Letters
Soup’s On
A few minor corrections and additions to your caption of the photograph of Daniel Fenton’s ladling soup (winter 2012, p. 37). The picture could not have been taken in 1955, as the students at the near table are mostly members of the Class of 1953; and those at the table behind, headed by Mr. Howard Farwell, are all members of the class of 1952. The two waiters are Dave Dotson ’52 and Sam Stewart ’52. The incident you refer to occurred in the late fall of 1951. The hapless waiter was my roommate, the late Colin Chase ’52. I will never forget his look of utter horror, after the tureen had slipped from his hands, done a somersault in mid-air and landed squarely on Mr. Fenton’s well-coiffed dome. He arched his back, covered his eyes with his hands and wailed “Oh, no!” loudly enough to be heard by the entire school. All eyes were immediately turned to Mr. Fenton, who with great dignity and an amazingly bright orange head, strode stone-faced out of the dining room. After a second of stunned silence the entire student body and faculty broke out in the loudest sustained peal of laughter I have ever heard. Mr. Cruikshank was laughing so loudly that his head drooped forward and nearly hit the table. It was the only time in four years that I had ever seen him laugh. The vegetable was steamed squash, not turnip. Colin had never wanted to go to Yale. What he actually said was, “Now I’ll never get into Harvard.” And he didn’t. He went to the University of Colorado for a year, then transferred to Harvard, where he and I renewed our friendship as fellow residents of Adams House. I don’t know whether Mr. Fenton was responsible for Colin’s year in the wilderness or not. None of us wanted to believe he could have been that vengeful, but we couldn’t account for the rejection otherwise. —Victor Altshul ’52 Congrats on another Bulletin, in which I’ve read every article—a good, diverse crosssection of Taft—past and present. It used to be that I’d read my class notes and then pitch it. NO LONGER. I had a great deal of respect for Daniel Fenton, for he brought a sense of dignity and class to us, the unwashed. I happened to have been in the dining room when (a table or two beyond where the picture was taken) the tureen of hot squash fell over the unsuspecting Fenton. We understood it to have been pre-planned. What is not said is that poor Mr. Fenton did walk out of the dining room,
but was out of commission for about a week due to second-degree burns. Chase’s claim to fame was that his mother wrote Harvey here in Denver. I remember speculating at the time about his college prospects after the incident. The waiter for Fenton’s table in the picture was Dave Dotson ’52, one of the best running backs on the football team. —Edward Connors ’53 By sheer coincidence, Harvey was the winter play this year. See page 13. Reid Williamson ’52 also wrote in to identify many of the boys in the photo.
Family Ties
Thanks on behalf of the Graham Fam, and I daresay the Becker/Truesdale crew for the wonderful class notes for 1995. The day Peter Becker ’95 was announced [as the next head of The Gunnery], I immediately thought of your recent article about the connections of Taft and heads of school everywhere [Spring 2011, p. 22]. Excellent dot connecting. And you were right about Lance Odden being behind the scenes, but also behind the scenes were Danny ’95 and Greg Oneglia ’65. Peter had some long conversations about the opportunity, and I think knowing Greg and Cathy and Christina ’98 as long as we have, helped give Peter a sense of our community. It also didn’t hurt that he heard [my wife] Susie speak at the 1998 Taft graduation. As Susie retires this year [as head of The Gunnery], we will miss this place, but know that Peter and A.J. will do just fine. —Jim Graham P’98,’01 The list of Taft headmasters continues to grow. We learned that Burton MacLean ’34 headed three schools: Iolani School, American School Paris and Pomfret School. You can see the updated list at www.taftschool.org/headsup.
Logan’s Run
I get excellent alumni magazines from great schools, and your Taft Bulletin is among the very best, most readable and entertaining. I of course saw the Taft Trivia box and inquiry about long-term coaches. It was Jim Logan’s face that drew me in. The generations (plural) of Taft boys whom Jim Logan taught and coached is passing away, but, as with so many others in our transitory lives, his and their influence are being passed along. I know our Nobel laureate, Alfred G. Gilman ’58, would hold Jim Logan in the same high regard as I do. Al was the manager of the 1958 varsity basketball team under Logan, and also one of Logi’s star pupils in physics.
As for me, I avoided his difficult class, quite purposefully and wisely I add, knowing where danger lay even at that tender age. It was on the playing fields of dear old Taft that I knew and respected Logan as a coach and on the third floor corridor, uppermid year 1956–57, where he ruled quietly with a firm hand. On that corridor, I learned from Logan the inexcusability of a charge of “dereliction of duty.” I didn’t appreciate where the term came from (probably his Navy service), but we felt the moral force of it in Logan’s Dante-esque world of human failings. Duty, thereafter, took on deeper meaning. We called him Gentleman Jim. We meant —continued on page 33
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Taft Trivia From whom did Horace Taft rent the original school buildings in Pelham Manor, New York? (Hint: You can find the answer in the fall 2010 issue, or on our website.) We received no replies about Taft’s last New England football title, which was in 1992.
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Taft Bulletin SPRING 2012 3