Has the College Changed?— Yes, But,—Says Larry Griswold 08
These are the rambling observations o£ an old Ought-Eighter back at the Inn for a day or two:
Mt. Ascutney, it always seemed, is a great asset of the Hanover country, yet no attractive photograph, etching or whatnot is available nor could I find the heartening profile included in any Dartmouth emblem. Some say Wallace Nutting has a good picture of the mountain at his Framingham shops. I'll keep trying to get one. The leading photographer (professional) in Hanover says the mountain "isn't a good subject."
They tell me the Nuggett picture theater turns over sufficient profits to pay for snow removal, lighting Hanover Streets, building sidewalks, and some odd jobs.
Few cigarette smokes outdoors. As for "eating tobacco," it justisn't used now, so far as I could determine.
At the Inn, the heat fades away around 10 at night. And it clanks on in the same old Richardson Hall manner along about 6 in the morning.
All the painful hauling, to spectators as well as horses, which was necessary in the old days to lug the heating plant coal to the top of the hill of Hanover Plain to the Dartmouth of today, has gone the way of Skinny's pancakes and bacon, dirty apron. Oil is the fuel used in the boilers of the College central heating plant.
Recall the brass latch, the scraped paint on the front door ofthe Inn? It's all just the same, brother, just the same as it was 25years ago.
Frozen pudding, though, is off the record, so far as meals at the Inn are concerned.
Mail is not only delivered to each of the 57 varieties of dormitories, it is carried to each room by the postoffice. Understand this is the most de luxe delivery system of any collegiate environs. If any bows are to be taken in this postal connection, they should go to George Moses, the Dartmouth Senator.
Involuntary personal investigation shows the pigeon hordes which infest the main portico of Webster Hall are just as inconsiderate as undergraduate literature alleges.
Telephones, of course, are all over this place called Hanover. But the most satisfactory method for inter-dormitory communication appears to continue to be by means of foot power.
Inquiry at the garage now conducted by the man who used tofix the steam pipes when we were rather young, leads one to believe the breakage of student motor cars must be somewhere uparound the figures used when Howard Tibbets made his semiannual computations relative to shattered glass in connection withlaboratory courses.
I visited a freshman in South Massachusetts. Three sophomores butted into the room during my ten-minute stay. "Do those boys bother you much?" said I. "We're taking them for an awful ride, but they don't know it," was the reply from the specimen of 1936 concerned.
Paintings by Woodhull Adams which hang in the second roomto the right as you enter the Hanover Inn, writing room I guessit is, could be beautifully reproduced for those who would liketo have something to remember the White Church by. There maybe slight demand for such wisps of lavender in these modern days.During my several days stay in Hanover I heard no one mentionthe White Church.
In the old days, eyes tuxned right when approaching the campus from the southward, because in that direction stood Dartmouth Hall. To be sure, Dartmouth Hall stands there today but the spotlight has shifted. Interest lies directly northward, 16- cylindered Baker Library being the smartest number in the Dartmouth line.
An observant frater in urbe tells me the big clocks in Dartmouth and Baker towers don't always reach the same hour at the same time.
One of those wet mornings in mid-autumn: Chimes of Baker, using the tune for breakfast we had last night for dinner; Dogs, big police, little "Geranium" from the bellboys' room at the Inn. In many respects, the dogs look to be better bred than those of the old days. Actions? One of the heritages from those old days, along with Mink Brook, Balch Hill, the reservoir—Passumpsic Branch whistles in the early hours. Other noises on a rainy morning: Inn guests, overhead, bumping on their floor; radiator clanking as the heat continues to come on; Model A's; laughter; Dartmouth Hall clock sounds off for the eight o'clocks.
Other noises on a wet morning: Swish of tires on pavements;scamper of youngsters down the stairs with the old familiarsqueak of stair boards, loose and hard. Just the same as ever.
Slickers were rare a quarter of a century ago and they are much in favor today. Raincoats, tan colored with something snappy in their lines are preferred, observation shows.
There are not as many students running around bare headed as you would expect. In rainy weather hats are numerous. Freshmen, these days are obliged to wear headgear. But they are per- mitted to feature class numerals on the little gray contrivances with green buttons on the tops. Hats just like the select who made class basketball teams, in those old days.
That Nuggett Theater is just an old-time nickelodeon with its face lifted. The students sit in one chair and hang their feet over into the one ahead. They throw apple cores, peanuts at the screen and occupants of the forward positions. The best thing the boys do at the movies concerns the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion. Laurel and Hardy in "Pack Up Your Troubles" were on when I visited the afternoon performance at the Nuggett. When the students roared, in unison, as the lion opened his jaws, the effect was good, perhaps better than had the work been done by a lion.
Street lights in Hanover are greatly improved. The standards are of a pleasing design, probably something on the order of the poles and lamp containers which were junked when the skinned trees of 25 years ago were set up by the lighting company.
All that mussiness which obtained at the northwest and south- east ends of the old campus, as a result of the bulletin board displays of unsecurely tacked notices of such wide variety, has disappeared.
Buckles are supposedly barred from the Wet Downs of today.Yet the treatment is rough for the classes which run between thelines. The modern Wet Down line-up, exclusive of the freshmen,extends from the northwest to the southeast corners of the college green, "campus" to you old timers.
Freshman hazing, outside the dormitories and other buildings at any rate, is expected to end with the Norwich game each autumn. But more of the monkeyshines known to us as "mock initiations" goes on in the streets of Hanover. Such stuff as cleaning the cracks in sidewalks with water and a toothbrush; bailing out a tub with an eyedropper; painting a white line from Hanover to the Junction along the highway; chalking off the pickets in the fence around the Wilder mill site.
Webster Hall, Rollins Chapel, Wilson Hall, even the Hanover Inn are, I am told, scheduled for oblivion or moving when- ever the millions necessary to perform the work are received by the College. Some day a vast students' union or commons will be built along the southern boundary of the campus. It will be worked out in the style made predominant in Hanover by the building of Baker Library. College Hall, naturally, is under death sentence with the execution set for as early a date as possible.
The Trustees, one of the faculty confided in me, don't expectto be caught if somebody comes along and asks them what theywould do with $10,000,000 if he gave it to the college. Plans areready, blueprints in shape, for the development outlined in thepreceding paragraph.
Although the cider season was on, jugs perched upon window- sills of dormitories were practically not so common, so far as observation went.
Pipes get no play so far as the out-of-doors is concerned. It is believed the students of today would regard a Paul Felt corncob with a chilled disdain.
Someone whose face seemed familiar drew a bit of sympathy from me when I noticed he appeared at the Inn three times a day in a pair of old gray knickers and a rumpled blue coat. Sympathy vanished when I was told he had just plunked down $25,000 for a summer home over at Norwich.
Three days before the Yale football game, a time when it was thought the Dartmouth team had a chance. Nothing was said about the practice being secret but the crowd which wandered down to where Alumni Oval was located in our day didn't exceed the group around Tony's popcorn wagon on an off evening in May 1906.
Some of the old timers who remembered me well, especiallyafter a bit of prompting as to name etc.: Joe Truman, Alex Faulkner, now janitor of Reed Hall, Rip Heneage, Louis Dow, DutchyHardy, Georgie D., Craven Laycock, Hoppy, Dick Southgate, C. C.Hills, Perry Fairfield, Hen Teague.
The college has changed outwardly, yes, but so has your home town, and mine.
