CO2-free energy.
No one was harmed by radiation at Japan 's Fukushima in 2011 or Pennsylvania 's Three Mile Island in 1979. At Ukraine 's Chernobyl in 1986, 134 emergency workers were treated for acute radiation poisoning, and 28 died. Up to 15 children died of thyroid cancer after drinking milk from cows that ate grass contaminated with radioactive iodine. But those cancers were preventable had authorities warned against drinking the milk for 90 days.
Regulatory limits on annual exposure around nuclear plants are less than a year 's background radiation from rocks and cosmic rays. Radiation scientists now know that people can safely absorb that much radiation every day because DNA is repaired and cells are replaced constantly in living beings. Yet regulators ' mandated limits, at a thousandth of what 's really harmful, create fright of all radiation. No one needed to be evacuated at Fukushima or around Chernobyl, places where thousands died from unwarranted fear and relocation stress.

Regulators try to assuage fears by reassuring the public that accidents won 't happen. A 2012 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission report predicts an accident rate of only 1 per 300,000 reactor-years. Westinghouse, which built many of the plants, claims a rate of 1 per 4 million reactor-years. The historical figure is 1 per 17,000 reactor-years.
The public needs to know that accidents happen, but harm to the public from radiation is unlikely. The public understands that occasionally airplanes crash and kill hundreds of passengers. Airlines explain safety procedures on every flight. People still fly. Unless we tell the truth about nuclear power, the next nuclear accident may end mankind 's only hope for the energy we need.
Mr. Hargraves teaches at Dartmouth 's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and is a co-founder of ThorCon International, a nuclear-engineering company.
Based on a poem by David Slavitt, we recently got off on a tangent about gents' fashion, neckties in particular.
H.B. McKee, PhD: "I got rid of nearly all of my ties when we moved to Chicago, but I still could do paring of other stuff. My Navy Academy grad has what I think is a simple procedure: She says turn all your hangers so they face the same direction. As you wear something, turn its hanger the other direction. Now after an appropriate period, say six months or a year, examine your closet. The clothes on all the unturned hangers are candidates for Goodwill."
A.A. Rozycki, MD: I 'm an outlier on this issue-I am the proud owner (and wearer at dinnertime) of a few hundred ties-many came from deceased family (Darden 's side of the family), friends and wherever.  More than 100 were sent to fellow classmate W.W. "Jack" Babson, MD (Dartmouth ' 61, DMS ' 63, Harvard Med '65) who, along with his wife made them into a quilt that graces my bed.  
Although the lower half of my daily ensemble consists of chinos or jeans, I try to wear a suit jacket and tie to dinner and am successful at least 5/7.  We also have a candle at dinner, a tradition I started about 1996 when I started courting Diane.  AND, to top it off, I wear my tux twice annually—for our NY Eve bash here at my place in Norwich and, for the last 5 years (not '20, '21), at the Annual Marine Corps celebration held as a formal affair at the Hanover Inn.
So there you have it.  Have a little class.  Some say, "you are what you eat."  I 'd add to that "You are how you dress." TEST
J.W. "Jack" Crowley '56, CLU: "my wardrobe was perfected at Dartmouth—where I wore Levis and White Plains Tigers T shirts! Began crafting in 8th grade when Suzanne's D '30 dad gave me a number of Dartmouth Indian 1930 t-shirts and a few excess Brooks Bros button downs...hasn't changed much since! 'A tie is a leash cut short...'cause your master knows you're not going anywhere.' (Yellowstone)" 
tc: "I unloaded almost all my neckties on Ford Daley who has to wear one when he reports for duty as Concierge @Hanover Hi. Every so often I 'd spot an outrageous number at Ross, procure same, and ship it off to ol' Ford-O . . . (don 't believe Dan & Whit 's carries neckwear anymore…)"
W.W. "Black Jack" Babson, MD: "Alan, I loved your stories about ties. And I loved the picture of your quilt on your bed. I would love any ties that you or others could part with. They really are a hidden treasure. They are made of many quality fabrics and each has a story to tell. Today the cost of quality ties is quite a lot more than what we paid for them. Buying quality fabrics for large bed quilts is quite expensive. 
So if anyone wants to part with ties, please send them to me at 2205 Waltonia drive, Montrose CA 91020."

Quilter Babson and Roz's Spectacular Necktie Quilt.

Another favorite sawbones, Samuel R. Baker, MD, touches base from rural Port Angeles, WA: "Martha and I thinking of going to Maui first part of April. We are triple vaccinated. Any advice from you, wise sage, and home-grown Hawaiian?
(are you going to go to your 65th reunion [at Punahou]?)
Actually we just got a week at Napilikai Beach Resort where we have stayed quite a few times. Martha 's parents were part of the Canadian contingent that started that resort so we get 70% discount on certain rooms. We have some aborted last-fall Hawaiian Air tickets from the pandemic and it looks like we can now make good on them. So, maybe we can make it happen. Apparently Hawaii now only requires US citizens to be vaccinated and no preflight covid test."  [hoping it will be that simple when/if we try to head for the Isles for our Punahou reunion in June - ed.]

Pat Weaver (Peter Holbrook's widow) is good about submitting samples of Peter's terrific works for the enjoyment of the class, accompanied by verbal insights into his inspirations and concepts: Claude Monet once said, "No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself. Color is my daylong obsession, joy and torment." Much like Monet, Peter understood the importance of light and focus in a painting . He wrote of his own technique for creating interest in a painting and solving what could be difficult problems. "In each view a few details are focused on, but the rest is merely suggested, or intentionally obscured. I find uniformly sharp details in realist paintings rather tedious and boring, and so I employ many devices to obscure it; low light, soft focus, reduced contrast, close color harmonies, difficult viewing angles, etc. Likewise the scene before me is not documented, but rather highly edited. The meaning I am after has much more to do with the natural light and atmosphere of a place, and little to do with objects outside of how they receive and reflect light."

It was in 1977 that Peter and I first saw the Grand Canyon when we took a tourist charter flight over it. I remember it being a very small plane, maybe only 6 seats as opposed to the 19 seater that operate today. From the air we could see the vastness of this mile deep arid-land eroded gorge that was formed somewhere around 6 million years ago…About the painting "Stormy Zoroaster" (40x50) Peter wrote: "I watched this storm collect on the North Rim and spill into the canyon abyss. I have painted the view maybe a dozen times, the drama still stirs me." Peter considered this painting as close a definition of his artwork as any he could have chosen. He also painted a smaller study. In both paintings you can see the excitement in how he handled the sky.

One of the unenviable tasks as WWW scribe is saying final goodbye to classmates with whom we were close. In recent years, this has been happening more often than we'd prefer. Bob "Rocket" Moore was a buddy from freshman year and one of a triad of lucky seniors recruited for positions in USSteel's prestigious training program, the highest paying job for any college graduate (non-professional schools). We both had ROTC Army commitments (Bob Marriott had a mangled knee thus was exempt), and were stationed close to each other in northern Bavaria. Rocket, it turned out, had his own mangled knee, and was honorably discharged before his first year on active duty was up. He kindly gave me all his fatigue uniforms which—surprisingly enough—fit: the blouses were roomy and the trou, though a mite short, were OK as we tucked 'em into our combat boots. By the time I got out of the service, USSteel had "reconsolidated" (read: commercial suicide…), and both Rocket and Marriott had sought greener pastures, eventually at P&G. I finally saw the [red] light at USS and returned home to Hawayah (Rocket's parents visited us on a trip to the tropics), and we saw each other at reunions in Hanover. Now both Bobs are gone. Mai poina.
Followers of Dartmouth rugby were saddened to learn of the passing of team Captain Roli Kolman '60 in late January. Roli-bear was a fine leader and true character. A modicum of discretion prevents one from reciting herein some of the escapades we committed together on campus and later . . .
We should also bid a final farewell to former Head Football Coach Joe Yukica, who also died in January—at age 90. Joe retired in the Upper Valley and was a regular party guest of Nancy & John "Magpie" Walters '62 at their lovely Eastman home, where he cracked me up.

Women's Initiative- It looks like we've reached the light at the end of the long pandemic tunnel. No doubt we will never forget 2020 and 2021. If we've learned anything in our many years, we now know that anything is possible.
Now that the 2022 has launched and two virtual min-reunions have been held to great success. Mini-reunion Chair Pete Bleyler has done a fine job of continuing what was created for the 60th Virtual Reunion. The Zoom sessions have been lively, interesting with a whole different experience way beyond familiar reunion banter. More than a Who's Who in the class, in each presentation class members have shared incredible stories of careers and accomplishments. Just another reason, for all to be proud to be part of the great Class of 1961. 
Last fall's group included Chris Bosworth who shared her experience as the wife of the late Steve Bosworth, who served as ambassador to Korea and the Philippines among many other posts in their foreign service career. A highlight of the recent mini was the presentation of the coach and two members of Dartmouth's championship Women's Rugby Team. What an eye opener! Thanks, Pete and the Mini-Reunion Committee for highlighting women's role in the class and the college.
Upcoming this Spring will be another Women's Gathering. To choose timely discussion topics, we will be conducting another online survey.  So keep an eye on your email in box around the end of March. Nyla Arslanian & Patti Rich

61st Day Virtual Reunion—Harris reports that our sixth annual  61st day Virtual  Reunion  represented another successful demonstration of our class unity. We had about forty classmates and spouses who either submitted photos or joined for the second annual day's end Happy Hour.  Here are a few  screenshots and submissions. Go on line for a full gallery.

To see the full gallery of 61st Day participants click on 61st day Photos.

That's about it, folks. We leave you with the immortal words of Gertrude Stein who said, "There ain 't no answer. There ain 't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That 's the answer."

Aloha,
tc

xx