Class Note 1968
Issue
Nov - Dec 2018
The Sixties at Dartmouth rocked. We studied rocks, climbed rocks, listened to rock, sang about rocks in our muscles and our brains, and graduated in 1968: an unforgettably rocky year. Half a century later, 225 classmates and 397 total attendees made the trip to the Hanover Plain to reconnect with friends and remember those years and our College.
One outstanding moment at the reunion: Peter Fahey, our retiring class president, was awarded the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters from the College. Aside from his career at Goldman Sachs, his time as a Dartmouth trustee and our class president, he is also the father of four Dartmouth graduates.
For John Hamer, the 50th reunion was his first. But he’s glad he went. Great conversations and powerful connections. John visited his old fraternity, which is now a sorority. “We were greeted warmly by the sisters, a rich mix of Asian-American, African-American, and Hispanic-American young women,” he said. John noted a rainbow flag was flying from his old room, “but they were still playing beer pong in the basement.
Greg Herschell enjoyed seeing old friends Chuck Lenth, Marshall Wolfe, and Andy Hotaling. All our wives got along well, Greg said. All the wives are smart, intelligent, self-assured women. We didn’t marry shrinking violets, he observed.
Dan Butterworth brought his puppet magic to the reunion. Last February he went to an Inuit village in northern Canada, where he has developed a close relationship. He’s heading there again in a few months to bring puppet blanks for the kids. On one trip he was welcomed with a feast that started with a fish eyeball.
Mark Waterhouse organized a great discussion of Vietnam, which shaped our lives in so many ways. I was particularly moved by a video interview with John “Bear” Everett Jr. The session was recorded. I’ll provide more info about that in my next column. A forthcoming newsletter will cover that discussion in depth.
Jim Lawrie has done an amazing revision of our class website at www.dartmouth68.org. Lots of pictures from the reunion. You can download an updated class directory. Check out John Melski’s stories about Dartmouth and his marriage. In the early 1980s John and his wife, Linda, volunteered to teach about sexuality to 12- to 14-year-olds at their Unitarian society in Newton, Massachusetts. One day John went to a windowless factory to get teaching props. Seeing rubber genitalia suspended from the ceiling in various states of manufacture was a “lesson in surrealism,” he said.
All classmates are invited to meet up for a mini-reunion during Homecoming Weekend. You’re welcome at our executive committee meeting at 10 a.m., Saturday, October 27, at 107 Dartmouth Hall. After that we’ll be tailgating at Alpha Delta before the game with Harvard and dinner that evening at Dowds’ Country Inn in Lyme, New Hampshire.
Send news. Send news.
—Dick Olson, 1021 Nottingham Road, Grosse Pointe Park, MI 48230; rwolson68@gmail.com
One outstanding moment at the reunion: Peter Fahey, our retiring class president, was awarded the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters from the College. Aside from his career at Goldman Sachs, his time as a Dartmouth trustee and our class president, he is also the father of four Dartmouth graduates.
For John Hamer, the 50th reunion was his first. But he’s glad he went. Great conversations and powerful connections. John visited his old fraternity, which is now a sorority. “We were greeted warmly by the sisters, a rich mix of Asian-American, African-American, and Hispanic-American young women,” he said. John noted a rainbow flag was flying from his old room, “but they were still playing beer pong in the basement.
Greg Herschell enjoyed seeing old friends Chuck Lenth, Marshall Wolfe, and Andy Hotaling. All our wives got along well, Greg said. All the wives are smart, intelligent, self-assured women. We didn’t marry shrinking violets, he observed.
Dan Butterworth brought his puppet magic to the reunion. Last February he went to an Inuit village in northern Canada, where he has developed a close relationship. He’s heading there again in a few months to bring puppet blanks for the kids. On one trip he was welcomed with a feast that started with a fish eyeball.
Mark Waterhouse organized a great discussion of Vietnam, which shaped our lives in so many ways. I was particularly moved by a video interview with John “Bear” Everett Jr. The session was recorded. I’ll provide more info about that in my next column. A forthcoming newsletter will cover that discussion in depth.
Jim Lawrie has done an amazing revision of our class website at www.dartmouth68.org. Lots of pictures from the reunion. You can download an updated class directory. Check out John Melski’s stories about Dartmouth and his marriage. In the early 1980s John and his wife, Linda, volunteered to teach about sexuality to 12- to 14-year-olds at their Unitarian society in Newton, Massachusetts. One day John went to a windowless factory to get teaching props. Seeing rubber genitalia suspended from the ceiling in various states of manufacture was a “lesson in surrealism,” he said.
All classmates are invited to meet up for a mini-reunion during Homecoming Weekend. You’re welcome at our executive committee meeting at 10 a.m., Saturday, October 27, at 107 Dartmouth Hall. After that we’ll be tailgating at Alpha Delta before the game with Harvard and dinner that evening at Dowds’ Country Inn in Lyme, New Hampshire.
Send news. Send news.
—Dick Olson, 1021 Nottingham Road, Grosse Pointe Park, MI 48230; rwolson68@gmail.com