Eight-y!
Anybody who thinks Winter Carnival is the acme for the Dartmouth social set should have been on campus for the Harvard Weekend. The "weekend" began on Tuesday night when the women of North Mass sponsored a spiked punch and ended on Sunday afternoon when the die-hards at Sigma Nu partook of "green machines," which are alcoholic beverages, and a "uni band." In between, there was a Wednesday night rock band at Kappa Sig; "senior tails," the weekly Thursday night fraternity get-together; on Friday, the Hookers' Club at Heorot and the Boar's Head Bar. at Sig Ep, Dartmouth Night, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in Thompson qArena; Saturday: tailgating, a football game, "mini-reunions," sundry Webster Avenue cocktail parties, rock bands, and more. As though to parody Winter Carnival, the Class of '79 sold Harvard Weekend posters for two dollars apiece.
But what committed this Harvard Weekend, celebrated on home ground for just the second time in the past 20 years, to memory was the unexpected event of Wednesday night. An arsonist set 60 tiers of railroad ties, the sextagonal-shaped bonfire structure traditionally built by the freshman class for Dartmouth Night, on fire. The fiery spectacle within minutes drew some 2,000 convivial observers to the Green. "You wouldn't believe how fast word of this spread around," someone said. While the bonfire burned, the campus police were in pursuit of a suspect, a senior, and his name was bruited by some elements of the crowd. One member of the Class of 'BO was not amused by the incident. "I'll bust him," he vowed of the arsonist. "I couldn't work on it because I hurt my hand, but I'll bust him if I find him." Other freshmen rallied together to chant "eight-y! ... eight-y! ... eight-y! ..." and one of them mounted a comrade's shoulders and declared Thursday a freshman holiday so that the work could begin anew. "Now, at least, we'll get more than ten people working on it," commented a Pea Green cynic.
The imperiled Dartmouth Night bonfire became a cause without class distinctions. Fliers were distributed in Thayer Dining Hall Thursday exhorting upperclassmen to "help '80 rebuild the bonfire!" Dean Ralph Manuel and some faculty members were among the first to commence reconstruction that morning. It was a cheerless October day, with storm clouds overhead and 40 degree temperatures made worse by a chilling North Country wind. Yet by midafternoon, several hundred students were congregated on the Green, working or watching and drinking keg beer and hot chocolate. At 3:30, the Dartmouth band arrived and played "Men of Dartmouth" and led some cheers. A WDCR disc jockey named Dave Title, Class of '79, broadcast his late afternoon show from atop the 40th tier, where there was room to stand. Title interviewed Gary Mayo '77, the burly student coordinator of the bonfire who was wearing a Harvard jersey and a silver construction worker's helmet, and asked him how high the second bonfire structure would be built. "We can go 80 tiers and we're going to go 80 tiers," Mayo said peremptorily. Title then asked him when the structure would be finished. Mayo didn't seem to have a definitive answer. He looked down to the crowd, which was listening in, for help. Some shouted "this afternoon," others broke into a chant of "eight-y! ... eight-y! ... eight-y! ..." "There, you heard it," said Mayo. "The '80s are showing a lot of spirit rebuilding the bonfire," Title chattered between records.
By that evening, the structure stood at 72 tiers, 12 more than it had been before burning to the ground the previous evening. "I'm impressed with the '80s" said an upperclassman. "If someone went and set fire to the bonfire again tonight, they would just go ahead and rebuild it tomorrow." This time, though, the freshmen guarded their treasure. Even at 2:00 a.m. many of the freshman vigilantes had not fagged out. About 40 students stood in the vicinity of the floodlighted bonfire structure. Four hardy freshmen were trying to rest in sleeping bags by a nearby campfire. One entrepreneur brought out a half keg of beer and a quarter keg left over from nights previous. "It'll still get you drunk," he averred of the old beer. He lorded over the kegs to make sure the drinkers chipped in some cash before pouring themselves a draught. A group of freshmen locked arms and sang rugby songs and then some women joined them and they sang movie and show tunes and recited Dartmouth cheers.
The bonfire was completed Friday. After dusk that evening, a crowd concentrated near the corner of Wheelock and Main streets to watch the Dartmouth Night parade. The procession was gloriously chaotic, the crowd unrestrained. The bells pealed from Rollins Chapel. Parade walkers carried brilliant red flares. A police cruiser, blue light flashing, and the Dartmouth Band preceded John Kemeny, Trustee Chairman F. William Andres '29, and the other Dartmouth Night celebrants who were riding in convertibles. Then came a gaggle of town waifs, who somehow infiltrated the procession, and the motley class contingents, trailing their banners as though in a Shriners' parade. Miss Hahvahd '76, possessor of hairy legs and an enormous bosom, was wheeled by in a shopping cart. Next, the women's field hockey team filed by, chanting "Florida oranges, Texas cactus, we play Radcliffe just for practice." Some fraternity representatives in black capes toted a wooden box which bore the inscription, "John Hahvahd, RIP, 1976." The paraders curled past the Hanover Inn, around the Green, and proceeded to Dartmouth Row.
The crowd migrated from Wheelock Street, formed a wide convex ring around the front of Dartmouth Hall and overflowed beyond the grass and trees into College Street and onto the fringes of the Green. The Glee Club opened the program. The crowd sang along with "A Son of a Gun" and bellowed the "to hell with Harvard" line with gusto. A steady drizzle began to fall. Secretary of the College J. Michael McGean '49, the master of ceremonies, stood at the podium. "If there has ever been a class with as much cohesion as the Class of '80...." Some members of the audience broke into the "eight-y!... eight-y!... eight-y!..." chant and McGean never finished the sentence. A series of short speeches followed. Frank Smallwood '51, vice president and dean for student affairs, gave a professorial but pithy pep talk and then William Andres addressed the "men and women of Dartmouth." "I want to use part of my speech to talk to you undergraduates," he said. The chairman of the Board of Trustees was reading from a text. A hum welled from the crowd and persisted for the remainder of the speech. "You undergraduates are and always will be the stuff of the College.... We celebrate many things tonight, but primarily that fellowship, that tremendous spirit and commitment that is here to be grasped by you." John Kemeny received a big cheer when he addressed "the men and women of Dartmouth." He knew what the students and alumni wanted to hear. "From now on, Harvard University will play in Hanover once every four years," the President of the College said. "Let me tell you why I decided this should be so: Every generation of Harvard men should have the opportunity to come up and visit Dartmouth and see what college is about." Jake Crouthamel was up next. Michael McGean draped a T-shirt from the Dartmouth Club of Southern California, reading "Roses are red, violets are blue, Dartmouth's a winner, and so are you," around his neck. The Dartmouth football coach, like most football coaches, was full of hyperbole. He said Harvard, which had lost the previous Saturday to Cornell, was the best team he'd faced in three years. Of his own club, he said, "We've got the smallest, slowest, ugliest group of guys you'd ever want to see." Then came the punch line: "But I'd rather go to war tomorrow with those guys than any other group I've ever seen."
The program ended with the singing of "Men of Dartmouth." The crowd then converged on the center of the Green to view the bonfire. For 20 minutes, though, the bonfire wouldn't light, and "boring... boring... boring" rose as a cheer from the good-natured crowd. Finally, the massive wooden structure, which weighed close to 50 tons, caught fire. Great orange tongues of fire shot to 40 feet above the top tier and a funnel of black and gray smoke rose skyward.
First there was arson and then a fizzle in the drizzle, but the bonfire and the crowdfinally warmed to each other on Dartmouth Night. Or was it Harvard Week?
