[ Nu Alpha Phi ]

Treasurer's Report (October 1973)

Walter Zabriskie

When Zibby assumed the Treasurer's reins in 1973 (after the death of then Treasurer, Walker Gabbert `26 #41), he submitted the following report. It captures Zibby's voice, his tireless spirit of participation, his wonderful turn of a phrase, and the ever present respect for history, memory, and ... most importantly, love. For that, truly, is what Zibby is all about.


When Agee Shelton asked me to take over the responsibility of treasurer after the death of Walker Gabbert, who had served efficiently, quietly, and effectively so long, there was no alternative to an affirmative response.

So always quick himself to be helpful, so loyal to fraternal associations, so humble in his instincts to humaneness, could Agee be denied?

And then, as I reflect the decision, nostalgia tugs at the emotions of this 63 year old Polack poetaster, a retired L.A. City junior high school principal. Nu Alpha Phi meant much to me during those initial depression years of `28 to `32. Those were the days of bull sessions lasting late into the night, football practice on crisp afternoons with a rosy glow on Baldy from a setting sun late in the season, oranges plucked from orchards on the way to the cabin up San Dimas Canyon, an Easter vacation spent there working on a term paper, the time Bill Mitchell and I borrowed Bert Adam's Buick (while he was off on a glee club trip) to collect bags of cement for the cabin from various construction sites, the geology field trip to Joshua Tree when I almost run the grandfather's `25 Chevy touring car (with Agee Shelton, Bob Tscharner, `32; Brad Datson, `32; and Hyrum Strong, `32, all in the back seat) over a cliff while driving at night ... and what orchestra used to sign off at 10:00 (or was it 12:00) with "Goodnight, Sweetheart?"

    0 alte Burschenherrlichkeit!
    Wohin birt du verschwunden?
    Nie kehrst du wieder, goldne Zeit,
    So froh und ungebunden!
There! I stand before you a confessed sentimentalist. But not for nothing have I read George Gissing: "But assuredly the best people I have known were saved from folly not by the intellect but by the heart." And I do warrant that many a Nu Alpha nostril would quiver at the quick recollection of the scent of orange blossoms in bloom, many a heart skip a beat to recall moonlight under the oaks up San Dimas Canyon, latently lachrymous the eye to remember the ineffable beauty and emotion of an embrace when the blood ran gold.

Sentimental loyalties to the past, aye, but without them, a man has a parched and peaked spirit, prone to scurrilous scorn and self deceit. Something died in him as he aged.

Gone to the gods are three who meant much to me in my eager exuberant youth. Marc (Marcus Augustus) Stanton, `30, a junior when I was a freshman. How many times we talked philosophy and the meaning of life. How we exulted in body surfing in the awesome Long Beach breakers before the sea walls were built. Bob Shelton, `32, with his amazing quick intelligence, who became our family physician. Such a good man to turn to when you're trying to keep wife, four sons, and self healthy. The ungodly hour he came to the house to check Nan's appendix: competent, cheerful, comfortable. And John Blanchard, `32, der Rotkopf, omnivorous reader, writer of flowing prose, admirer of the arts, and a dilettante with damsels. I still have letters he wrote from his various adventures. He had style. He had class. Together, we shared many a book during those after graduation depression years: "Anthony Adverse," "The Testament of Youth," etc. I really believe he's up on a cloud laughing at our foibles, anxieties, and prejudices here below....

Are there still young men at the college with such buoyancy, such zest, such intellectual curiosity, humility, honesty, and integrity? I could hope for a sense of association, of continuity with such. And the Fraternity, with its traditions of the San Dimas cabin (what inspiration it must have taken to prompt the blood, the sweat, and the beers to lug all that rock up to the site from the canyon bed 200 feet below. No wonder that trail is so well worn), the Monday night colloquies laced with jest and persiflage, the spasmodic Oak Leaf (which, with your support, we hope to issue at least quarterly), the Ken Smith camperoos, the spirit of such Brothers as Chet Jaeger, `61; Chan Hale, `23; Paul Dudley, `25 ... and so many more.

I want to contribute to the continuity of this spirit, this perhaps changing but always primal urge of men to establish ties with kindred spirits of the book, the bottle, and the beat of the drum in the conviviality and cloister of a college campus. So, unskilled tho' I am, I will keep the accounts, collect the dues, pay the bills, and render encouragement and support to the long-suffering Buckmaster, `54, Editor of ye ancient and honorable manuscript, Ye Leaf of Oak. We live on the same side of the same street in the same town, several blocks separated ... but he can pedal uphill on his bike to my house for consultations. I look forward to working with him, this Nu Alpha of a younger generation.

Zibby

[ <-- Back ] [ Contents ] [ Next --> ]

NAP Home

[ NAP Home ]

Support Nu Alpha Phi and The Oak Leaf: Send in your News and Dues today!


Copyright © 1998 Nu Alpha Phi Fraternity, All Rights Reserved.