From the desk of Mother Hen:
Most of the following notes will appear in the Spring issue of Andover Magazine subject to the magazine’s 900-word count per class. Subject also to editor discretion. While Steve Clarkson’s name is already well-represented his account of the Great Route 28 Detour Caper is not. It’s been waiting for over seventy years to come to light. Like the role model he is, of love of Andover and loyalty to the Royal Blue, Steve offered to yield space but I’ve resisted. Like the prank itself, its story required effort. Conscientious attention to detail that’s all the more remarkable for making it through the years intact. A bravo performance that deserves top billing. But not using up all the space on the marquee. Striking a balance, and if it’s not perfect there’s always my website. All the news that’s fit to print.
This issue’s class notes includes a call for a volunteer or volunteers to host Zoom meetings to help us stay connected. An idea broached by Walt Howe in his note below. If you’re interested please let him know, or you can email me. Many thanks!
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Dil Cannon, MD January 28, 2026, 4;20 pm email to class secretary
Good hearing from you. My email address is connected to this email [forwarded to Alumni-Records@andover.edu].
John Carswell Letters to class secretary (edited)
09/30/25: “. . . Flipping through those Pot Pourri pages, I was struck by how few classmates I came to know in my three years. I look back on them gratefully, happily, and with a pinch of wry amusement. Here was a whole new world of people, from so many places, homes, and backgrounds, with such a variety of outlooks, attitudes, and habits. It’s the people I remember most with lasting affection. The relationships, the confidences, the hi-jinks and mischief-making, the vivid and unpredictable personalities, the points of view and funny quirks. There are guys, voices, faces that will go on frequenting my mind till the end of me.
“I went to Stanford, then to Yale Law (I ditched it), transferred to the Comp Lit dept, ditched that too. (Founding Father of the Sixties Drop-Out Society, me.) My wife of 65 years, Kyra, a smart, lively, lovely woman, excels at many things including pickleball, volunteering, and motherhood. Two estimable children, two granddaughters the same. In my life since school I’ve made a career of not having a career. Happily so. In no particular order: teaching; bar-tending; two small businesses; UPS night worker; advertising; corporate newsletter. Writing has been a fascination from the start. Fiction, poetry, letters. Words and language wow me.
“Now my life whittles down to basics. Reading, a bit of writing, local travel with Kyra, keeping in touch by mail and phone with a few old friends. None now from Andover. In the past I stayed somewhat in touch with [Twink] Catlett, [David] Steinberg, Yogi [Lawrence], [Jim] Liles, [Eduardo] Maal, and [Tom] Burns.
“A central activity revolves around family. Added to that I’m a half-crazed and devoted gardener and handy-geezer. Even though I’m hobbled now by basketball injuries at Andover and 25 years of fierce, imbecilic running, I still love hitting our yard with cane, hedge clippers, snips, rake, and maniac joy. Even still a bit friendly with ladders — very careful. No email or iPhone either. Kyra handles tech for us though I do use telephones. I talk talk talk but I actually know how to listen. Happy Hallowe’en to you. Me, I’m going to pinch a cute pumpkin and goose a goblin.”
10/21/25: “Tom Burns and I saw demonstrated the so-called thermite reaction in [‘Weary’] Weaver’s chemistry lab – a Sudden Heat Delight. We heisted the powders back to Twink Catlett’s and my room [2nd floor Adams Hall North] and its working fireplace, where we caused these timid-seeming chemicals to ignite, predictably, like young lovers in the high heat of passion. Serious fire and heat! A bit of carpet was scorched, a bit of floor to boot. A stink ensued and Tom and I hoisted windows and fanned like mad. Mr. Hulburd must have been out coaching. The adrenal rush is obviously to blame for my life of sneaky misdeeds and mad adventures – if only in my over-charged imagination. . . . It’s a strange land we’re living in now in the U.S. of A., but Kyra and I are sailing along pretty well notwithstanding.”
11/05/25: “In what ways do our brains (minds) retrieve our pasts and what do these ‘mental visions’ contribute to our ‘selfhood’? Does yours deliver in a visual form in color? ‘Sonic’? Most minds do, it seems. Alas for folks who aren’t able. . . . A few of us lads on occasion had a pop or two of Coke and vodka. Didn’t get booted. Miracle. . . . I’m on board with character. Virtue, wisdom, tolerance, compassion. Reason, patience, kindness. With some humor. Would that the World were so inclined. Laughing is my way of dealing with disappointments in myself and matters beyond me.”
12/09/25: “One is best off not being unduly taken aback by what the World dishes out. My habit is to savor the complexity of reality, my own and beyond, in good humor. Making rigorous sense of it is beyond me, but the search for Meaning is entertaining. The radical cartoonist R. Crumb had a self-appointed guru named Mister Natural who, when asked ‘What does it all mean?’, calls back, ‘It don’t mean sheeeit!’ Even more apt than Dylan Thomas’s ‘voyage to ruin we must run’ is the notion of running that voyage in the company of those we encounter. The scent of connection makes my personal trip worth doing. Gives a meaning, an endless sense of wonder and astonishment that Being is. Sharing ourselves and our reflections in a generosity of spirit — all should aspire to that. Though I have no wish to broadcast myself to the Website World Out There. ”
01/21/26: “A spot of time-traveling back to October ’53 when Fred (Fritz) Cooper and I were a couple of whack-job gamblers. This from a letter to my parents about a bet I made with Fritz: ‘We were listening to the sixth game [of the World Series between the Dodgers and the Yankees] in my [Adams Hall] room on my radio. It was in the top of the ninth, the Dodgers had a man on first, and [Carl] Furillo was up. Coop said he’d give me 500 to 1 odds on a dime that the Dodgers would win the Series. I took that bet! That meant that if the Yankees went on to win the Series, I owed Coop a dime, but if the Dodgers won the sixth game and went on to win the seventh Coop would have owed me 50 bucks! Well, the Yanks were winning 3 to 1 when we made this bet, but practically on the next pitch Furillo hit the homer. You should have seen Coop. He hadn’t given a hoot who won the Series, but all of a sudden he got awful interested. He got down on his knees and started to pray that the Yanks would win, only partly joking! Obviously he got his .10, but it was worth more than that just to see him start to mentally tear his hair out.'”
Steve Clarkson Oct. 6 2025, 10:38 am email to class secretary
“In order to finally put the phony conspiracy theories to rest, I must add following points, which many of our classmates have long known:
“On a sunny Saturday early afternoon in the Spring of 1954, Dave Moore and I were returning to our West Quad dorms after lunch at the Commons. As we crossed Rte 28 we became intrigued by the construction equipment / materials left over the weekend by the workers, in particular the sawhorses and smudge pots. It seemed simultaneously that we both broke into laughter at the thought of using both items to cause a little mischief.
“During the next few days I followed up with the idea. My roommate John Brubaker and Tony Barlow and Al Faurot across the hall in Adams gathered painting materials from the Addison for signs and hooks to move the smudge pots from the hardware store downtown. We enlisted a total of about 16 volunteers, half of which only had to do one quick job on the way back from the library at 9 pm. The rest were decoys who left at the same time. We were only allowed 7 minutes to get back to our dorms.
“A date a couple days later was set for the strike. For lack of a better idea we set the route down Hidden Road behind the Quad, which was a dead end. On the fateful night each of us did our jobs, scurried back to our rooms, and excitedly threw up the windows to see if the prank would work. The first vehicle to pull up to the sawhorse in the middle of the road, with a sign saying DETOUR with an arrow to turn right, was a large oil truck. The driver paused for a few moments that seemed to last forever. He then slowly turned right to great cheering in the dorms that he apparently could not hear. Several cars behind him dutifully followed, then a Boston-bound bus and more cars. All followed the truck around the Quad and down Hidden Road.
“Most of us then promptly jumped in bed and pretended to be sleeping until sometime later when we actually were. Of course, the next morning, we suddenly and belatedly became concerned about what could happen to us if we were found out, hopeful that we would be let off because the prank had not hurt anyone (putting aside the anger of a bunch of pissed-off passengers on the bus when it took the police almost an hour to unravel the backup). We felt some relief in that regard when we heard that English teacher Pen Hallowell, who lived in the last house at the end of Hidden Road, had broken out in great laughter as the vehicles descended on his abode.
“We heard that the faculty conducted a superficial investigation. The only name they turned up was that of Jaren Leet whose only crime was loaning us a box (in which he had just received some cookies from his mother and hence had his name on it) that we needed to put an extra arrow on. We never heard a thing from the faculty. Over 15 years later, at one of our reunions, Physics teacher Pete McKee accosted me about the incident. Since the statute of limitations was undoubtedly well past I acknowledged the above details.
“I repeat—the Class of 1954 had NOTHING to do with the incident.”
Ben Dorman Sun. Oct 5, 2025, 6:33 am email to class secretary
“Life is definitely slowing down. I’m still managing a few rounds of golf each week, albeit with the help of a buggy. And I’m still (after 35 years) musically involved with The Windsor & Eton Choral Society – one of England’s oldest choirs which will celebrate its 190th anniversary next year. Lastly, like Roger [Algase], I’m still a practising solicitor although this might be my final year of lawyering – 62 years ‘at the bar’ is probably enough. With grand-daughters enrolled in Boston University and Sarah Lawrence, their respective graduations in a few years will provide an excellent excuse to return to PA – I’ve not visited since our 50th reunion.”
Dave Gould Sat. Oct 4, 2025, 3:08 pm email to Dick Woods copied to class secretary
“Unfortunately, I’m afraid you would have to travel a bit farther than Granby to even find a crust we might break together. I’m now — and have been, for more than 50 years– living in Santiago, Chile, where in 1974 I accepted a job with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. When the moment came for my obligatory retirement from the UN, my wife Nora and I decided to stay on here. At that time, both our children were employed in Santiago. Subsequently, they both decided they wanted to return to the U.S. Daughter Ellen ended up living in Darien, and now works in Stamford as a broker in the petroleum industry. Son Albert became an English-Spanish simultaneous interpreter for the Colorado justice system, and moved to the Vail area to be close to the skiing. So that’s where we are now. Actually, we have very tasty bread!”
Peter Parsons Mon. Oct 6, 2025, 4:45 pm email to Bob Rogers copied to class secretary
“Of all the guys I got to know at Andover, [you, Bob Rogers] are about the best. It’s not a big bunch. Dave Steinberg, Perry Lewis and Bob Pitts too. . . . I recall that Tony Pratt might have teamed up with you and others to produce our class musical.’
Bob Rogers Tue. Oct 7, 2025, 1:36 am email reply to Peter Parsons copied to class secretary
Yes, Pete I do make music but not as much as in days past. Linda and I celebrate our 56th wedding anniversary in December.
Walt Howe Wed. January 21, 2026, 5:42 pm comment posted to class secretary’s website
“I just logged out of a Zoom session sponsored by Andover titled ‘Zooming Through the Decades: An All-Classes Social Gathering.’ We met and went to breakout rooms by decades, and the 1950s breakout room had two from 1952, me from 1955, and three from 1959. It was a lot of fun reminiscing and sharing stories and hearing about others. At reunion time last year, I asked about the possibilities of a zoom component for reunions for those less able to travel. I was told it was impractical and they did not have the equipment to set up good hybrid zoom sessions where both in-person and remote attendees can participate. Some classes hold regular zoom sessions to stay in touch. Those meetings would not be hybrid. Is there any interest in exploring this?” [Classnotes staff can host meetings on their Andover Zoom account but they think it would be best if a classmate volunteered to do it on his personal Zoom account. Otherwise we’d be competing with other meetings and they go home after work. WOULD SOMEONE LIKE TO VOLUNTEER?]
From Kate Washburn: Ned Washburn has left Mill Valley for Carmel, California. New address: 8545 Carmel Valley Rd., Carmel, CA 93923.
John Neal Daly 11/14/37 – 11/24/25 (obituary posted separately)