Good vibes continue from ’62’s fabulous 50th reunion. Just sample the numerous Internet postings of photos showing the events and people involved in that memorable celebration. Collectively they are a mosaic of the class as it is today, 50 years on in the continuing story of ’62.


Another facet of that long continuum is the great impact of the publication otherwise known as “The Book.” Marsh Potterton shared his emotional reaction to that work, noting first that he had tended to look at his undergraduate days as “the best of my life, and leave it at that…[but considering] the accomplishments, the achievements, the friendships, the deaths, the wives, the children. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry as I read about my friends and guys I never knew.” “The Spider” said he has been “drawn back to Dartmouth in a way I never saw coming until I read The Book.” His avowed “goal in life now is to read The Book cover to cover,” as he told Dean Thad. Being a confirmed realist, Marsh realizes that, at his age, he’d better start without delay. I’ll bet he’s working on it now.


Sandy Apgar is featured in a recent publication released by the Department of Defense that provides the history of the U.S. Army’s residential communities initiative. Classmates will recall that Sandy earned an Army commission through ROTC, but may not have known that he also served as a civilian executive in the Army in the late 1990s. In that capacity Sandy had a key role as chief architect of what is now the Army’s program for better military family housing. He is credited with creating and launching a means to provide better Army family housing at a time of shrinking military resources. Recalling my own four-year experience with Army family housing in the late 1960s, it is not hard to believe that Sandy had a lot to overcome in his efforts at improvement. Check it all out in Privatizing Military Family Housing, 1995-2010, available from the U.S. Government Printing Office.


Readers of this column, please take note of my new mailing address. I relocated after more than 38 years at the same residence. The appalling effort involved in relocation explains the brevity of this column. New input is always needed; send some today.


—Denny Barnes, 17007 Barn Ridge Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20906; (301) 460-4523; dnbarnes62 @verizon.net