I spoke to Ed Reich and his 80-year-old girlfriend. He is doing just great. He says he is a great admirer of President Bill Clinton, to whom he spoke on numerous occasions when son Bob was secretary of labor. Ed uses a walker, same as me. I promised that when he goes to Berkeley, California, to get together with Bob, now a professor there, I will fly up to meet him and we will reminisce about our long friendship going back to 1926.


Bob Neil passed away, and I spoke to his widow, Ann, who said they were married for 62 years and had a great time taking many trips together. Bob was a tennis buff. He had a life well spent.


The remaining members of the class including myself are Ed Reich, Marvin Rauch and Irv Sager, plus honorary classmates Tim Rub and Pete Smith. Hard to believe that’s all.


Rick Spier ’78 sent me his new book The Legend of Shane Piper, set around his Dartmouth experience and tells the story of his dysfunctional family life. It is a great read and revealed to me the role alcohol played in college life. No one can convince me that this in anyway improved the learning experience that Dartmouth offered.


In 1990 classmate Bob Bonner wrote that the youth of the world would eventually emerge from their excesses but does not make my opposition to their flawed experimentation any the less. The commercial establishment reveals tests showing high alcohol levels in their workers. Bob was concerned that our pseudo-intellectuals, brain damaged by drugs and alcohol, will be the ones teaching a younger generation. Could this be the reason our political leaders are unable to function as individuals and have no ability to reason. I am an optimist, but I can’t help but see my grand- and great-grandchildren living in a world that will be falling apart. Let’s stop whistling in the dark.


The great class of ’35 lives on.


—Edward Gerson, 2400 Mariposa West 3A, Laguna Woods, CA 92653; (949) 829-8400; ejgerson@webtv.net