I begin this column by thanking all of you who participated in the 2013-14 Dartmouth College Fund.


The sun is moving across the sky toward that fall light. The weather in the Big Apple has been remarkably good.


Looking for news is difficult so I decided to play a little game. When I entered Dartmouth six of my classmates and I had fathers in the class of 1911: David Heald, Huntly Allison, Ed Stafford, Frank Wheatley, Ed Hawkridge and Art Henderson. I looked further to see the total number of my classmates who had fathers that attended Dartmouth and compared it to the number of students in the class of 2014 who had parents that attended Dartmouth. Here is what the statistics looked like then and now: There were 629 in the class of 42, and 58 (.09 percent) had Dartmouth parents; there were 1,158 in the class of 2014, of which 166 (.14 percent) had Dartmouth parents. Nearly one and a half times as many students had Dartmouth parents in 2014.


The other interesting statistic is the 2014 class is almost double that of the class of ’42. Joanna, my wife, is a numbers person and planted this conundrum for you all to puzzle over. I see an increase in popularity of Dartmouth and more parents encouraging their children to follow in their footsteps.


Other classmate news: Spoke to Bill Clark yesterday. He said of the recent earthquake, no damage in San Francisco. He and Polly were awakened by the shake. Clark also praised the questionnaire that was sent to each of us by Carolmae Encherman, newsletter editor. In particular he found people’s responses to “favorite book” most interesting.


An email exchange with Ed Chalfont reports they are fine regarding the earthquake, which was centered closer to San Francisco. Mariana reports Ed is fine and working. 


Though we do not live there, we have always anticipated the big one and often kidded my brother who lived in the Bay Area for many years.


Please send me your news—we need news to make up for all the bad national and international news of late.


—Leo F. Caproni Jr., 370 East 76 St., Apt. A 406, New York City, New York 10021; (212) 988-6012; (212) 988-6715 (fax); caproni@aol.com