Class Note 1981
Issue
March-April 2021
Thank you, ’81s, for your responses to the musical memories big question No. 10. So many vivid (and hazy) memories were shared of Dartmouth concerts. Marc Chabot caught more than most: “Alan Johnson, who ran the lights for numerous Hop performances, let me watch concerts for free alongside him in the Spaulding lighting booth.” Not content to listen passively, Marc also played the violin in the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra. Most memorably, he and Jim Kenealy “dressed up in lab coats and gas masks—singing “Men of Stockroom” at the chemistry department party in the fall of 1978, a song they co-wrote. It closed with, “They have acetone on their breath, ethanol in their veins, And spectro-grade benzene in their muscles and their brains.”
David Townsend recalls producing and DJing “the ‘Pumpkin Smash,’ a huge public dance-costume-party that featured New Wave music, decorations, carved pumpkins, strobe lights, and a large facsimile drawing of President Kemeny made to look like a vampire. My dorm-mates from Lord Hall and collaborators from the Jack-o-Lantern, helped organize and put it all together.”
On a more somber note, Tucker Gilman remembers the day in December of our senior year when John Lennon was shot in New York City. “Most of us were celebrating the end of exams and looking forward to going home for the holidays. I was in the hot, packed, basement of Phi Delt, playing pong and listening to juke tunes when the word passed quickly throughout the crowded house” (via Howard Cosell and the Monday Night Football game in the tube room). “What I recall most vividly is that within minutes, the house cleared. The party was over and a hush fell over the campus. Not long after someone (along Webster Avenue) placed their speakers in a window facing out and cranked up ‘Imagine’ and ‘Revolution.’ ”
Turns out that was David Townsend, DJing after he heard the news. “Yes, I blasted ‘Revolution’ at full volume from Lord Hall. I had a paper due the next day, and I was planning an all-nighter, but I couldn’t concentrate.”
Meanwhile classmates in medicine are concentrating on making news. Wyn Harrison writes, “After leaving the granite hills of New Hampshire, I have been an academic hepatologist and therapeutic endoscopist at Mayo Clinic. In the last chapter of my career I had the honor of leading the development of a new, four-year medical school campus at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. With our inaugural class approaching graduation in May, I am passing the baton to the next academic affairs dean.” And Allen L. Smith, M.D., M.S., will become the next president and chief executive officer of South Shore Health of Massachusetts. Allen most recently served as president of the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, a faculty practice plan for more than 1,800 physicians.
Congratulations, Wyn and Allen! Wishing all good health and harmonious memories.
—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, 2434 Leavenworth St., San Francisco, CA 94133; ajkordahl@gmail.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com
David Townsend recalls producing and DJing “the ‘Pumpkin Smash,’ a huge public dance-costume-party that featured New Wave music, decorations, carved pumpkins, strobe lights, and a large facsimile drawing of President Kemeny made to look like a vampire. My dorm-mates from Lord Hall and collaborators from the Jack-o-Lantern, helped organize and put it all together.”
On a more somber note, Tucker Gilman remembers the day in December of our senior year when John Lennon was shot in New York City. “Most of us were celebrating the end of exams and looking forward to going home for the holidays. I was in the hot, packed, basement of Phi Delt, playing pong and listening to juke tunes when the word passed quickly throughout the crowded house” (via Howard Cosell and the Monday Night Football game in the tube room). “What I recall most vividly is that within minutes, the house cleared. The party was over and a hush fell over the campus. Not long after someone (along Webster Avenue) placed their speakers in a window facing out and cranked up ‘Imagine’ and ‘Revolution.’ ”
Turns out that was David Townsend, DJing after he heard the news. “Yes, I blasted ‘Revolution’ at full volume from Lord Hall. I had a paper due the next day, and I was planning an all-nighter, but I couldn’t concentrate.”
Meanwhile classmates in medicine are concentrating on making news. Wyn Harrison writes, “After leaving the granite hills of New Hampshire, I have been an academic hepatologist and therapeutic endoscopist at Mayo Clinic. In the last chapter of my career I had the honor of leading the development of a new, four-year medical school campus at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. With our inaugural class approaching graduation in May, I am passing the baton to the next academic affairs dean.” And Allen L. Smith, M.D., M.S., will become the next president and chief executive officer of South Shore Health of Massachusetts. Allen most recently served as president of the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, a faculty practice plan for more than 1,800 physicians.
Congratulations, Wyn and Allen! Wishing all good health and harmonious memories.
—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, 2434 Leavenworth St., San Francisco, CA 94133; ajkordahl@gmail.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com