The Undergraduate Chair
Carnival Weather Gives Special Satisfaction to Our Editor; Much of Prewar Student Life Ready to Return Next Term
WE FEEL that at last we have succeeded in seeing one of our ambitions realized. It has not been a life-long ambition, nor would it, in all probability, seem important to the average outsider. It has been growing and growing within us and now that it's filled we feel better. It would probably be best to go back a few years to explain the gnawing feeling that developed within us.
It seems that freshman year there were three social events on the Dartmouth calendar; at the present time we cannot remember what they were, but at the first one we, being a neophyte, merely sat back and watched the rain come down on all the dates. We laughed because, after all, we were not getting wet. At the other two events we, being mature, a second-term freshman, had a date and cursed and jumped from doorway to doorway to avoid the huge drops of life-giving fluid. At the end of that first year it had become a consuming ambition to enjoy just one party weekend without rain or snow. Sophomore year did not see this come to pass. When we returned for our last two years we hoped that the two-year interval would have removed the curse, but it had not. Through two semesters it rained only on Quarterdeck Hop weekends. But now, yes now, we may rest in peace; we have beheld the spectacle of Winter Carnival with beautiful weather. For three long days we had a blue sky and clear, cold weather. It doesn't matter that it rained the fourth day; the Carnival was over. Now we feel we can graduate in peace, and in the years to come when we return to the alumni reunions our class will stand out, at least part of it, as the one which saw three continuous days of sun on a party weekend.
The Carnival, or as the Dartmouth Outing Club would have one say, the Winter Weekend, was, so far as most were concerned, an unqualified success. On all the posters that appeared around the campus and up and down the river valley there were three dates, February 8, g, 10, but we feel that whoever wrote those numbers and had plans of holding the Carnival down to three days was a born optimist. At least two weeks before the first snow statues started going up, little piles of snow would appear in front of a dorm, every once in a while some dejected looking individual would walk out of the dorm, look hopefully towards the pile, and then, probably feeling conscience stricken, walk over and put a handful or two on the mound. By this rather desultory method it took about two weeks to get the semblance of a base completed. Then the miracle happened: the Dartmouth Outing Club offered a keg of beer as a prize and the Chesterfield Cigarette company came across with a month's supply for each man in the winning dorm.
Overnight the atmosphere of the campus changed. Whole dorms turned out to work "on their statues, and Amidon's reported a sizable increase in beer-mug orders. From then on it was hard to think of Carnival as a three-day affair. It became, noticeable in class that the minds of the majority were far away from Physics, Mathematics or any other scholarly pursuit. It was not infrequent for a professor to give a quiz and then find the words "Jean," "Winter Carnival," "Feb. 8-9-10" written all over the margins. Toward the last three days before the arrival of the girls most of the professors gave up the ghost and expounded the beauties of snow or anything else that came into their minds, knowing full well that not a soul in the room had the vaguest idea of what was being said.
Overnight, twenty statues finally appeared on various corners of the campus. Indians, tepees, and Eleazars abounded, and there was even the usual nude which most dates were skillfully steered by. One amusing fact about the statues set many people to wondering. There are at present two married students' dormitories, Middle Fayerweather and South Fayerweather. They must have completely different philosophies because Middle Fayer had a statue that depicted an Indian brave hauling his wife back to college by the hair, while South Fayer depicted an immense Indian squaw in exactly the opposite situation; she had her foot on a poor defenseless brave who was looking up fearfully at the huge rolling pin in her hand. There are two schools of thought on these two stat- ues; one is the "ha ha, it doesn't mean a thing" attitude, and then there is the deep attitude that goes way beyond the average person's thought and sees hidden meanings in everything. The latter sees a bitter omen for the Big Green; in the future it pre- dicts the carefree, happy Dartmouth man is to be subjected to an unhappy existence, "women over all." The holders of this view are the same ones who looked with fore- boding upon the coming of women to man's last stronghold, and now they roam the campus with that look in their eye that says "we told you so." They are making preparations to set out as Eleazar did for the wilderness up north to form a new col- lege to be known as Ross McKenney Tech.
Carnival ended with a flourish and a bump as the many dates and their weary partners fought it out on the crowded dance floor. Probably the happiest to see the weekend over was the tired member of the Dartmouth Outing Club whose duty it was to see that nobody sat in the Snow Jeep in the middle of campus. Considering that over 1,000 people invaded Hanover that weekend, and only 500 successfully evaded our friend and had their pictures taken in the driver's seat, his batting average was fairly good.
At this writing the Winter Term is just drawing to a close. The "No-doz" pills and midnight coffee are again exceedingly popular, as the students head into that abyss known as "finals." The end of this semester, in our opinion, marks the end of the wartime era of the College. We are well aware that much needs to be done in the future and that we cannot forget that a great upheaval took place, but just the same the "war period" is over and Dartmouth's reconversion can start in earnest. The College is going to need a lot of help in the next few years to bring the standards up to and beyond the level they enjoyed before the war. Encouragement can be drawn from the announcement that The Dartmouth will resume publication next semester. This should certainly be a great help in the restoration of order. Jerry Tallmer '42, editor of the 1941-43 daily, is returning to college to aid in the restoration of the "oldest college newspaper in America." The Dartmouth Log, the wartime upholder of the faith, has just finished publication. The Log was started as a weekly organ in July 1943 when the daily ceased publication, and did an effective job of maintaining the ties between the civilian College and the Navy.
The return of The Dartmouth can be a great aid to the College, but (and we hope the editors will realize this) it can also be a great detriment as well. We cannot remember anything back of '4l as we had no association with the College then, but we do know that in the period of 1941-43 there were times when it appeared that the editors had but one mission in life, and that was to pan everything in sight. We do not have anything against the freedom of the press, we agree with it 100%, but we do not believe that merely being of the press gives one the privilege to be caustically pessimistic about everything that takes place. Constructive criticism is greatly to be desired and we hope The Dartmouth will resume publication with this in mind, not with the thought of appearing independent at any cost.
THEY RAN A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL CARNIVAL. The D.O.C. committee in charge of the 36th annual winter festival included, left to right, front row: Prof. Andrew H. McNair, faculty adviser; Bill Wood '47N, D.O.C. president; Jim Vanderbeek '47, Carnival chairman; Dick Howe '46, director of features. Back row: Bud Elliott '4B, director of competitions; lan Macartney '4B, director of police; Bill Reinman '44, director of publicity; Gene Gottesman '49, director of entertainment; and Walt Baker '4B, member at large. Jack Snobble '44, ski team captain and member at large, also was on the committee.
OPPOSITE POINTS OF VIEW IN THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES. Middle Fayerweather and South Fayerweather Halls, where the married veterans live, had different ideas about the dominant sex as portrayed in their Carnival snow sculpture. The Middle Fayer statue (left) proved more popular, jibing as it does with the Dartmouth man's idea of the Dartmouth Man, but the wives who helped build it did so with a knowing look.
