THE COLLEGE

DARTMOUTH opened its arms to spring last month, and the usual vernal vagaries, such as sunbathing, shorts (vivid colors are the thing), Softball on the campus, top-down cars, bicycling professors, and perambulating student wives with offspring, reappeared on the Hanover scene and seemed like the most natural sights in the world.

Maybe it's the long wait for it that makes a New England spring such an intense experience. Very few were bothering with that sort of analysis; they were more organically occupied in absorbing the sun's warmth and inspecting the forsythia buds.