The Undergraduate Chair
As spring vacation approached the College was in its usual state of anticipation, plan-making, and impatience. If there is any slower way of watching winter go than marking the slow, inch by inch dwindling of a large accumulation of snow I don't know of it.
The crew and the golf, tennis, baseball and lacrosse teams, anxious to get on their legs after the cramping practices of the gym cage, took tours through Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Of course, they weren't always on the playing fields; in fact some were noticed outside a telephone booth fingering a worn black book and glancing hopefully at the telephone directory. - "What is her father's name anyway?" Other organizations such as the Glee Club were on the road too. They chose a route through the Middle West taking in Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago. It is reported that everyone had a swell time with a low mortality rate, for once. Still on the musical end of things, the Indian Chiefs, our hottest Dixieland band, played at the Elbow Beach Surf Club in Bermuda. The straight dope from them ran like this: "The ratio is four to one down there - more cute girls - great time on the island!" Of all these trips perhaps the swimming team's could be termed the most unusual and interesting; they were invited down to Puerto Rico as contestants in a swimming exhibition-meet against Colgate sponsored by their host, the Hotel Caribe. They won't admit it, but the grapevine has it that their record-breaking held Puerto Rico in the' same suspense that gripped Hanover all winter.
"Hi, Chuck,-good vacation?"
"Well,- no."
"What's the matter, - too much sunshine, -party, - women? I bet your girl let you down."
"None of them. - I never left town, thesis you know."
"Oh."
Over Little Green Weekend, March 19, the College viewed its annual variety show. As always, it was billed as the newest, the snappiest, the most colorful, and the most talented production of the last decade. It did feature several new wrinkles though, one being faculty participation by "Jelly-Roll" Sykes (alias Prof. James A. Sykes, Chairman of the Music Department) and "Star-Gazing" Dimitroff (alias George Z. Dimitroff, Professor of Astronomy). The Dartmouth College Band, the Indian Chiefs, the Queen of the Snows, champion cake-walkers from the University of Vermont and Colby's Fuzzy Dozen were also on hand to make the evening a big success. It's always surprising to find there is so much talent about, and it is especially fun to see it unbend.
Annually the 15th of March is set aside for the collection of the College Chest Fund. Contributing to some fourteen charities, this appeal is the only one which the student body as a whole is asked to support. The College has had the present system for the last ten years with great success. 1955's collection failed to tally as high as last year's record, but just the same it was well over the goal of $10,000 by the third night of collection. Most students realize how important this particular drive is to certain local charities, and they were willing and generous. This is not to deny the existence of the stinker, Harry X, who grouses about how he can't afford it, etc., etc. Most of us don't mind sharing our good fortune with those who have not been so lucky as we.
A group of seniors stood on the corner under a street lamp talking together in low voices. I spotted them immediately because of their ties and coats, very unusual on a Wednesday night when there are so many hour exams in sight. While I watched they broke up into pairs and ran off in different directions calling last-minute instructions to each other.
"Try the Tower Room too."
"OK. - Meet you over at Sanborn afterward."
"Right-o."
Alter this mysterious conversation it dawned on me that I was witnessing rushing for senior societies. Later some of the participants explained that it was a very difficult job because an unsuspecting junior might be over in his room, at the flicks, the snack bar, or up in the lab in Silsby. The seniors disperse, setting up a real hue and cry for the desired pledge. Of course, towards midnight all the candidates have been found and tapped which leaves the rest of the night to celebrate. The bonds of fellowship wax strong alter a few from the keg; memories and old songs come flooding back; freshman days could have been a century past, so far back they seem. Then comes the revelation that this is all to end, that graduation in June is only a few incredibly short weeks away. One is both sad and relieved, and none can say which is the stronger.
Ski Demon
WHAT'S that awful smell? ... Is there anything on fire in this dorm?"
Jess wasn't the sympathetic type, so I lied.
"Not as I know, Jess. It's more than likely just the wind off the dump again. Windows are open an' all, you know."
Jess stood on the landing and skeptically watched me disappear down the darkened hallway to my room. I could feel his eyes through my back.
This "smell" had occurred off and on so many times during the winter that practically everybody in Richardson knew Ralph Huke, my roommate, as the guy responsible. When I opened our door there stood Ralph obscured by thick clouds of yellow acrid smoke but plainly brandishing a blow torch, a full two inches of blue flame darting out the end with a throaty roar. He was applying the heat methodically up and down, back and forth, over the bottoms of a pair of skis. The smoke made my eyes swim. As a matter of fact, it was so thick that when Ralph straightened up, the upper part of him, head and shoulders, disappeared into the smog.
This type of behavior is to be expected from Ralph; from the day he piled up enough points to qualify as an "A" skier I've had to live with it. Anybody around Richardson will tell you what a horrible smell old burning wax makes. Why it even runs along the edges of the skis and drips over on to the floor. Let me assure you, it's hard stuff to clean up.
While Ralph finished up and applied a smooth new coat of wax to the bottoms of his skis the smoke screen dissipated; the room came back into focus. Other pairs of skis, Attenhofers, Heads, Pragers, lined one wall. Their long-thong bindings dangled limply on the floor. Red and grey socks, heavy wool ones, hung over the backs of chairs or lay bundled like strange fungus on the mantel. After every weekend race there was a new crop. Some of them sprouted up over on the sofa, but that was generally so littered it was difficult to distinguish any one thing. It was a good sofa too, paid five and a quarter for it; nobody's been able to sit on that thing since the first snow, what with all Ralph's junk. The wall over this garbage heap sports a 1935 Carnival poster of a stylized slalom course and a skier spelling out D-A-R-T-M-O-U-T-H. Everything else in the room, the phonograph records, books, glasses, ash trays, beer ads, they're all approximately where we left them last fall, when we moved into this room.
Every weekend during the skiing season my roommate took off with the team for some big ski meet or other. If it weren't for the way he works like the living fury just before exam time the Dean would have given him his marching papers long ago. For most of us spring is a dopey lazy time when the weather is too good to waste on anything except mooning out the window about your gal down at Colby or sunning up in the Bema, but not Ralph; he goes skiing nuts. His mind revolves around the three localities he haunts, Mad River, Stowe and Tuckerman's Ravine. That healthy nut-brown sunburn speaks of high-altitude, clear-blue mountain air, a vast white slope of sparkling, blinding corn snow, and a sun that reaches down with the young strong fingers of spring.
Sophomore year Ralph had a fine season which he hoped with all his heart to cap with a berth on the F.I.S. team. It was all he and his friends would talk of when I dropped in on their table at Thayer one night for dinner.
"Where's Carmichael these days?"
"Sprained his ankle over at Suicide on Sunday."
"Gee, what a shame. He damn near had enough points to make F.I.S. too."
"I don't think he ever could stand up against the Western boys, do you?"
"Aww, skip that stuff, Ted; some of us have to go to the library tonight. We've fought that battle before."
"Ralph, did I tell you about that new wax preparation Walt gave me? You'll need it for the tryouts next month."
The tension was mounting for poor Ralph; he wanted so much to be on that team. The chances were good, so good, in fact that he even saw the Dean about a leave of absence, just in case it should all go through. The unforeseen happened though. Ralph broke his leg in three places. Afterwards I went up to Dick's House to see him, and it was clear I had a very unhappy roommate ... no F.I.S. that year. They set his leg surgically, and he had to lie there for months in the brokenleg ward while the F.I.S. team was competing abroad.
In May, on the evening of Wet Down, Marsha Dowling, Ralph and I stood on the edge of the crowd while the coaches awarded the year's athletic trophies. He and Marsha were hitting it off well together, she being a skier too. Ralph was beside her, propped between his crutches, his cast leg slightly bent at the knee to keep the foot off the damp ground. Marsha looked cute, fresh and pert, a little blonde in Bermuda shorts, just up from Wellesley. She fitted right into the scene around here. They had just given out the Barrett Cup, the football and hockey prizes. A breeze of applause flowed up from the crowd as each of the winners stepped forward to claim his cup. Here and there a student talked quietly with a nurse from the hospital; the young mothers rocked their perambulators and tried unsuccessfully to catch their older children who darted gleefully among the forest of legs. Of course, a dog fight tuned up, lasting until each of the embarrassed owners dipped in a hand and claimed his. The speaker used the fight for a laugh. It wasn't very good, so he kept on with the usual line: "good sportsman, outstanding contender, spark plug of the team."
Walt Prager, ski coach, had the platform. "For the most promising skier of the year ... Ralph Huke." I saw Ralph gulp, reach down quickly for the crutch handles, then glance triumphantly at Marsha. The applause and shouts brought a flush to his face; he looked down at the ground quickly, consciously, in order to hide his embarrassment. Now brisk indeed, he swayed forward through the crowd, working the crutches fast and trying to keep those eyes down. Marsha was beside herself with joy for him. The surprise of the moment had created one of those rare instants when a woman is really overcome by joy. I don't think she even knew how hard she pumped my hand. Her little squeals were so femininely expressive and genuine. She took the cup from him and without thinking cradled it in her arms and impulsively kissed him with a smack on the cheek. Ralph, being so shy anyway, nearly died with blushing, but was finally overpowered by a laugh which everybody around him joined in. His smile was as broad as I've ever seen it, and his good health filled the campus.
