At 4 a.m. on Friday, May 1, 1964, professors John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz ran the first program written in BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), the easy-to-learn, high-level programming language they had created. BASIC became a standard instructional programming language at the dawn of personal computer age. The copy of the BASIC manual I bought for my children, like us, bears the distinguished copyright “Dartmouth College, 1965.”


In a wonderful turn of events Chester Phillips III recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Technology in Anesthesia, recognizing his “longstanding, visionary leadership in the development of electronic anesthesia record-keeping systems.” Ironically, Chet, as I knew him, remembers that, while taking John Kemeny’s course in BASIC, he leaned to a classmate and whispered, “Computers! I’ll never use this stuff.” He went on to found Anesthesia Recording Inc., developer of the CompuRecord anesthesia information system, installed in anesthesia departments worldwide. Congratulations!


As we finished our junior year our world seemed to be becoming a bit more real and chaotic. In May 1964 Rick Joseph urged classmates to participate with the Northern Student Movement to tutor remedial students in Florida and Mississippi during the summer. On June 12 Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Robben Island and, a week later, the Civil Rights Act passed the U.S. Senate. Two days after that three young civil rights workers were released from jail, then murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. On the 23rd President Lyndon Johnson spent the day in Mississippi talking with the victims’ relatives and local officials.


The academic year ended on a number of high notes. Palaeopitus selected Larry Hannah as chairman, Mike Buckley and Rich Bloch as administrators of the honor code and Joel Eiserman as secretary for our senior year. Four classmates received the Marcus Heiman awards for the creative arts: Ron Tegtmeier and Mike Schiffman for music, Willis Fugate for poetry and Tri Devakul for sculpture. 


The lacrosse team was co-champion. Lee Mercer finished second in the league in scoring and Brian “Wah-Wah” Walsh was the all-Ivy goalie. Chris Knight led Canoe Club members as they started the annual 218-mile voyage down the Connecticut to Old Saybrook, Connecticut—a tradition that Bill Webster still regularly observes and hosts. 


On May 29 Herb West held the last comparative literature class of his 42-year career. According to The Dartmouth, a huge crowd attended, a band played and a waiter served a final libation. When asked to compare the old Dartmouth with the new, he observed, among other things, “There were no computers, squad cars or receptionists, just three telephones and a few typewriters.” 


On Sunday, June 14, the ’64s graduated and we became the top dogs.


You probably received a questionnaire from Steve Fowler (stephens.fowler@myfairpoint.net) and Mike Bettmann (bettmann@wfubmc.edu), who are hard at work planning our 50th reunion. Please respond. Most importantly, plan to attend. Contact your best friends of 50 years ago and get them to attend. The dates are June 12-15, 2015. Put it on your calendar now, we all know how fast a year can slip by.


Please send me a note about what you have been doing.


—Tom Long, 1056 Leigh Mill Road, Great Falls, VA 22066; (703) 759-4255; tomlong@erols.com