Marsha and I attended the Dartmouth-Penn football game and there is good news, bad news and interesting news to report. The good news is that it did not rain as it threatened to do. The bad news you know already: Dartmouth played very poorly in the first half and lost 37 to 24. The interesting news is that we saw Doug and Ginger Keare at the game and we were able to chat and enjoy at least that aspect of the evening.

I recently received a nice note from Abner Oakes. He wrote, “I was cleaning out my files and came across some Dartmouth pictures, my 1956 Indian cane and two booklets that I am sending you as a small token of appreciation for your work as class secretary. One is a booklet of poems written by a friend of my son. The second includes two sketches of life in Hanover combining fact and humor, one written by Professor Bartlett in 1872 and the other by Corey Ford. Enjoy.”

I now hear sounds of the Barbary Coast jazz band marching up Main Street. Two newly fallen classmates, John Richard Webb and Donald Oden Ford, march just behind the band as we bow our heads in silent tribute.

The Ashes, the Friedmans, the Gordons and the Weinsteins leave shortly on a 19-day trip to France, including Paris, a river cruise from Lyon to Avignon, tours of Provence and Burgundy, and Nice. Some would call this a terrorism tour, but we intend to ignore tragic events of the past as we eat, drink and make merry. We all look forward to seeing a great deal of French art, and I personally will take in a number of magic venues.

I close with a newly created poetic limerick titled “Cruising and Perusing.”

In France there is so much to see,

For my friends, for my wife and for me;

Including some magic

Ignoring the tragic,

French art in the heart of Pariee

—Joel D. Ash, P.O. Box 1733, Grantham, NH 03753; (603) 863-3360; jash_125@comcast.net