Not So Long Ago

A Column of Recent Reminiscence

COACH CAVANAUGH was throwing Jack McAulifEe's team in mass formations against Syracuse and Penn and Princeton. Rivalry with Harvard was a memory, living only in faint tradition. The Princeton game was the big peerade, and huge mass meetings were held in Commons, with cries of "Sign the Book!" to guarantee a special train. Cav. was wringing your heart out with "Men of Daa-ahtmuth, will you indeed be ready?" Gerrish, Thielscher, and Duhamel were names to conjure with; Cannell, Cogswell, and Cunningham were merely promising freshmen. Four years later, Fat Spears rejoiced in their return from service. Swede Youngstrom blocked a kick to tie Colgate 7-7. Dick Paul led cheers whenever he was present. Zack Jordan, Jack Shelburne, Laddie Myers, Norm Crisp, Cuddy Murphy, and Gus Sonnenburg were prominent in the line-up.

DELTA ALPHA ran a full week and ended with a Chamber of Horrors followed by dormitory banquets at the Rogers or the Tavern in West Hartford. Cider flowed freely. Jack's and Busty's in New York, and Healey's and the Woodcock in Boston were favorite peerade haunts. The Adams House was Dartmouth headquarters. Benny Mugridge attended all out of town games at an average cost of 65c per peerade. Joe Myers started a restaurant next to White's Studio. Dartmouth Night brought telegrams from the ends of the earth. The torchlight procession marched up to Prexy's to cheer the whole family, with a very special one for the newly arrived Dorothy Ann Hopkins, then around by Prexy Tucker's house, quietly.

ALL TRAINS ran to Norwich to be met by the Inn Stables team—a team was anything on wheels or runners pulled by one horse or more. Alert fraternities hired their own teams and went to White River to grab freshmen off the trains and put the buttons on them although the pledges weren't binding until they had been published in The Dartmouth. The Dartmouth appeared three times a week, full of ads and notices about chapel cards. "The use of College wastebaskets, chiffonier drawers and lamp shades is prohibited in Delta Alpha."

TROUSERS WERE short and narrow; plain black ties (if any) were greatly favored, and shapeless French felt hats such as Jim Davis still retains for visits to Hanover. Campion's reversible collar shirts saved laundry bills in this interim between the true sweat shirt days, which lived on in Fat Hardy, and the coming smoothie era, which was prefigured by Jigger Pender's and Gene Markey's knickers. The Dartmouth Profit-Sharing Association was just starting, and the College Bookstore ("Undergraduates ourselves, we know exactly what the undergraduate wants") was next to the sample room of the Inn. Phil's and Scotty's were running full blast, the latter in a little shack by the barn which burned during Carnival. The Nugget, on the same site, was still a couple of years in the future. Jim Haggerty ruled the Grill, where only the idle rich ate. The Commons dining room was open to all, on $5 "mileage" books, and served hot biscuits on

Sunday night—hot for those who cut Sunday afternoon chapel. Sectional clubs held frequent meetings, and Charley Truman gave whistling concerts in the South Mass. living room. Bones Joy played the piano on the porch of College Hall. THE STATE FAIR at the June always drew a late September crowd. In the winter, at the height of the theatrical season, the "6 o'clock" south and the "midnight" north would be jammed with spectators of "Very Good Eddie," "Tea for Three," "Nightie Night," and other lurid offerings at The Gates Opera House.

THESE ARE very random memories. If this column lives another month it will try to become more ordered and specific. Suggestions are welcome, but the writer hereby gives an unsolicited promise, not to ride Dan Featherstone or Bill Allen. Ken Smith and others took a lot of pictures during those days. If they could send some prints or negatives it would brighten this page, as well as enrich the College files, which are particularly barren for the period between 1910 and 1925.

A Winning Combination The late Major Frank W. Cavanaugh '99 and Jack McAuliffe 'l6. "Cav" died August 29 at Marshfield, Mass., after a long illness.

Too MUCH has happened in the interimbetween Hap Hinman's recollections of"Twenty-Five Years Ago" and the currentdecade to permit reminiscing in thesepages to be confined to the days of 1910.Bill McCarter 'l9, whose knowledge ofDartmouth men and affairs goes back farther than one would think, is the Han-over authority who will bridge this gap.His column, "Not So Long Ago," is aimedto furnish notes and comment on the years1915-20, and on such later times as may bedesired by his public. Communications,photos, questions and answers, all of whichmay be found useful by our newest columnist, should be addressed to him atBaker Library, Hanover. Negatives, orprints, of photographs taken during theseyears will be especially welcome. PERHAPS SOME of the really young generation of alumni will feel moved to writea column setting forth their recollections ofpro?ninent persons and strange customs oftheir own day. Such contributions will bepromptly published by the editors.