Reunion to remember

Friday evening I attended the reception at the Art Gallery of the University of New England’s Westbrook College campus to view the Sculpture Garden, with many sculptures created outdoors, around the building. Inside the building there was a big crowd attending. Luckily there was no rainstorm that evening.

The posters on the walls of both floors of the gallery were the exhibition of curator Stephen Halpert. It was titled “The Art of Posters New and Old,” and they were fascinating.

Artists who designed the works in the Sculpture Garden are Anne Alexander, Lise Becu, John Bowden, Ray Carbone, Tom Chapin, Ed Friedman, Lucy Hodgson, Sandy MacLeod, Nancy Nevergole, Jean Noon, Jac Oulette, Roy Patterson, James Pierce, Roger Prince, Daphne Pulsifer, Ed Twilley, Andreas von Huene and Nelita Westerlund.

The Saturday 70th class reunion activities were busy ones. Our 1938 classmates, Alice Gamage Allen, Eleanor Blaisdell Bradeen, Madge Rhodes Frost (her husband attended, too), Ellen Stevens Staley (our 1938 May Queen) and Delia Galli Mooney, attended, and my family members came, too. At 11 a.m. the Recognition Assembly and annual meeting of the Alumni Association took place, before the noon luncheon in Alexander Hall. The reunion classes marched in and were seated. Welcoming them was Amy Nadzo Halle, director of alumni advancement. The annual meeting was called to order. Among the awards given were the Tower Award for Alumni Achievement , presented to your correspondent, Anne Blanchard Foote.

Jean Hight Childs, ’46 and a Tower award recipient, too, was very helpful to me as I went up to the stage for my award, and to give my brief speech recalling my years at Westbrook Junior College. Also Margaret Smith Goode, ’49, past president of the Board of Directors, greeted me. The luncheon at Alexander Hall was delicious. We were pleased to have Peter Murray, now chef at the Westbrook campus, speak to my family. He had worked for us as a reporter at our American Journal newspaper quite a few years ago. I was also pleased to have several alumni speak to me at the luncheon – Alice Savage, ’55, a trustee, and Fern Wilson Orr, ’47, of the board of directors, were among those I enjoyed speaking with.

Also, after the awards were given, a man told our son Raymond that he wishes he might have the genes of the 1938 graduates present.

The meeting was a pleasant occasion. I would have liked to join reunion members that evening for the lobster bake in Ludcke Auditorium. But the day’s activities had made a full day for me, and a very pleasant one, too.

Words to remember

What tricky words the young people encountered at the 2008 National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. I was a runner-up at Nathan Clifford School, but our words were simple, compared with these. Our son Raymond was familiar with some of the difficult words the judges were giving at the national bee. That surprised me. The winner, Sameer Mishra, was a 13-year-old boy from West Lafayette, In. He aced the bee on the word “guerdo,” which means “something that one has earned or gained.” He said that his parents had been telling him, since the beginning that he should stay calm, cool and collected. Sameer likes playing the violin and video games and hopes one day to be a neurosurgeon.

He won a tense duel with Sidharth Chand, 12, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who finally stumbled on “prosopopoeia,” a word describing a type of figure of speech. The first place finish also won him $35,000 in cash and more than $5,000 in other prizes.

Third place went to Tia Thomas, 13, from Coarsegold, Calif., who was eliminated on “opificer” (a skilled or artistic worker).

Don’t these words sound difficult to you? They are nothing that I heard in daily speech. I also wonder why some of that big money isn’t divided by other near winners. They did so well, too.

I’ve also read, in the June 8 Maine Sunday Telegram, that a Blue Hill girl, Imogen Page, was in the bee, lasting until the third round. She made quick work of the bee’s written test, with such words as “miscible,” “cygnet,” “avarice,” “guernsey” and “loquacity.” But then round 3 brought the word “unconscionable,” a challenge for the avid reader and spelling champ. “I don’t remember seeing it before,” she said in an interview last week.

I would have had a tough time with most of the words these students were given.

Date to remember

RECIPE

Today’s recipe is from Marjorie Standish’s book, “Cooking Down East,” 1968.

DATE CAKE

1 cup hot water

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup dates, cut up

1/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1-1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Spices and nuts, if desired

Put cut-up dates, salt and baking soda into bowl. Pour hot water over them. Cool. Cream shortening. Add sugar gradually, add egg and beat until creamy. Sift flour Measure. Add alternately with cooled date mixture to creamed mixture. Bake in a loaf pan. 350 degrees, for 1 hour.

Marjorie says that she prefers this cake without the spices and nuts. Just confectioners’ sugar on top after the cake is baked.