Finis Origine Pendet
Returning Home to Exeter By Sherwood E. “Joe” Bain ’41; P’69
W
hen your kids make enough noise
96
The Exeter Bulletin
FALL 2013
not considered faculty. This mattered little to me at the time, if, indeed, I even considered it. I was overwhelmed by Harkness, the advanced degrees of so many faculty, the facilities, the athletics, activities and, of course, my classmates, who seemed more worldly than me.The classy, professional ways in which things were done was new to me, coming from a small high school in Maine. Robert Frost came to read poems to us, and there were visits by Gregor Piatigorsky, the von Trapp Family Singers, Igor Stravinsky, Katharine Hepburn, André Maurois, Stephen Vincent Benét and others. There were “butt rooms” where boys could smoke and formal dances with big-name bands. The Exonian carried ads for Camels and Chesterfields. Lunch at The Exeter Inn was 65 cents.There were Greek letter societies, long ago abolished. My ignorance of them caused me to be flustered when I received a “feeler.” I wasn’t tapped. At morning chapel, now assembly, we sang songs (I first heard excerpts from The Pirates of Penzance and H.M.S. Pinafore); listened to visiting dignitaries; and carved our initials on the backs of the wooden benches in front of us. Even today, I shut my eyes and hear our male chorus of “Upidee, Idee, Ida” and “Funiculi, Funiculà.” Of our 238 classmates, 90 percent of them chose Ivy League colleges.The rest went mostly to eastern colleges, including the service academies. It was 1941. RiverWoods—founded by two Exeter faculty wives, Rosemary Coffin and Maryanna Hatch, 20odd years ago—has three campuses in a woodland setting on Route 111, the extension of Front Street, just two miles from the Academy Building. Proximity to PEA is a strong draw for many residents, thanks to Exeter’s policy of making most lectures and concerts open to the public. Savvy alums have moved in, doubtless for reasons similar to ours.The Exeter family is us, along with the faculty and students. There are assemblies, classes to be visited, coffee at the Grill, and sports on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The town of Exeter seems to have grown even more beautiful over the years, as so many stately homes have been restored. (continued on page 90)
FRED CARLSON
about “time to move to a retirement community,” you begin to listen. After 60 happy years in Cambridge, MA, my wife, Carol, and I wanted to be near the activities around Boston that we enjoy. We investigated several Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) around Route 128. The apartments we were shown were too small, too far from the dining room, lacked sunlight, or didn’t accept dogs. We had also made a deposit at RiverWoods, in Exeter, NH—a bit farther from Boston, but reachable by train, bus or car. Carol and I made a pact: We’d move to whichever CCRC came up first with a unit we liked. In 2009, RiverWoods won hands down. Our living room has so much space that it can accommodate a grand piano, a big plus for me after putting up with a Yamaha upright in Cambridge. Our ties to Exeter are strong. Carol had known Dr. [Lewis] Perry (Exeter’s eighth principal) well, having served as a secretary to him at his Beacon Hill retirement home. And, although I was a twoyear boy at the Academy, those were my most influential years, shaping the course of my life. To my surprise, as a soldier in World War II, I received letters from Wells Kerr, then-retired dean of students and himself a World War I veteran. Over the years, I have grown to admire many faculty and classmates: Hammy Bissell ’29; Bill Saltonstall ’24, who once invited me to play squash when we ran into each other at the Harvard Club; the folks at Gilman House (I’ve been a class agent for The Exeter Fund for “forever,” it seems); Steve Kurtz; Kendra Stearns O’Donnell; and so many others. When I was a young alum, Darcy Curwen and Leonard Pearl—both feared housemasters—asked me to call them “Darcy” and “Len.” Carol and I even spent our wedding night at The Exeter Inn! The Academy was a WASP society during my years as a student.The Christian Fraternity featured prominently. There were no minorities, although some had been enrolled in previous years. I learned later in life that the faculty had all been WASPs, except for Ralph Lovshin, the track coach, who was