Class Note 1985
Issue
May - Jun 2018
Our class column deadline is here. And, as happens occasionally, we have no classmate news. So I will improvise and start with a focus on the news of the moment.
The 2018 Winter Olympics have just concluded in South Korea. As expected, there was a wide array of thrills of victory—the first ever medal for U.S. women’s Nordic skiing, and it was gold—and agonies of defeat (but, hey, even the Canadian hockey player apologized for quickly slipping off her silver medal on the podium). While the College touted the number of Dartmouth Olympians competing, we gave a particularly loud and long rouse about one—freestyle mogul Olympian Keaton McCargo, daughter of our very own Jenny Page. A member of the U.S. ski team for the past four years, Keaton qualified for the three-round final of the Olympic competition and was a top-three qualifier in the final. She just missed moving on to the six-skier super final. And while a podium would have been a thrill, Keaton has a bright future—and a drink named after her in a bar in her hometown of Telluride, Colorado.
Another thrill of the 2018 games was curling. So where in the world are Pam Lower Bass and Barry Bass when you need them? While that might appear like a non sequitur (and it is quite possible I am mis-remembering this), Pam and Barry are our resident curling experts. People, including me, will tend to make fun of what they don’t understand. (“Curling—is that a sport for hairdressers? Or simply a way to get someone to sweep the floor?”) But now that the U.S. men’s team has won gold, people may start to realize what Pam and Barry have known all along—that the sport of curling ain’t easy, requires a lot of flexibility and can be quite entertaining. Briefly, the sport involves three or four players trying to slide a heavy granite stone along a sheet of pebbled ice to reach a circular concentric target (a bull’s-eye target named the “house”). One player first pushes the stone so that it rotates either clockwise or counterclockwise and begins to curl (hence the name) to the right or the left. Other players (sweepers) will furiously use brooms on the ice in front of the moving stone to adjust its path. The sweeping smooths out the ice in front of the stone, altering the friction and thus the direction of the stone. Each team will do the same with eight stones. A stone may bump other stones away from the center of the target. The final settling place for each of the stones on the target determines the score.
Ready for more? Didn’t think so. Please send news or else I will be forced to learn the scoring of international figure skating—even though I would bet the fate of the entire planet that I will never do a triple axel.
Happy spring!
All the best to all of you!
—Leslie A. Davis Dahl, 83 Pecksland Road, Greenwich, CT 06831; (203) 552-0070; dahlleslie@yahoo.com; John MacManus, 188 Ringwood Road, Rosemont, PA 19010; (610) 525-4541; slampong@aol.com
The 2018 Winter Olympics have just concluded in South Korea. As expected, there was a wide array of thrills of victory—the first ever medal for U.S. women’s Nordic skiing, and it was gold—and agonies of defeat (but, hey, even the Canadian hockey player apologized for quickly slipping off her silver medal on the podium). While the College touted the number of Dartmouth Olympians competing, we gave a particularly loud and long rouse about one—freestyle mogul Olympian Keaton McCargo, daughter of our very own Jenny Page. A member of the U.S. ski team for the past four years, Keaton qualified for the three-round final of the Olympic competition and was a top-three qualifier in the final. She just missed moving on to the six-skier super final. And while a podium would have been a thrill, Keaton has a bright future—and a drink named after her in a bar in her hometown of Telluride, Colorado.
Another thrill of the 2018 games was curling. So where in the world are Pam Lower Bass and Barry Bass when you need them? While that might appear like a non sequitur (and it is quite possible I am mis-remembering this), Pam and Barry are our resident curling experts. People, including me, will tend to make fun of what they don’t understand. (“Curling—is that a sport for hairdressers? Or simply a way to get someone to sweep the floor?”) But now that the U.S. men’s team has won gold, people may start to realize what Pam and Barry have known all along—that the sport of curling ain’t easy, requires a lot of flexibility and can be quite entertaining. Briefly, the sport involves three or four players trying to slide a heavy granite stone along a sheet of pebbled ice to reach a circular concentric target (a bull’s-eye target named the “house”). One player first pushes the stone so that it rotates either clockwise or counterclockwise and begins to curl (hence the name) to the right or the left. Other players (sweepers) will furiously use brooms on the ice in front of the moving stone to adjust its path. The sweeping smooths out the ice in front of the stone, altering the friction and thus the direction of the stone. Each team will do the same with eight stones. A stone may bump other stones away from the center of the target. The final settling place for each of the stones on the target determines the score.
Ready for more? Didn’t think so. Please send news or else I will be forced to learn the scoring of international figure skating—even though I would bet the fate of the entire planet that I will never do a triple axel.
Happy spring!
All the best to all of you!
—Leslie A. Davis Dahl, 83 Pecksland Road, Greenwich, CT 06831; (203) 552-0070; dahlleslie@yahoo.com; John MacManus, 188 Ringwood Road, Rosemont, PA 19010; (610) 525-4541; slampong@aol.com