Eleazar, Dan and Liz

UPON entering my last year at this institution, I have had occasion for self-examination. The memories of the many adventures and boring times of the last three years tumble in my mind. Out of this comes one conclusion. I am a snob. So now, in the twilight of my years in Hanover, I have endeavored to set forth here how my snobbism came to be. My problem can be summed up in a single sentence.

I am a Dartmouth woman. (Notice the still-startling juxtaposition of these two words, so heavy with meaning. If you are not startled, know that I still am.)

After four years of coeducation, the world is only now realizing that women do walk across the Green and actually answer questions in class. Yet I was here, you see, at the infancy of coeducation (not birth, for my class was the second to admit women) - a fact I am very fond of telling the bug-eyed freshwomen on my floor. So I suffered the joys of pioneering. They made me a snob, as I will show you.

My story begins even before my freshman year. It was in that pre-sapient state that I had my first delicious taste of being someone special. I had an interview at Dartmouth. After a polite discussion, the admissions person turned to me and said that the Ledyard Canoe Club was eager to have women students join. Since I was not interested in the sport of kayaking (as fine as it is) and had not mentioned a desire to go canoeing, I got a sneaky feeling that if I became a Dartmouth woman, I would be, well, sought after. My acceptance to the Class of 1977 later that year confirmed this feeling, which I can describe only as being metaphysically tickled pink.

Although being a freshman here can be a bit of a Uriah Heep trip - as with all freshpeople, you understand - I did not always find it so, for I belonged to the Dartmouth family. Eleazar, Dan, and me. This was something no other mortal female had ever experienced. And Hanover belonged to me. The rocking chairs at the Inn were mine; the Thayer recipe for "corn hot dogs" was my recipe; the dogs roaming the streets and auditing courses were mine. I was an Insider. And that fresh fall, when alums came from all over, how I relished being stared at by the 'gaters as I walked to my dorm. I could see the unspoken question in their eyes - "Is she one - is she a COED?" I felt like smiling and saying, "I'm a Dart Coll 'shwoman" to show I knew the native tongue.

I soon came to know what being a Dartmouth woman meant. First, we were always "firsts": (I personally know those who did the following) the first woman to start a watertight in the history of that social event in South Mass Hall; the first to sculpt a statue of a snowpile in front of an all-woman dorm for Winter Carnival; the first to get stopped by the Campus Po whilst climbing into a guy's room to steal cookies his mother had baked for him.

As for myself, I felt goddess-like when allowed to take an "interest inventory" to discover what I liked to do on Saturday afternoons. No female test forms were available at that time, so I agonized over such questions as "My future plans include; 1. drinking with the 'bro' in my frat after eating rocks; 2. entering the priesthood; 3. becoming a father; 4. joining the Marines."

Again and again, I was delighted to hear the myths about Dartmouth women because myths surround only the mysterious or the glorious. To name a few from a catalogue of thousands, we don't study enough, we know how to have fun, we are always around when a guy wants to talk to us, we are great drinking buddies, we are great athletes but we wear dresses during crew practice and never perspire on the playing field. We are legends in our own time. Ulysses, Kilroy, and me.

I have been much Holy Grailed. Who else has been spokesperson for her sex, and therefore asked the Woman's Point of View on everything from angular momentim to the pronunciation of "either"? Who else has been asked why Dartmouth women wear skirts on Fridays (this pollster said it was to get a date for the weekend. Dates. You know, the fruits of a palm tree). So, it is no wonder that with such activities by my group, I began to feel very special indeed. My vanity waxed, especially when I went into the world where I was even more of a curiosity. For example, during school breaks I lived in a T-skirt with "Dartmouth" emblazoned over my heart. Acquaintances who were basely ignorant of my status intelligently asked if I was "going" with a Dartmouth man.

"No." (Small grin with the genesis of a smirk.) "I ... go ... to Dartmouth."

"Gurrls go there now? Zowee, you must have fun!!! All those boyees!!!" (This from male and female acquaintances, both neanderthal and liberated.) I let that remark pass by, content in the knowledge that I had not noticed the ratio of boyees to gurrls was six million to one. Also, I didn't need men, for, as Gloria Steinem says, a woman without a man is like a pike without a bike. Rather than continue the discussion I would ask, "And where do you go?" - a safe question, because they couldn't ever be as special as I was unless they were the first women admitted to the College of Cardinals.

As a Dartmouth woman, I see the world at my feet. Wherever I go, I receive no little attention from those of the Older Persuasion, who have lived most of their lives believing that Grant was buried in Grant's Tomb and Men went to Dartmouth. Now it was coming out that Mrs. Grant was also buried in Grant's Tomb, and Women went to Dartmouth. For example, I commuted into New York City for nine months this past year and occasionally sat next to a nice gentleman, a Harvard man and a lawyer. During the course of one conversation, he asked me about myself. Thus the emerald word was forced from my shy lips again. The gentleman said his brother had gone here. But with a glazed look in his eyes, he added, "I just can't get used to the idea of women going to Dartmouth!" He muttered to himself for the rest of the trip. Poor man.

So now you see why I have become a creature glutted with unforgivable pride. I am important. I am unique. I am unaware of the rest of humanity. My only reality is what my mirror shows me - the words "Dartmouth Woman" spelled out on each of my teeth. But, as a Dartmouth woman once said;. "Pride goeth before a fall." I know that soon my specialness will be over as I go out into the world. I will no longer be a Dartmouth woman, but a Dartmouth alum! Yet I will continue to break new ground. To spite everybody, I'm going to be the first Dartmouth woman to be mediocre. But I'll still have a healthy ego. You see, it's the only thing that got me through.