There have been lots of class interactions since I wrote my last column. Let’s begin with the Dartmouth/Colgate game, where I shared the joy of victory with Norm “Tex” Fridlund, who lives in Hanover. I often run into Norm and always enjoy chatting with him and talking Dartmouth. Soon after that, I participated in the Class Officers Weekend seminars and festivities, where I spent quite a bit of time with Bob Faulkner, the one from Rhode Island who is our esteemed class treasurer. We were both pleased to see our class recognized for efforts on behalf of veterans enrolled at Dartmouth and our class scholars. On a sadder note, I received word of a number of classmates who passed on, including Arnold Howard Kroll, Lloyd Sherman Woods, Lawrence W. Morse, Henry Richard Jaenicke and Mark Mitchell. Turning once again to happier matters, my wife, Marsha, and I had a wonderful Homecoming Weekend with Harold and Joan Gordon joining us as house guests and many conversations with classmates and wives, including Jack Tamagni, Doug Keare, Flint Ranney, Harry Nutting, Bert Whittemore, Bob Danziger and wife Sara, Leo and Christine McKenna, Stew and Kristin Wood, Tom Rosenwald, Tom and Sandra Harper, Linc Spaulding, Glen French, Buddy and Rona Schattman, Bob and Pamela Faulkner and Dave Stackpole. There were a number of guests at the class dinner, including veterans and scholars as well as two others who deserve particular mention: Kesang Tashi ’70, who will serve as interface to our foreign scholars, and Sonja Strong, who was honored along with her husband, Jon Strong, who recently passed on. During the dinner I recited two poetic limericks, “New Hampshire” (four stanzas) and “Dartmouth Country” (four stanzas). The closing poem for this column is the fourth stanza of “Dartmouth Country.”


“Special space, a true home till the end,


When I roam it remains like a friend;


In my mind I retrace,


What the years can’t erase,


Special place where the green heart


transcends.”


—Joel D. Ash, P.O. Box 1733, Grantham, NH 03753; (603) 863-3360; joel@poeticlimericks.com