JAMES DEMUTH, Carleton 1961-1965. Jim seemed exotic when I first met him, on Second Musser in early autumn 1961. He looked like a young Robert Mitchum. He had a flashing silver (actually stainless) tooth, where his had been knocked out in a basketball game in Rome. The work had been done by an Air Force dentist in Tripoli Libya. I will vouch for the truth of none of this, except the tooth’s existence. He also was Catholic and a few days later he walked with me to St. Dominic’s in Northfield. Later he volunteered as basketball coach/ recreation supervisor there. Jim and I competed to get Dan Turnquist to room with one of us for our sophomore year. We both won and the three of us went to first Burton. During Freshman year, I and all the other males in a Soc 101 class had fallen in love with a beautiful redhead from Faribault, MN. That Sophomore fall, however, Jim had not yet fallen under the spell of Anne Esterline. In fact he dated a Finnish exchange student at St. Olaf named Auliki Aropaltio. She was “statuesque” and Jim hinted at her pneumatic joys. I was more than jealous. (I think that I will not quote Jim further on his pre-Annie romantic experiences. He was funny.) That Christmas, Jimmy and I hitch hiked to downstate Illinois, he was going home for Christmas, I was visiting relatives in Kentucky. Later he came back a little early and stayed with me in Northfield. My parents thought he was very nice. It may have been that Spring that Jim started dating Anne. He went very quiet about his romantic life. I found a girlfriend and I was in the Arb in the Spring but all I remember was Kenny Goshorn and his portable turntable. The autumn of 1963, I gave Jim my WW2 vintage two person Mountain tent in which one could sleep outside, under snow. Dan was going to India, I was going later to Austria, and we had a new roommate, soph Mike Rebmann. I am convinced that Mike had the room to himself after February. When I came back Jim was leaving Carleton, going to the U of Minn, and planning on, or already married to Anne. Senior year, I spent time in their very small apartment in St. Paul (?) with my girlfriend and later wife, Kristin. Jim and Anne remained close to us throughout our years together. I followed their careers and lives with great interest. Anne talks about their post Carleton life in her class bio. “I left Carleton a year before graduating, married to Jim DeMuth. We finished our education at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he, ultimately, with a PhD in American Studies and I with an MA in American Studies and “ABD” in Applied Linguistics. Jim had just made full professor at the University of Wisconsin/River Falls at the time of his death. He died in Tromsø, Norway, where he was a Fulbright visiting professor of English literature and I was a traveling professor (working with Norwegian high school teachers of English) of American language and culture. We had spent a previous year (1981-1982) in Egypt, where Jim was a Fulbright professor of English at a provincial university in Mansoura (where, pace Katie Boyd, the Arab forces had defeated Louis IX –I saw his chair!) and I taught English language classes at the University of Cairo.” I think of Jim regularly and miss him.
Tom Hinds ’65
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JAMES DEMUTH, Carleton 1961-1965. Jim seemed exotic when I first met him, on Second Musser in early autumn 1961. He looked like a young Robert Mitchum. He had a flashing silver (actually stainless) tooth, where his had been knocked out in a basketball game in Rome. The work had been done by an Air Force dentist in Tripoli Libya. I will vouch for the truth of none of this, except the tooth’s existence. He also was Catholic and a few days later he walked with me to St. Dominic’s in Northfield. Later he volunteered as basketball coach/ recreation supervisor there. Jim and I competed to get Dan Turnquist to room with one of us for our sophomore year. We both won and the three of us went to first Burton. During Freshman year, I and all the other males in a Soc 101 class had fallen in love with a beautiful redhead from Faribault, MN. That Sophomore fall, however, Jim had not yet fallen under the spell of Anne Esterline. In fact he dated a Finnish exchange student at St. Olaf named Auliki Aropaltio. She was “statuesque” and Jim hinted at her pneumatic joys. I was more than jealous. (I think that I will not quote Jim further on his pre-Annie romantic experiences. He was funny.) That Christmas, Jimmy and I hitch hiked to downstate Illinois, he was going home for Christmas, I was visiting relatives in Kentucky. Later he came back a little early and stayed with me in Northfield. My parents thought he was very nice. It may have been that Spring that Jim started dating Anne. He went very quiet about his romantic life. I found a girlfriend and I was in the Arb in the Spring but all I remember was Kenny Goshorn and his portable turntable. The autumn of 1963, I gave Jim my WW2 vintage two person Mountain tent in which one could sleep outside, under snow. Dan was going to India, I was going later to Austria, and we had a new roommate, soph Mike Rebmann. I am convinced that Mike had the room to himself after February. When I came back Jim was leaving Carleton, going to the U of Minn, and planning on, or already married to Anne. Senior year, I spent time in their very small apartment in St. Paul (?) with my girlfriend and later wife, Kristin. Jim and Anne remained close to us throughout our years together. I followed their careers and lives with great interest. Anne talks about their post Carleton life in her class bio. “I left Carleton a year before graduating, married to Jim DeMuth. We finished our education at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he, ultimately, with a PhD in American Studies and I with an MA in American Studies and “ABD” in Applied Linguistics. Jim had just made full professor at the University of Wisconsin/River Falls at the time of his death. He died in Tromsø, Norway, where he was a Fulbright visiting professor of English literature and I was a traveling professor (working with Norwegian high school teachers of English) of American language and culture. We had spent a previous year (1981-1982) in Egypt, where Jim was a Fulbright professor of English at a provincial university in Mansoura (where, pace Katie Boyd, the Arab forces had defeated Louis IX –I saw his chair!) and I taught English language classes at the University of Cairo.” I think of Jim regularly and miss him.