At the beginning of the year we would all meet together, the faculty members interested in bowling. And we’d divide up and take different names and so on. And I got to be chosen captain of a team. So you go round robin and you get your first pick, second pick, third pick. And I immediately picked Bob Gaudino as my first pick. Then I picked my father-in-law as second pick and then my third pick was Ralph Renzi, who later became the bookstore owner of my father-in-law. My father-in-law owned the bookstore, yes, Ray Washburne. So here was Bob Gaudino, Ray Washburne, Ralph Renzi and myself. There was a fifth person also but I can’t remember who didn’t show up very much. So we played and we were not distinguished.

Oh, he chided me in the beginning. He sort of laughed at me in some ways and I said, “Well, we’ll practice and see what happens.” He said, “Why did you pick–you just picked us with your emotional attachment to people. “ I said, “Yes, right, exactly, Bob, I want to have some fun. “ So maybe he needed reassurance or on the other hand maybe – but he liked to pick on you. He just enjoyed doing that. Anyway we started the season and we didn’t do that brilliantly. We finished about halfway, I think, in the middle of about 16 [teams] but we finished last second semester. But because we had done at least reasonably well [first semester] we were going to the playoffs. So we won the first playoff which was quite unusual. And so there were four teams left and we won the second playoff. So then there were only two teams left, us and the other guys. So all four of us went off to the Williams Inn, you know, lift up our spirits. And I remember walking from there to the Faculty Club and walking downstairs and taking them on and we were just having such a wonderful time with each other. And we played magnificently. My father-in-law was brilliant. I wasn’t too bad, Gaudino was great and we won. So that was a wonderful thing and then we had a big party and they have a picture of us. We had the honor and the dignity.

I left there in ’61, that’s right.

John Resenbrink,
University of Chicago graduate school classmate and early Williams College faculty colleague