Booty (Ann) Bruno Hocking reminds us all to save June 6-8, 2003, for our 40th reunion! If you have ideas for the reunion and also want to volunteer to encourage friends to attend (the bigger the reunion the better!) please e-mail her at hockan@aol.com. This summer the class will be receiving a letter from the committee giving more details. . . . If you thought "déjà vu" upon reading the class column in the spring 2002 issue, you were right, and your memory is still intact and working well. The column of summer 2001 mysteriously reappeared! The editor, pleading that his memory wasn't intact and working well, apologizes. (The summer 2001 column was used as a template for the spring 2002 issue, and he didn't remember the old column that inadvertently remained in place.) . . . As for a recent update on Forslund Falb news, we have headed to Martha's Vineyard for a refuge instead of Cumberland, Maine. Older daughter Hilary is a sophomore at Brown this fall; younger daughter Alison, now a senior at Northfield Mount Hermon, had a tour and interview at Colby in June. As for myself, I'm headed for a busy year finishing my certificate in landscape design history at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University (formerly known as Radcliffe Seminars). . . . On a very sad note, Erd Winkler passed away on June 24 after a long battle with colon cancer. Cindy Richmond Hopper sent me this news after having tried to contact him about a possible visit to see him and his sculpture. Cindy and Monte keep very busy and are the proud grandparents of Alexandra Rose, born in April. . . . Ruth Pratley Madell continues working for the Kansas Humanities Council as its budget director and grants manager. She really enjoys her job as well as her volunteering at the Performing Arts Center and seeing many concerts and shows. She says, "this year has been kind of crazy." Her daughter was married in San Francisco last September 21 when traveling by air was difficult, but the wedding was a fun time--it took place in Golden Gate Park, with the reception on the Balclutha, a tall ship moored at the maritime museum. In January she learned that all of the walking she had done for her health necessitated a hip replacement in April. Thanks to a laptop and e-mail, she has been able to keep up with work, and the rehab has gone amazingly well, enabling her already to be back almost to normal. . . . Having retired from the classroom several years ago, Bunny Read McEldowney is now an education consultant in Colorado's Jefferson County schools for gifted and talented students. She and her husband, Ron, enjoy traveling and were looking forward this summer to their first cruise, a trip to Alaska. A gathering of the family at Christmas on the tip of the Baja Peninsula included their three children and three "wonderful" grandchildren. Of interest is that one of their sons was a coordinator working on the Hayman fire outside of Denver in June. . . . In March, skiing at Mad River, Jane Melanson Dahmen fractured her left shoulder, which, she said, "put a crimp in my style." She and I met for lunch in April at which time she was well practiced at driving with just one arm and was looking forward to painting again. We had more fun reminiscing about freshman year and being on the basement floor of Woodman Hall. . . . Finally, our busy Barb Haines Chase and Bill '62 went to Haiti in February for the second time on a medical mission and had an amazing experience, finding the people warm, welcoming and in great need.

64

I asked the class by e-mail, "What do you remember about Gordon Linen?" and got a collection of memories: Who's he? Stripping the beds and trooping down to wherever to pick up a new set. Didn't we occasionally use the sheets for unorthodox uses? I vaguely remember people putting Gordon Linen products to a variety of uses for which they were never intended--shoe polishing, among the more mentionable abuses. Can you believe we changed our beds once a week? Does anyone still do that? That nice neat package wrapped in brown paper. Stiff scratchy sheets, but better than dirty ones; blue striped towels and the funny, sterilized sort of smell on the clean ones. They were pretty thin too. But hey, I wasn't washing or folding, so I couldn't complain. When we made banners for something or other and then were faced with how to turn in the evidence. Did we surreptitiously exchange the markered sheet for one of a classmate, or did we attempt to wash the paint out first, or did we just not turn it in and face the monetary penalty? This was probably one of the more serious moral dilemmas in our shallow youth. Believe it or not, I didn't use Gordon Linen. Instead, my mother insisted I take bedding from home. I learned very quickly how to use the pay washing machines downtown. Many a Sunday was spent in front of spinning clothes and sheets while doing homework (ugh). I have to admit I have no recollection of Gordon Linen--ask me about Super Shirt instead, as I was the Super Shirt "girl" for two years. I only did the girls' dorms--guess the girls were natty then, as a lot of them sent their button-down shirts out. I don't know how we did it but there must have been dozens of sheets converted to banners each year, for such things as Homecoming, general insults, etc. My personal favorite was "George will oversleep comps." And many of us got through graduate school using GL towels. (After that, the Army towels seemed quite gentle on the complexion.) I suspect that GL knew there'd be some "shrinkage" and folded that into the price. All in all, it beat doing our own laundry. Occasionally getting all ready in the morning, and finding out that it wasn't Gordon Linen day after all! What a bummer to put it all back together again for one more night; or not--no problem sleeping without the sheets actually on the bed in the proper fashion. They were delivered to the door in men's dorms if you remembered to leave the used linens stuffed into the pillowcase. B.J.'s suggestion of unorthodox uses recalls the freshman amusement of soaking a towel in water and hanging it out a window overnight in below-freezing weather. What was done with the resulting "board" I don't remember. I had a roommate who occasionally used the towels for cleanups after art projects. The irate serviceman would fling them back into our room and finally refused to accept them. At a graduate school party sometime in the late '60s, I was talking with a Harvard grad from Maine who said that he had spent a year and a half after his graduation working for Gordon Linen and did remember occasionally throwing paint- and ink-stained towels back into a room at Colby. . . . In real news, Martha Hincks Kellogg writes, "I retired from being a university librarian at the beginning of 2000 after 20 years at the University of Rhode Island library. I got my M.L.S. (library science) degree at Florida State University in 1965. I'm now living with my husband, Ted Kellogg '63, in Englewood, Fla., in Sarasota County, enjoying the climate and time to read, golf, swim, lurk on computer lists, etc., but missing my R.I. friends and colleagues." . . . Bob Gelbard received an honorary doctor of laws from Colby in May (see www.colby.edu/commencement). . . . Dick Larschan said, "I'm off to Dublin for a month at the Keough Institute, immersing myself in Irish poetry in the company of Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane--okay, and maybe (just maybe) also getting reacquainted with a jar or two of Harp 33 years after my doctoral dissertation year in Ireland." . . . Martha Farrington Mayo is working on deed research now for a potential nomination of a district for the National Register of Historic Places, and she is looking forward to time to do some genealogy. "Even though I am a webmaster for my job, I have not made much use of the Internet yet, but someday I will explore some topics there," she said. . . . From Barbara Carr Howson: "Just finished my first year of grad school. Summer courses plus next year to go. There will be three graduations in the same weekend next May in our family. The logistics this will involve! Me, on Saturday from grad school in Richmond, son Michael from Georgetown Law and daughter Susan from Bryn Mawr (Pa.) on Sunday. Oh boy." . . . John Oaks: "At this moment (that is, age 60), I cannot envision myself doing anything else full time. Although 'age is a high price to pay for maturity' (George Carlin), a career in academic research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has no age limits. (There are a few caveats: the nervous system above the neck must still function properly, and the grants must keep coming.) Longevity in research appears to stretch many years ahead, since my collaborator and good friend, Paul Bass, is 74, retired and still working with me about 70 percent of his time. He says it's because our research is still exciting and fun. I can see that happening to me. But then again, there is my avocation. Some day, I will need more time for 'the studio' and my grandchild." . . . Anyone out there who could send me news via snail mail? I can't remember the last time one of you licked a stamp in my honor.

--Sara Shaw Rhoades

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