The Undergraduate Chair
AH spring and all its games.
The most costly game conducted each spring could be called musical cars. The rules are simple. One must simply have a registered car, a desire to keep it near his dorm, and a knowledge that al- most any parking space could gain him a parking fine of from 50 cents to $l5.
It may sound simple, but wait. He must understand that if he leaves his car on a lawn and out of everyone's way, he'll be charged $5. However, should he have the temerity to cut a two-way street to one lane by parking in an ironclad no-parking zone, he will probably lose nothing.
You see, the problem comes not in the fact that you can. get a parking ticket anyplace you rest your car; it comes in the fact that you can never know when the tickets are going to be given out.
Fortunately for old-timers at this game, spring brings with it a rash of novice drivers whose blunders often take the brunt of the policeman's wrath. Older students are more careful in their indiscretions and learn little tricks like - never leave your car at the end of a road, leave it in the middle for then you may chance to see the avenging law coming and flee.
Some systems of staying ahead of the law get quite elaborate. One student a few years ago was wont to park in a wooded place by a dorm and disguise his car with a skillfully constructed screen of leaves. Others never bother to register and leave their cars in choice visitors' parking areas (they usually get caught - soon), but most simply resort to moving their car from one no-parking zone to the next throughout the course of the day.
Most pay for the knowledge about the game. One student brought his car up and duly registered it. While he was registering it, a town policeman gave out tickets on the street where he was parked ($1). Feeling repentant, he moved it to a College area and then forgot about it ($5). Fortunately, the car soon had to go to be repaired and he could breathe easily for a while. When he got it back, he left it in an area that was deemed entirely safe from police sorties. Until the next day, of course ( $ 1).
One could, of course, park the car in one of the neutral zones (parking lots) that the College provides, but few find that alternative desirable. They rationalize that the lots are too far, or it's too late in the night, or simply, "They won't come around and ticket tonight."
A MORE serious side of spring activity is music. For some reason, noted but not explained by members of the most prominent rock'n'roll bands on the campus, spring brought increased activity among the College rock musicians.
The College rock'n'roll bands have at least two common denominators - practice in Webster Hall and the ownership of (or the aspiration to own) a hearse. The former is the only place on campus where practice sessions can be held in peace, the latter is one of the few comfortable vehicles for the transportation of a band and its equipment from one engagement to the next. As a result, Webster Hall rocks almost every night of the week to the sounds of as many as three bands at one moment and hearses are conspicuous all over campus (including one which sports the legend, "Fastening seat belts too much fuss? / Then leave the driving to us").
Four bands stand out above the others in both success and talent. Their names are The Ham Sandwich, The Night Watchmen, The Color of Love, and Uncle Tom's Cabinet. The first two are variety bands whose repertoire covers many different rock modes and styles; the third specializes in a quieter, folkoriented sound; and the fourth centers in the Negro based "soul" sound.
The size of the bands varies from three to eight, although as Peter Logan '69, the drummer for The Night Watchmen, commented, "With more than four people it's hard to get together."
In fact, getting together presents a band with its greatest problem. Practice time and space are severely limited by the number of people who want to use Webster, and bands usually have to work out a schedule of rehearsals a long time in advance. With the normal variables of exams, dates, and other commitments, keeping this schedule may be hard.
The Ham Sandwich is the most successful and prosperous of the groups on campus. They have been working together for over a year and now command more than $200 a night for performances which range all over New Hampshire and Vermont within the vicinity of the College.
The four members of the band are serious about what they are doing and hope to secure a full-time summer position and possibly a recording session.
Almost as successful as the Sandwich are The Night Watchmen who also command over $200 and who look forward to staying together for a long while and trying for a recording session.
The drummer for The Watchmen said that the band spreads itself over the spectrum of rock'n'roll because "most of the jobs are at dances and you have to play all kinds of music to keep people happy."
Some of the bands include in their programs a lumiere show which is, in its simplest form, centered around a flashing strobe light. The constant on-off flashing of this powerful light makes the dancers look as if they were moving in a staccato way. The effect is fantastic.
The Color of Love is a new group brought together last winter. It is composed mainly of men who usually work out of a complete folk idiom. They started as a cocktail party band and specialized in slow music but have changed recently to include songs from new blues-hard rock groups such as The Cream and Moby Grape. Their favorite groups, according to Dan Koerner '69, the head of the band, remain in the folk-rock sound - such as The Byrds.
The group has a distinctive sound and it sports one of the best drummers and one of the best guitarists on the campus. In addition, more than any other group, it works its own compositions into its show.
However, it has run into some rather typical problems. Koerner explained that some potential customers have been turned off by the group because they did not think it was loud enough. "We try not to be real screamers," he said laughing.
It is also hampered by the fact that it cannot stay together this summer. Koerner has NROTC camp during the summer and two others in the band have commitments.
The need for constantly working and even living together is important if one wants to really make a good band. Personality conflicts can disrupt the ability to play together and any long periods of separation may seriously harm a band.
As the drummer for The Watchmen commented, "It was great during the last vacation becauses we were all together." During that time they practiced almost every day and they improved considerably.
Most of the members of the various bands have been playing in one sort of group or another since high school. One student, who plays a twelve-string electric guitar for The Color of Love, has appeared professionally during the summertime.
Most of the money earned from the various appearances goes to paying for equipment and buying new equipment. The Night Watchmen, for example, recently added an organ to their stockpile of instruments. Peter Logan estimated that the group's equipment is worth more than $4OOO and that figure is by no means inflated.
Occasionally a band makes the BIG TIME and that is what most of those who gather in Webster once a week look for. One student, Wayne Waddims, recently cashed in on two hits and an album with a group that used to be called Wayne Waddims and the D Men but more recently went under the title The Fifth Estate. He won't be the last.
THE riots which swept the country after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King affected the campus in a strange way. Newspaper sales went way up, radios were turned on more frequently, and people you did not know were likely to ask you about this or that city as you read the morning Times.
Rollins Chapel was packed for a special memorial service the day after the slaying and conversation about riots and civil rights dominated the entire campus.
One student went on WDCR to predict that blacks would rise in revolution now; others voiced the hope that King's memory would not be destroyed by violence; while yet others were openly concerned about the towns in which they live.
The Upper Valley Human Rights Council decided to raise money for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Students for a Democratic Society decided to attempt to meet with the College Trustees "to discuss ways in which Dartmouth College can contribute to the self-help programs of poor black and white people."
Personal opinions ranged from a desire to see more violence to a complete revulsion at the very concept of violence. It is safe and easy to be radical on an isolated college campus and many people take the greatest advantage of that opportunity. To this extent, the safety of the campus does breed a good deal of irresponsibility, but perhaps it's better for students to be irresponsible now when they cannot hurt anyone.
In another development, Dartmouth was recently the scene of the first nationwide Experimental College Conference. As with most things connected with the concept of an experimental college, it was completely unpredictable. At one point, an argument resulted in a session of arm wrestling between two visitors and at another the announced format of the conference was scrapped in favor of small group discussions.
The people who attended the conference varied as much as their methods of reaching agreements (or disagreements). The Dartmouth commented, "There were all kinds of people there, from the bearded, long-haired college dropout in dungarees and cowboy boots to the stolid, graying university president in his tailored suit and silk tie."
Results of the conference were extremely difficult to assess. Perhaps it can be summed up in the words of one exhausted participant: "This was the worst and most exciting experience I've ever had."
IN student government news, the Interclass Council recently changed its name and increased its ability to act upon problems which face the student body. The new name is the Student Senate. The new powers come from a constitutional change which now allows the body to act upon as well as consider problems affecting the undergraduates at the College.
The changes came out of an argument within student government about the effectiveness of student government. One student, highly placed in the organization, had argued that the whole student government apparatus should be abolished because "we're just hurting ourselves by living with the kind of student government we now have."
His opponents did manage to push through the changes rather than scrap the whole thing.
The Dartmouth, however, was not impressed. An editorial appearing the next day called for a "total re-evaluation" which would involve the entire college community.
It is my feeling that most of the college community really does not care about student government at all.
In smaller areas of the news, the Class of 1969 announced that it has finally overcome a huge debt from two years ago and is now in the black, and an anonymous student and his date collected 211 eggs on the campus Easter morning to win 30 pounds of jelly beans.
And that is how early spring was.
Four of the five members of Dartmouth's "Japanese" delegation to the 1968 National Model United Nations, which was named one of the ten best student groups.L to r: Norifumi Shimura, a special student, Yoshihiro Nakamura '68, Peter VanDemark '70, and Thain Ramey 69. (See story on the next page.)
