I was very sorry to read in the June Bulletin about the fire at the Ingleneuk Tea House.
How many of you worked there? I cleared tables Tuesdays through Fridays and made desserts on Saturdays for three memorable semesters during 1952-53. In addition to lunch and a share of the tips on days worked, we were served dinner also as regular customers. If I chose not to eat dinner, I could take 75 cents in cash or, better, bring a guest on another day. Given the quality of College food in those years, my guests appreciated the opportunity to enjoy dinner at the Ingleneuk.
There was one drawback. Often I forgot to mention to my date ahead of time that we had a $2 maximum for dinner. So, before we ordered, I had to peer over the top of the large menu and whisper, "Don't order the roast beef," which costs $2.25.
Charles "Buck" Jones '53
McLean, Va.
Professor [T. Kaori] Kitao's article "The Usefulness of Uselessness" (June Bulletin) is a sad and flawed attempt to justify an anachronistic system of education devised centuries ago for an idle elite. It is sad because she seems to feel the need to justify liberal arts courses as a method of improving students' ability to think and learn. As Professor Kitao indicates, such courses are often intrinsically interesting. They need no further justification.
The article is also flawed because there are far more efficient methods of enhancing students' ability to learn, to think, and to be creative than studying Chaucer and hoping for a serendipitous mind-improvement by-product.
Perhaps a return to the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric should be considered by Swarthmore.
Richard Kirschner '49
Albuquerque, N.M.
I read with great interest the article on Empowered Painters ("Collection," June Bulletin). As Swarthmore graduate who worked in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood for almost two years, I became acutely aware of the need for sustainable jobs for residents. Although I applaud the students' efforts, I was greatly disturbed when they implied that most of the workers they employed from Kensington/North Philadelphia did not have the "right work ethic."
Work ethic is a social construct, and no one has any right to deem one as the correct one. We need to examine people's situations in the full context of their lives, not judge them by middle- and upper-class values. And any work ethic is difficult to build when jobs are unavailable and do not pay a livable wage. Good, productive work with disempowered people needs to be done not by judging them but rather by trying to get a sense of the full context in which they live.
As Swarthmore alumni, we are privileged. I would hope we use that privilege with a true sense of social responsibility. Impoverished and disempowered neighborhoods do not need moralistic judgment. I do not think any of us wants to resurrect the culture of poverty argument from years ago. I applaud the work Empowered Painters is doing. I hope that the characterization of people from the neighborhoods where the company works changes.
Joanne Weill-Greenberg '96
Philadelphia
I was surprised to see the poem "Last Day" and the accompanying photograph in the June issue of the Bulletin ("Collection"). Part of the poem reads: "I sit on the steps / of the dorm and smoke a cigarette," and the photo depicts a girl, puffing away, surrounded by smoke.
This implicit--if unintentional--endorsement of smoking disturbs me. We are all aware that cigarette smoking kills. Would you publish a similar poem about students playing Russian roulette in the dorms as if it were the most everyday activity in the world, next to a photograph of a student holding a gun to her head?
If such unhealthy and often fatal behavior were not so socially acceptable, it would not find its way into such forums as the Bulletin. Part of the problem with getting people to recognize and accept the dangers of smoking is that it is so deeply entrenched in our society--as American as apple pie. Although a single poem may not convince an adult to take up smoking, thousands of such words and images legitimize smoking, adding to its acceptability and downplaying the danger involved. As the publication of a socially conscious institution, the Bulletin should refrain from supporting the harmful status quo.
Amita Sudhir '98
Falls Church, Va.
Reading the June 2000 issue of the Bulletin, I was shocked and then angered to see in the "Collection" section a photograph of a young woman smoking and to read the adjacent poem with the line, "I sit on the steps / of the dorm and smoke a cigarette." The photograph appears to be a portrait of the poet, accompanying her republished literary contribution. In this context, your readers might reasonably expect that the person and her behavior are meant to be admired.
Portraying smoking as admired (or even acceptable) deceives young people who have not seen the ugly truth about nicotine addiction; tobacco-induced carcinogenesis; and the consequent, very painful, fatal diseases. Of all places, I expected Swarthmore would not tolerate the deception.
Mark DeWitte D.V.M. '73
Downingtown, Pa.
Editor's Note: College policy prohibits smoking in all public spaces. According to Linda Echols, director of the Worth Health Center, although the College's goal is a smoke-free campus, "when we talk about quality of life for the community, we still debate smoking--a person's right to do so and others' right not to have to breathe smoky air." The health center offers smoking cessation programs and provides access to other methods such as nicotine patches and gum. Echols estimates that 10 to 15 percent of students smoke and that about half of those who try to quit are successful.
I was interested to read the article "A Melody From Days Gone By" in the June Bulletin about the shipboard band who played their way to Europe on the Europa in 1937. For several years, I was manager of the College Glee Club, and I remember Drew Young '37 very well from the days when he was its director.
In the summer of 1939, I, too, was a member of a shipboard band on a luxury liner, the French ship Normandie, bound for Europe. John Crowley '41 had organized a shipboard band a year earlier, and this was his second time around. We had John on trombone, the late Jack Myers '40 on sax, the late Stewart Thorn '39 on piano, and I played drums. There was a trumpet player too, but he wasn't at the College.
As with the band in the article, we played primarily for second-class passengers, but every now and again, we would go up to first class or down to third. They served only wine with all meals, including breakfast. I'd never drunk wine in my life, and I had to ask the waiters to bring me water.
On the way over to Europe, we ran into a severe storm with very heavy seas. The Normandie was 1,000 feet long but very narrow relative to her length, so she rolled violently in the swell. My drums were rolling across the floor; the piano slid away; and a lot of passengers got sick, including all the band members (except for me).
When we docked in Le Havre, we headed straight for Paris. It was fascinating. The Europeans were preparing for war. In France, they were putting up sandbag barriers in the streets and removing all the stained glass from the church windows in anticipation of the firing and bombing.
It was the summer of 1939. In September of that year, Hitler invaded Poland. I figure, they got us out just in time. As it turned out, our voyage was the last but one that the Normandie would make as a passenger liner. She was converted into a troop ship, and one year later, she burned and sank at her pier in New York.
Since those days, I've been and am still active as a physician, among other things, and I've made several more recent trips to Europe, including to Germany, as drummer and band physician for the Hobo Band of Pitman, N.J.
Reading the Bulletin article brought the memories flooding back, and I'd love to know what my fellow band members are up to these days and would really appreciate hearing from them or from others who know of them.
James Kehler '40
Woodbury, N.J.
I was delighted to see Drew Young's ['37] face smiling at me from the pages of the June Bulletin. Naturally, I read this article first, and because I have a brother-in-law who made several similar trips, I found it entertaining.
But I looked in vain among the details of Drew's years after the cruise for the part of his career that brought us together. When I got to Swarthmore as a freshman in the fall of 1937, Drew was the director of the glee club. Fortunately, I passed his audition and enjoyed his leadership for four years. Whether or not he continued in that activity beyond the spring of 1941, I don't know. But I do know he left his mark on a lot of young Swarthmore male students over at least four years.
Robert Taylor '41
Wilmington, Del.
Editor's Note: Drew Young reports that he has fond memories of Robert Taylor. Young has continued to direct choruses as an avocation and has been a church organist for many years.
When I received the June Bulletin, I turned eagerly to the spring sports highlights, only to be disappointed not to see anything about women's rugby. I believe it is the only Swarthmore team in the College to be undefeated in its regular season this year--they even pulled out a win over Princeton (nationally ranked No. 2) in their final game.
I know that this is technically a club sport, but it is a very popular one, and the women who play on the team are every bit as dedicated athletes as any in the College. My daughter, Emily Wilkins '01, has played since she was a freshman, and next year will be the captain and president of a team that attracted more than 40 new players this year. They are a very varied group, involved in all aspects of College life. I hate to see their achievements ignored in the alumni publication, which should be celebrating such success.
Lucinda Kidder '66
Northfield, Mass.
Professor Wolfgang Köhler
If you studied psychology with Professor Wolfgang Köhler (at Swarthmore during 1936-55) and would like to share your impressions and memories, please help with my research project about his work and life in America.
Katharina Kloss
University of Cologne
c/o Bergisch-Gladbacher Straße 876
51069 Cologne, Germany
keissi@gmx.de
For a biography of Margaret "Peggy" Burks '67, who died of cancer in 1995, I would like to hear from fellow students, friends, or faculty members who knew her. Any recollections could be of great importance to me.
James Cahalan
1776 Mansfield Road
Georgetown SC 29440
(843) 545-7395
mansfield_plantation@prodigy.net
Sam Schulhofer-Wohl '98 ("The New Swarthmore Journalists," June) was front-page designer at the Birmingham Post-Herald, not the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as reported in a caption. Schulhofer-Wohl also did not serve as editor of The Phoenix as a student. He was the paper's publisher throughout 1996.
The photo of the Ingleneuk Tea House fire ("Back Pages," June) was taken by Nathan Ashby-Kuhlman '02.
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