With alumni returning en masse this weekend to celebrate various reunions, I have been able to conduct a few interviews and make some connections that will be important to this project. Particularly fruitful was the gathering of the 50th reunion class - 1961 - along with some alumni from earlier classes. The '61 group shared a number of stories about Don Pierpont. One of my favorites concerned some boys who lived in Eagle. One of them had the room that overlooks the headmaster's back yard, and these boys had a rope ladder that they used to descend into Don Pierpont's rather substantial gardens for the purpose of indulging in a cigarette or two. (The provost's garden is an interesting choice of venue, is it not, for schoolboys looking to engage in clandestine smoking!) One evening, as the boys, who had been discussing the provost and using a favorite derisive nickname, prepared to climb back to their window, they heard a familiar voice say "I hope you are sure those cigarettes are out"! Of course, like almost any story involving Don Pierpont, it ends with Don taking the boys to HoJo's. There was a Howards Johnson's on the north side of Route 44 in those days, and that is where Pierpont held court.
Another story that will certainly get into the book is that Don Pierpont used to write a quotation from Chaucer, "follow your ghost," in students' yearbooks. I've decided to have each chapter title include a quotation - Mrs. Riddle's is "By their fruits, ye shall know them - and it will be difficult to find a more appropriate quotation for Don Pierpont than "follow your ghost."
There was also a story from a member of the class of '42 who chanced to meet a blinded veteran who had come to the Old Farms Convalescent Hospital and said that the people there had restored his will to live. Chalk that up as a vote in favor of including a substantial chapter on the Convalescent Hospital.
