'40 Enjoys Friends, Chicken, Liquor While Harvard Foots Most of Bills

The 25th Reunion, according to William Bixler '40, is a "chance to see all your old friends." Stu Robbins '40 thinks of it as "eating chicken three times in two days." For Harvard it means more than $500,000.

Two years of planning and a reported $250,000 have gone into making sure that the 520 alumni, 490 wives, and 985 children of the Class of 1940 are happy for the five days they spend in Cambridge. From the first cocktail party on Sunday to the last cocktail party on Thursday, the alumni don't have a free minute to wonder what happiness is.

Everything--food, drink, transportation, and children--has been taken care of by the Reunion committee. There is breakfast at the Union, brunch at the Pudding, lunch in the Houses, and dinner on the indoor tennis courts. There is liquor--an estimated $80,000 worth--before and after everything. Busses run to Gloucester, to golf clubs, from Quincy House up the street to street to Sever Hall; cars stay parked in free spaces around the Yard.

The Reunion is, according to the Reunion Guide, designed to keep parents and children together "during certain periods only." Most of the children said they hadn't seen their parents since Sunday, but presumed they were having a good time. "My father said he wanted to see all the famous people in his class." Susan Bradley, a student at Concord Academy, said. "My father knows lots of people up here," Jerry Downs, another prep school student, said, "after he's looked at their name tags."

"Name tags are a big help," one mem- ber of '40 said at a Winthrop House luncheon. "I've come back, of course, to see all my old friends." One alumnus had come to the Reunion from Hawaii, another from East Africa--both attracted by the "aura of the 25th." Others said they wanted to express their affection for their old friend and classmate, John F. Kennedy, who lived in Winthrop House.

"Kennedy didn't make a special effort to be a big man on campus; most of these people don't remember him," a man who knew him well said.

After lunch a panel of deans, taking part in a "University Symposium" in