Settling in in Hanover

A lot of people have wanted to know just what's going on up here in the north country, what with all they read in the Times and such. The Old Guard has been pretty tough on everything from ROTC to my predecessor and there's been a good deal of hand-wringing about how the MAGAZINE might now become little more than a megaphone for all the great things happening in Hanover. I even got "fired" by one alum a journalist two weeks before I moved into Crosby House because I allowed that I wasn't much interested in investigative reporting, in doing an expose on Ivy League recruiting practices.

But in all honesty, being a sort of minor celebrity in Hanover has not been without its rewards. They knew me at Lou's the first time I went in for an ice cream cone (Häagen-Dazs, incidentally; four stars), and down at the bank when I wandered in with a forlorn look wondering how rent ever got so high in a place so far north of Back Bay. As an undergraduate, my lone escape from anonymity was coming back late from Christmas vacation one year and finding myself on Thad Seymour's appointments calendar under the section "Disciplinary Action." But when you're connected with the College as an employe, everyone downtown knows what you wore last Thursday at the DOC House, who you were with, what you had for dinner, and whether you take your coffee with cream or without.

If there is a shortage of affordable housing or personal privacy up here, there's certainly no shortage of advice. Bellhops, bishops, assistant professors, and alums have all taken me aside with, "If I were you I've had letters from fraternity brothers I haven't seen since '66, phone calls from influential Greeners in southern California, visits, from would-be advertisers who want the MAGAZINE to endorse their products, portfolios from free lance photographers who publish in all the right places Smithsonian, Vermont Life, National Geographic article suggestions from as far away as Europe and Hong Kong (no kidding), and straight-from-the-shoulder advice free, mind you from ill quarters of the Dartmouth community. The last time I got so much advice, I was in a batting slump in Little League. I listened to everyone, and, needless to say, things got worse. It took some time before I was able to sift through the jumble and figure out that what worked for Ted Williams, the idol of my youth, didn't necessarily work for me.

If there's a moral here, it's not that its difficult to be all things to all people. It's worse than that it's impossible, because this College continues to be an incredibly vital place. But as much as it has changed, some things are pretty much the same as they were when George Ticknor painted his 1803 watercolor of Dartmouth Row. Three or four dogs still patrol the green and are on duty at every College function; when the weather's right, Han over can legitimately lay claim to the title, "the northern part of heaven"; and most important, there are still some extraordinary people here at Dartmouth on both sides of the podium and all four sides of the Green.