Monday, February 8, 2016

A Chat with Dr. Ladd

A quaint tale told from Dr. Ladd's perspective - hardly more than a curiosity, but a fitting one for this week's weather, and a good place to take up again our egregiously delinquent blogging routine.

This comes from the Ladd School's newsletter, "The Exeter News," January, 1956 issue:

A Chat With The Superintendent

"Looking for news from the administration for this month's issue of the paper, your reporter found Dr. Ladd in a reminiscent mood. 'Well, I had thought of giving you something about snow,' he said, and began telling of the storms which used to beset the School in the early days of its existence.

Once a very dependable patient by the name of Guy, who was sent on an errand in such a storm, stopped at the office (when then was in Dr. Ladd's home) to pick up the mail. Dr. Ladd says that he had an intuition that something might go wrong, so he started after him to see that he didn't lose his way. Evidently it was so bad that it was impossible to look ahead to see where one was going for more than a few seconds at a time. It happened, therefore, that Guy had left the road and circled around to crisscross it several times. The Doctor caught up to him just as he was crossing it again - heading in the wrong direction.

He said, "Hi Guy -- having any trouble?"

Guy answered in his very slow, deliberate monotone, "Yes ... I don't where I am ... can't find the road."

Dr. Ladd put him on the right track and started back himself. By glancing up every so often he could see the lights at his house and head himself in the right direction. As he came to a small hill, however, he found that his view of the lights was shut out, but he kept going in what he thought was the right direction. After a while, he stopped to get his bearings and saw the lights way off to his left. He couldn't understand how he had gotten turned around this much but struck out for the lights once more.

When he finally reached the spot where the light was coming from, he discovered that from the bottom of the hill he had started after the wrong set of lights, and had ended up over by the Colony instead of at his home at the other end of the reservation. He remarked that it had been foolish of him to set his course by the lights in the first place, and that he finally made it home safely by taking note of the direction that the wind was coming from, and since he know that this was storm from the North, taking his bearings accordingly."

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