Letters

Looking for Frank Perenick ’53
I graduated from East Longmeadow High School, in Massachusetts, and administer our Class of ’70 website. One of our fifth-grade teachers was Mr. Francis Perenick, a Marlboro alumnus, and I’m seeking a photo of him to add to our site. I’m wondering if you could scan and email me his graduation photo from the yearbook: something that would be a good likeness of him that we would remember.
—Scott Moore, friend

We could not find a photo of Frank graduating, but found this great, fuzzy one (right) of him giving a haircut, which we shared. —eds

Freshman Memories
I would like to tell an anecdote about Ellsworth Mason, who taught freshman literature. He sent a note home to my parents at Christmastime saying I wasn’t putting in enough time studying for his class even though he knew I was getting top marks for my other classes. He thought I was just going through the motions in his. Needless to say, I was really chewed out by my parents. I wasn’t angry at professor Ellsworth, but rather impressed that he cared enough to try to stimulate my interest in his class, which was the most difficult and challenging I have ever taken.
—Irwin Rosen ’55

Free Speech Fundamentalism
As an alumnus and a first amendment fundamentalist, I found the protest by Middlebury students at a talk by Charles Murray, as reported in the New York Times in March (goo.gl/u2yYhh), highly disturbing. All ideas should be welcome for exploration. Explore racism if you want to understand it. Explore entropy if you want to figure out physics. Explore Robert Lowell if you want to get a handle on mania, and Sandburg if you want to know Chicago (or Wilco for you young folks). But please, please, get outside your comfort zone, kids. It is really easy to see all that is wrong in your own set and rail against it. But there is another set. They don’t agree, and they are not dumb.
—Charlie Barmonde ’99

Remembering John MacArthur
A wise and wonderful man. As a member of the Brattleboro Union High School Science Advisory Committee in the ’80s and ’90s, John became one of my truly great science mentors. I loved his gentle, confident, and holistic approach to science. His children and grandchildren have many of his remarkable traits.
—Jim Maland, friend

Potash Love
As you already know, we are great fans of Potash Hill, and especially your graphic design. A beautiful piece of work in a world that is increasingly noisy.
—Will Morgan, friend

More Jeep Memories
Ana Bruce confirmed that her mom, Emilia Bruce ’58, is in the early photo of Marlboro pioneers on page 6 of Potash Hill Spring 2017 (right), and that Jon Glasby ’55 is in the jeep. However, the person to the right of the jeep, standing next to Howie Whittum ’55, is her dad, M. Linn Bruce ’55, not Charlie Staples.

Errata
We regret that we neglected to include a photo credit for the recent photo of Gail Henry ’72 on the inside back cover of Potash Hill Spring 2017. That photo was taken by Joya Pinkham Clark, also known as Owl Woman Design.