April 2012 - Alumni News - Williams College

General Hospital, joining the
Bruins as team doctor just when
Bobby Orr brought the Stanley
Cup back to Boston in 1970.
There Wilk got to see and know
one of the all-time greats in the
NHL. ‘There are two things I
remember about Bobby Orr
that stood out,’ Wilk offered.
‘One, he was unbelievable as
a player. He could shoot, pass,
rag the puck and defend with
anyone.’ His ability to rush the
puck remains the best of all time.
‘Two, he was a fantastic person,
a great humanitarian.’ Wilk
recalled a call in his early days
with the Bruins from a doctor at
the Boston Children’s Hospital
wondering if Wilk could get Orr
to visit a 12-year-old who had
had a leg amputated because
of a bone sarcoma, thus ending
his hockey career. Wilk replied
that he would ask Orr. He
agreed with one condition—no
publicity. ‘I told Bobby I had one
condition, too; that I go with
him.’ In three hours at the ward
Orr visited with every young
patient, boy and girl, athlete and
non-athlete, and all of the kids
responded very positively to the
Orr visit. One of the veteran
nurses commented to Wilk: ‘I’ve
only seen this kind of reception
once before—when Ted Williams
came to visit.’ Orr was only 21!
When Orr scored the overtime
goal to win the cup, Wilk was
on the bench; son Wayne ’79 was
sitting in his seat with Suki. It
was his 13th birthday.
“Wilk had enjoyed Hartwell’s
breakout game as a sophomore
against Trinity when he caught
consecutive 80-yard touchdown
passes right in front of Wilk.
‘It was amazing to see him run
right by the defenders.’ He has
had great respect for the wide
receiver wearing number 1.
Wilk told Darren to say hello
to Don DelNegro, the Bruins
head trainer and former director
of sports medicine at Williams:
‘He’s my last connection to the
Bruins.’ Wilk loved Darren’s final
comment to Quinn: ‘I hope I’m
as active and energetic as he is
at 92.’”
SENDNEWS!
Y our class secretary is
waiting to hear from you!
Send news to your secretary at
the address at the top of your
class notes column.
1942
REUNION JUNE 7–10
Thurston Holt
4902 Willowood Way
Norman, OK 73026
1942secretary@williams.edu
“She is a woman, therefore
may be wooed. She is a woman,
therefore may be won.”
—William Shakespeare, from
his play Titus Andronicus. This
was a favorite passage in a discussion
I had with Ben Schneider
Jr., who had taught English
at St. Lawrence University.
He believes Hamlet is partly
autobiographical.
Was Hamlet strong? Ben
thinks only near the end when he
returned to England with a “now
I must act” determination.
Did such luminaries as the Earl
of Oxford, Ben Jonson or Francis
Bacon really write the plays and
sonnets rather the rustic bard
of Stratford-Upon-Avon? Ben
declared, “Shakespeare really
wrote them—and I can prove it!”
Ben is living at Goddard
House, a retirement community
in Brookline, Mass. “My wife
Kaye died, my right knee is bone
on bone, but this is a fine place
to live, and the food is good,” he
reported.
Phil Hammerslaugh Jr. and I
went back to our freshman days.
Soon after the Class of 1942
arrived on campus, the college
had a meeting for all freshmen.
President James Phinney Baxter,
Class of 1914, greeted us.
Later, the dean, Hafdan
Gregerson, was introduced. He
said, “Williams has a bunch of
rules and regulations, but you
don’t even have to know what
they are if you bear in mind just
one thing: Be a gentleman.” He
left after having spoken for only
about a minute.
I told Phil how much that
impressed me and how valuable
it has been through the years.
We didn’t all follow it that fall.
During a Halloween celebration,
one of us got the fire hose of a
hydrant going. When the dean
arrived at the freshman quad to
see what was going on, the guy
with the hose aimed it at him
and soaked him.
Phil recalled the fall hurricane,
a hurricane that didn’t have a
name except “The Hurricane of
1938.” It knocked out the bridge
over the Greenfield River from
Williamstown to North Adams,
so Fred Tompkins swam across it.
n 1932–42
Phil went back to his boyhood.
When he and Bruce Sundlun went
to a camp one summer, they
became co-winners of the Best
Camper award. Phil kept the trophy
for six months, then handed
it off to Bruce for six months.
Later, Phil emailed me, “David
Brooks of The New York Times
once ran a column about some
people who stay in one job
all their lives, and others who
change almost every seven
years like the itch. I’m one of
the latter.” Is he ever! I’ll cover
highlights of his whirligig career
in the next issue.
When I called Olivia Woodin,
widow of Raye, she told me, “I’m
holding my own.” She’s living
in Burlington, N.C., at Asheville
House, a retirement community,
and writing a weekly column,
“Ripples from the Pond,” for
their newspaper, The Village
Voice. Among her subjects are
profiles of new residents and
the grand outdoors, including a
great blue heron that fishes in the
pond, which has a fountain in
the middle, and sunsets that turn
the pond golden.
Raye’s father, also Raye Woodin,
was Williams 1898, then came
our Raye, then Olivia and Raye’s
daughter Eliza Lovell ’72. Who’s
next?
F. Thomas Ward said to me,
“The presence of Dottie and
Fred Rudolph in Williamstown is
wonderful. Taking in women is
the greatest thing Williams ever
did.”
I told Tom I share his enthusiasm
for coeducation. Quite
soon after Deerfield Academy,
where I was class of ’37, finally
went co-ed, I was thrilled to see
the cover picture of Deerfield
alumni magazine: a smiling
young woman baseball catcher,
crouched behind home plate,
mitt out, ready for the next
batter.
Tom and his wife Cornelia
live in Sedona, Ariz., and keep in
shape hiking at Flagstaff.
Joan Larned, an honoree, has
an apartment in NYC and a farm
in Kent, Conn. “I’m selling blueberries
and giving away apples,”
she says.
I told her an old story about
Jack Larned that I didn’t think
she’d heard. He lived close by
when we were growing up.
When he was about 7 years old,
at our house one day my father
asked him what he wanted to be
when he grew up. “A bishop,”
he answered. “I hear there’s good
money in it.” (His father was a
bishop.)
aPril 2012 | Williams PeoPle | 5