PARADISE FOR ESCAPISTS
The Nugget had a peculiarly powerful hold on us, although it was somewhat negative. It always seemed that you went to the Nugget to get away from something, as an escape into oblivion, rather than for a decent purpose like enjoying the movies or something like that.
It was Hanover's nearest thing to narcotics. If homework got the best of you, two weeks behind with eight contemporary novels to read, a term paper on the construction cycle still to be written, and finals not a week away, you went to the Nugget. There, you found solace and rest, freedom from fear; the movies obscured the bitter facts of life. No matter how bad was your state of mind, you could slink alone to a green burlapped wall and properly enjoy the ecstasies of self-pity. It was always there, waiting for you, Athens on Nugget Alley.
It had a folklore all its own which was fast becoming part of the College's. Girls all over America wanted-to see a movie in the Nugget and drop peanut shells on its sacred floor. The immortal remarks, genuine audience participation, occasionally deplored but most often enjoyed, have gone unrecorded, but never unappreciated. They tended toward the vulgar, and were not always funny, but when they were good, they were the best. You could talk as loudly as you wanted to in the Nugget, because it was always your theatre, packed with your guys, and the atmosphere was conducive to intellectual freedom. Sundaynight movies were usually horrid, but if you talked along with them, they were bearable. It took training, because in the Nugget you had to learn to make the most of anything.
Revolving about the Nugget, as sort of a satellite, was the College Critic. He worked for the paper and professionally hated all films and all the actors in them. He was constantly the recipient of irate letters from readers who never followed his advice, protesting his acid opinions. But he kept right on slinging mud interspersed with occasional intelligence, while his readers (himself included) flocked to the Nugget for every show that came there.
Thinking back upon the Nugget that was, you get a kaleidoscopic effect of what seems now to have been an awfully big piece of life in Hanover.
Rationalizations. After all, three (four, five) movies a week isn't too much. You can't criticize a man for wanting some relaxation. It may be a poor show, but it's certainly better than studying. Well, it's sure to be better tomorrow night.
And complaints. How can they charge forty cents for something like that? No Mickey Mouse. I've seen the same newsreel three times. A bag of peanuts is only worth a nickel. Half my pay goes into that green box. Five shows a week, when are you supposed to study?
The crowds stretched down to the river when Hedy Lamarr and Ecstasy hit the Nugget. A furtive few appeared for a free foreign language film on a Sunday afternoon. It was a cooly discriminating audience, an audience that knew what it wanted, and made it known when it didn't get just that.
And now there is nothing left but a few charred bricks and timbers, some memories and an occasional frustrated feeling when you instinctively pull on your clothes and start toward Wheelock Street before realizing that there is no more Nugget.
The peanut profits have undoubtedly been amassed over the years into a tidy fund which should provide a new theatre Only a callow sentimentalist would ask for a replica of the old Nugget, but at least its successor should be no larger nor less casual. The good old days seem to have been much better, now that the Nugget is gone.
A BUSY SPOT DURING THE WINTER SPORTS WEEK-END, February 5-6, was the Hostess House, better known to alumni as the Casque and Gauntlet House, which the College has converted into a homelike center where students may entertain their dates and parents.
