Class of 1914
We will start this month's effusion in the Philippine Islands, whence Bill Slater received a chatty letter from Lay Little, a portion of which we reprint below. Lay, by the way, has a son in the freshman class at Hanover.
He writes from the Baguio Country Club, Philippine Islands, and says that after a busy and exciting summer in Canton "I have been having a coupleof weeks' leave, most of it in this delightfulmountain resort. It is the nearest thing tothe White Mountains I know, and is a welcome change after a southern China summer. Baguio is the centre of one of thegreat gold mining districts, and week-endsthe 'miners' and their wives often come tothe country club for dancing. These minersare a different type from the old tobaccochewing lot we used to read about. ThoseI have seen here are usually in their thirties, clean looking lads, graduates of California or Colorado. They come in their1936 cars."
Lester adds his best wishes to the class, and apparently he is in excellent health and spirits.
And now back to the Parker House in Boston, where the class met the night before the Harvard game for its annual gettogether. All of the regulars were there as usual, and in addition several long-lost brethren who haven't turned up for years. Among those were Ev Barnard, Sam Cole, Chick Grant, Deke Wescott, Pidge Butler. President Sig came over from New York. Bob Hopkins and Bill Slater were likewise among the out-of-towners present. The surprise of the evening was the appearance of Paul Wilson in his wheelchair. He just decided to come, and his iron will, overcoming the terrific obstacles of his physical limitations, ended by being rolled into our midst. He was in excellent spirits and thorough enjoyed his first appearance at a class function since graduation from college. The next day he attended the game and greatly enjoyed a Dartmouth victory.
The class owes a vote of thanks to Bill McCarter, acting graduate manager, and the Harvard Athletic Association, for making Paul's trip to the game possible.
The Friday evening affair was a great success, and those of you who couldn't get around missed a fine '14 party.
Memorandum to Mrs. Peppard:
For some time, now, your honorable husband has been complaining at the '14 get-togethers that he doesn't get enough to eat for the fifty cents charged him, and a suggestion has been made that you do something about feeding John before you send him forth. There being two sides to every story, some of the other boys claim that John's long-arm reach, extracting sandwiches over shoulders and from platters, seriously interferes with the feeding of the rest of the gang. The gist of opinion is that John needs twice as much as anyone else present. Seriously, we wouldn't miss John for the world, and the next time we are going to have the biggest platter of sandwiches possible with a big sign, "John Peppard," and we will leave it to John to see that nobody else succeeds in attacking it.
We had a nice letter from Red Davidson from Philadelphia. He says that Cousin Fred's oldest boy is six feet three from the bottom of his soles to the top of his pate, and he weighs two hundred and five pounds. This ought to be worth something, but Fred is said to have another boy coming along in a few years who is really something to write home about.
Through Red's work in Patent Scaffolding he has become interested in the work of the National Safety Council and recently was called upon to prepare a paper having to do with accident prevention equipment, which he read before some thousands of delegates at the recent convention at Atlantic City.
He spent part of the summer in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and regrets that he did not have an opportunity to call on George Boggs on this visit,
Bill Cunningham, writing in the Boston Post, in reviewing the Dartmouth-Columbia game says that the present ends at Hanover are the best Dartmouth ends he has seen since Loudon and Hogsett, which covers a lot of time and territory, and every '14 man who hasn't seen Dartmouth play this year will know just how good the ends are by this comparison. Pine cones to Red and Bob!
We spent the week-end with our daughter on her first visit to Hanover and saw the Columbia game. Sight-seeing certainly reveals a lot of things we don't know exist.
Hitherto we have given you some very sketchy references to the size of the ski industry. Saturday our efficient treasurer, John Paine, the Shah of Slalom, took us through one of his warehouses, literally bursting with ski equipment. Skis by the thousands from a dozen or more countries are only the beginning. Bins as big as oldfashioned coal bins overflowing with springs, buckles, straps, and such, . . . . but what intrigues us more is ski wax. Over a half million cakes of ski wax, and this is a lot of wax.
John is so busy that we just have to pay him a tribute for the part that his organization has played in the development of this remarkable industry.
Style Notes: For certain not-understood reasons one can have fur-lined skis, that is, a strip of fur running around the bottom. This may be a decoy of some kind. There are also chromium grooves running along the sides, which add a touch of zip to the outfit. Fur-trimmed boots seem to be aufait for the season, not to mention the ducky Tyrolean jackets embroidered with hearts and flowers, gay knitted belts with dangling tassels. Fur again is dominant in the lining of hoods and for the ultra-ultra there are cute little vignetted skull caps not to mention multi-colored ski poles to match one's costume.
All-in-all, boys and girls, the sky is the limit on ski togs this fall, and certainly John's emporium is the place to see them.
SATURDAY NIGHT IN HANOVER
After the game milling around in the Inn lobby Messrs. Pritchard, Conners, Fletcher and their wives TedLavin in town for the second time in twenty years.
. . . . Bill Taft hurrying back to Greenville in order to get a good night's sleep before his early morning ride. Bill taking up equitation is news, and we must look into this further A little relaxation before the evening meal Eating on the hit-and-run plan The first show at the movies Peanuts and pop- corn, and how they fly! .... The vocal criticism of the movies Nine o'clock. .... What to do next? .... More conversation The Fourteeners present decide that Ted Lavin should see the frescoes. ..... He has other plans, but numbers prevail and off we go. Somehow or other Pritchard and Conners must have been reading books, because they have the whole story down pat. It was a little difficult to get Ted by the first picture of the Indians. Finally we turn the corner and down the alley up to the grand climax, to a pile of scrap steel. Ted has been getting a little groggy as we went along, but before this pile of steel he comes out of the fog and all is clear. With Pritchard and Conners in the steel business, according to Ted this is the pay-off, and as the argument starts, along comes the janitor and he shoos us out The streets are full of the current undergraduate generation and their girl friends, top hats, and so forth, setting forth to the dances of the evening. But the Fourteeners are a little tired and stroll slowly back to the Inn, sit down a minute, quietly yawn and silently steal away. Time is beginning to tell
About the only thing that we noticed in Hanover that has not been improved since we were in college is the Aegis. The same old formula applies and the pictures look just about the same. We just mention this in case some aspiring group of undergradu-ates might look into this and do for this excellent volume what has been done for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE and many of the other institutions which have changed so much for the better during all these years.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! May 1937 bring you nothing but happiness!
Secretary, 367 Boylston St., Boston
