Singing Ambassadors
SUNDAY, March 21, was a typical first day of spring in Hanover. "Schlump," that season when shoes, books, and even the duckboards vanish into the mud, was at its peak. Students on their way downtown to breakfast shivered in the cold wind as Baker chimed 11 o'clock. It was Hanover in one of its most uninspiring moods.
About the only people in town who weren't bothered by this wintry entrance of spring were fifty members of the Dartmouth Glee Club, leaving town that morning on a three-week spring tour that was to take us through the deep South and Southwest, hit twenty-two states, cover 4200 miles, and cross the seemingly ever-present Arkansas River five times. With the South in prospect, we weren't too bothered by the local elements. The bags were quickly stowed, friends were bade farewell, director Paul Zeller loaded a box of bats and balls brought along to keep the boys in shape, and the busses rolled down off Hanover plain, headed for points south and west.
Our first stop was Mount Holyoke College, familiar territory for many Dartmouth men. The pre-tour program that night was the joint singing of the Haydn Imperial Mass with the eighty-voice Mount Holyoke glee club. The setting in the chapel was a beautiful one, and the performance of the Mass with the Holyoke club was one of the musical high spots of the trip. After the concert there was a reception with the girls, and some of our number took the opportunity to visit old friends. The youngsters in the group, however, soon found out that there were two sides to this tour business. You had to get up in the morning - early! And arise early we did as we left town at 7:30 a.m., still heading south.
The next stop was Westfield, N. J., where we presented the opening concert of our spring tour program in the new Westfield High School auditorium. Noteworthy, as it turned out, was the chance next morning to sleep until a reasonable hour, for Baltimore was only a few hours away and the bus ride a short one. In Baltimore we gave one of our few free concerts, a fine and effective public relations gesture by the Baltimore alumni.
Mention of the alumni prompts me to say, early in this account of the tour, that everywhere we went we were treated royally by Dartmouth men and their families. Their warm hospitality, often in their own homes, and their generous concern for our needs and our entertainment were a pleasant experience that permeated the whole trip.
Our stay in Washington, D. C., turned out to be a notable one in several ways. A tour of the White House had been arranged, with a personal meeting with President Eisenhower as the "piece de resistance." It was an impressive morning and the amateur photographers in the club made the most of it. The weather was superb for the first time on the tour, and almost everyone took advantage of a free afternoon to scramble around the nation's capital.
The concert and party following it that evening were among the most successful of the tour. Most of the group got dates, and the party lasted well into the small hours of the morning, some hardy souls never quite getting to bed. The dates were so successful that five of our number ended up by asking their girls up for Green Key weekend.
The next morning, March 25, was "black Thursday." Arising at 5:00 a.m., we stumbled through breakfast, and left for Charlotte, N. C., at 6:00 in a heavy rain that made a gloomy morning even gloomier. Probably half of the glee club never really woke up, for by the time the busses had crossed the Potomac River practically everyone was sound asleep again. However, by 10:00 a.m. signs of life reappeared and the normal routine of the bus ride resumed.
By this point in the tour this routine was fairly well set. Card games were almost perpetually in progress, and it was not uncommon to find three different games going at one time in the aisles of the busses. Others were convinced that the best way to pass the time was to study, while some few slept most of the day. One of the busses conveniently had its own little "bed," an air mattress stuck up in the luggage rack above the seats. This cramped but comfortable spot was kept in continual use for the entire three weeks. Home was what we made it, and our busses with pillows, typewriters, books, magazines, and playing cards cluttering the interiors soon became novel, if not always adequate, "homes on wheels."
As we drove through Virginia and North Carolina the sun came out, and it was easy to find yourself thinking (not very enviously) of those still up in Hanover. We were penetrating into the deep South, most of the fellows for the first time, and the weather was a welcome change from the New England winter.
The concert that night in Charlotte was given at Queen's College where our audience was composed largely of coeds. This pleased our director no end. "All the Glee Club needs to get them on their toes is an audience of southern belles," commented Paul who then followed up with the understatement of the tour: "It was a fine program, inspired somewhat by the audience." The Injunaires, an octet from within the Glee Club, really wowed the southerners with their rendition of
"Dixie," a clever musical satire. A reception with the Queen's College girls followed the concert, and the club left Charlotte convinced that everything they say about southern belles is true.
Another performance of the Haydn Mass, this time with the girls of Agnes Scott College, featured our stop in Atlanta, Ga. We continued to be impressed with southern hospitality as we became the guests of the girls at a formal dance following the program. Many of us were slightly bewildered when our dates accused us of having "northern" accents. However, some of the girls were also surprised to learn that "you all" was not an integral part of our vocabulary.
En route to Chattanooga we stopped at the Mt. Berry School in Georgia. This school, which is actually both a high school and a college, is supported by the Ford Foundation. We sang and ate lunch there and had an opportunity to see the campus, an exceptionally beautiful one, measuring up to any we have ever seen.
The Fairyland Club on top of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, was the site of our next concert. "This," according to Paul Zeller, "was one of the most unusual concerts we gave." Following a magnificent buffet supper at the club, we sang several groups of songs during breaks in the party. The following afternoon we gave a performance at The Baylor School for Boys in Chattanooga. We hope that some of those who attended the concert may become Dartmouth men.
Birmingham, Alabama, marked the start of our second week of touring and found us singing once again on a college campus. This time we were the guests of Birmingham Southern College. We were fortunate in being able to use their poo! and gymnasium, and everyone burned up a little excess energy swimming and playing basketball. Another large coed audience brought out the musical best in the club that evening.
Guests of honor at our concert in Memphis were twenty-five debutantes. The concert was featured by the appearance on the same program of a chorus of 125 voices from the Memphis high schools. This was another good public relations idea and we must have contacted many potential Dartmouth men. Although by this time many of us were beginning to feel the pace of being on the road for a week and a half, we managed to rally and thoroughly enjoy a party with the debs following the concert.
Leaving the deep South and breaking out into the plains states of the Middle West, we crossed the Mississippi River on Wednesday, March 31, and arrived that afternoon in Little Rock, Arkansas. Looking at ourselves in the mirror, we realized that our hair had been growing untended for almost two weeks, and the bushiest of us took the opportunity to get haircuts. Others managed to catch up on the growing list of thank-you notes that needed to be written, while others just fell into bed and slept until supper. The restored energy was useful, for following the concert in Robinson Auditorium there was a Country Club party. It was hard to realize that at this point we were well over a thousand miles away from Hanover. Everyone was finding out that people and places have much in common wherever you go.
April 1 was a big night in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cornell also was in town, and the two glee clubs hooked up in a joint concert, concluding with the combined singing of both alma maters. During the intermission Paul Zeller was inducted into the Osage tribe by Paul Pitts, principal chief of the Osages. He was given the Indian name Wah-Toh-Na-She, meaning "Standing and Looking." During the ceremony he was presented with a striking Osage headdress and blanket.
The trip between Tulsa and Oklahoma City was perhaps one of the most interesting of the tour. Instead of the usual natural land marks that dot a horizon, Oklahoma has oil wells. There were oil wells everywhere, and when we finally saw one on the lawn of the State capitol we knew that we'd seen everything. At our lunch stop we previewed the baseball season with an hour or so of softball on the macadam surface of a turnpike service station. The weather was perfect, and some of us managed to soak up enough Oklahoma sunshine to get a little sunburn.
In Oklahoma City we presented a pops concert with the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra. This performance was "another of the musical high spots of tour," according to Paul. It was very impressive to sing with the orchestra and the program was an enjoyable one. It was the first time the Glee Club had seen itself billed in lights, for adorning the top of the Municipal Auditorium was "Dartmouth Glee Club" in two-and-a-half-foot neon letters. About fifteen ten-gallon hats made their appearance in Oklahoma City as some members of the club picked up souvenirs of their visit to the great West.
Oklahoma City was the western limit of tour, and Saturday, April 3, found the busses going northeast for the first time on the trip. From the great plains we headed bask up into the rolling Ozark hills. That night we were again on a college campus, singing this time at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. At this point, two-thirds of the way through the tour, we had our first casualty. The long grind caught up with Mai Roth '55, and he spent the night in the local hospital. After soaking up a little penicillin he rejoined us as we left for St. Louis the following morning.
Our performance Sunday night in St. Louis was in the American Theatre, a wonderfully professional setup that kept the Glee Club on their toes all evening. Monday was a free day for us, but as it turned out, there was to be no rest for the weary. The Injunaires gave two performances at the high school once attended by Mead Metcalf '54, president of the Glee Club. Everyone else took the opportunity to sleep late and get their baggy grey flannels pressed back into shape. Later in the day there were tours of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch plant and the Anheuser-Busch brewery. Free samples were given out at both places. Another one of our number fell by the wayside in St. Louis as an abscessed ear shelved Perry Weston '54 for the remainder of the trip.
Leaving st. Louis we headed into Kenlucky Derby teŕitory and sang Tuesday night, April 6, at the Louisville Country Club. From there a quick hop took us to
The lnjunaires, with Mead Metcalf '54, Glee Club president, at the piano
Richard T. Gardner '55
WAH-TOH-NA-SHE, meaning "Standing and Looking," was the name given to Paul Zeller, Glee Club director, when he was made a member of the Osage tribe while visiting Tulsa.
