1933
Going back to Dartmouth Row! I'm guilty of plagiarizing from a song of another Ivy League institution in that lead. So many of you are going to see each other on our 50th, June 10, 11, and 12, there's hardly need for me to put news of classmates in this column you'll soon be getting it all, first-hand.
Instead. I'm going to have a little fun with my own memories, somewhat in the manner of John Monagan's strolls on Nostalgia Boulevarde. Maybe my remembering will spur you to do yours.
There was Ernest Martin Hopkins who set it off with his personal greeting to each of us in his office in 1929. That president of ours gathered together a marvelous faculty. I listened to my peers and predecessors and tried to make the most of it. Frost and McCallum in English; Pressey in drama; Herb West in modern literature: "Cheerless" Richardson in Chem 3 and 4; Murch in Physics 1 and 2; Mecklin and Truxal in Soc'y; Larmon in business administration; Artemas Packard in art appreciation, with his good friend Lewis Mumford as occasional visiting lecturer. What a bunch! How lucky I was!
Getting away from scholastics, I roomed with Jud Pierson freshman year, in the Blue Spruces, down on South Park. Others in that house were Norm Crabtree, Ed Hutchings, Bill Jones, Charlie Shafer, and Johnny Schulte. The last two played a lot of bridge with Jud and me. One game lasted from Christmas to Easter break, with North-South winning by 800 points on the last hand, dammit!
Remember the Norwich cadets coming to town for the first game? They earned a moral victory and Dartmouth cheers if the final score ended up in the 72 to 7 range. Remember the eager town kids who were passed hand to hand, over heads, from bottom to top of the stadium? Running the gantlet wasn't bad if you did it fast and kept your arms high. You got rid of beanies that way.
Our sophomore year, Bill Jones and Jack Lamb, doughty Outing Clubbers, led us on a trip up Moosilauke, over Harvard game weekend. What were big, wet, lazy snowflakes at the base became a howling blizzard at the summit, with hip-deep drifts to wade through. Young Rugen just made it to the cabin.
That was also the year when Mannie Sprague, Bill McCombs, Jud Pierson, and I found we were not fast enough to keep up with the likes of Bob Doscher, Bob Ley, John Monagan, and Jack Taft in the swimming pool. We bottomed out in water polo, only to have the Ivy League cancel out that sport at year's end.
In the meantime, we discovered the benefits of car pools on trips to Hamp and other points or the compass. Five of us went with a moonlighting taxi driver to see that 33-33 game with Yale, when Morton-McCall snatched the tie from what appeared certain defeat. Remember those nine literally killing underpasses on the way south to civilization?
There were surprises during the four years the orchestra on the balcony of Commons with Gene Hammett, Frank Hardy, Charlie Stege, at al. making even creamed chipped beef on a shingle passable. There was that onearmed, black-clad Orozco painting his incredible murals on Baker's walls, with Gobin Stair and Rich Bradshaw doing the prepping. Lym Wakefield did his arabesques on the ice pond for Winter Carnival. Southerners learned that their feet really did crunch on snow. Weekend visitors jumped at the augmented roar of the M.G.M. lion at the Nugget.
Too soon, it's spring of senior year. Cider jugs are exploding outside dormitory windows for our last time and giving off their heady aroma. The duckboards are shooting muddy water up between their slats and onto our legs when we step on an unsupported corner. F.D.R. comes in, as does a bank holiday and 3.2 beer. We sit on the senior fence at least once, carving our canes, lest the old traditions fail.
Comprehensives are over. We've made it! My then (and now) companion comes up from her graduation at Smith. We get rained out of our dance at Tuck plaza, but drive up Balch Hill to see the sun rise so I can tell her to forget that Tigertown guy.
We of '33 march into the Bema. The sun beats down and heats the black hook on the back neck of my gown. When the hook hits my neck, I think it's a bee or gnat sting until my Physics I tells me what causes it. Time for that final handshake with that man who greeted me nearly four years before. I thank him.
Jeff Davis has told us that Ken Spang, Page Worthington, Mannie Sprague, Jus Stanley, and John Monagan will be our speakers or leaders at various reunion meetings. I expect to be there at all and to see every one of you. Especially, I'll be there with Ted Purcell in Rollins Chapel, with my memories, and with the 234 of us who couldn't otherwise make our 50th.
Going back to Dartmouth Row!
ALL IN KEY FOR '83
117A Old Nassau Road Jamesburg, N.J. 08831
