1942

November 1940. November 16, 1940, to be precise. Juggernaut Cornell, Number One in the nation, comes to town. All week long Hanover has been half-heartedly looking forward to the Saturday football game. The prevailing feeling is that Dartmouth, which has already lost four games, including one to Franklin and Marshall, is in over its head. Stiff upper lips are plentiful.

Then, in a game that is still a one-of-its-kind, The Big Green takes a 3-0 lead on a Bob Kreiger field goal and holds off one Cornell attack after another until the last few minutes of play. Three times from within the five-yard line, and a fourth time from the six, Cornell tries in vain to score the winner. And, with only seconds left on the clock, the Big Red gets their fifth and illegal down, which they use to pass for the winning touchdown.

As reports of Referee Red Friesell's mistake begin to roll in from all sides, including many neutral observers in the press box, Hanover becomes a bedlam of excitement up to and after the Friesell acknowledgment of his mistake and Cornell's official return of the victory on Monday night. In all it takes four days for things to cool down.

Earlier in the month Dartmouth beat the University of the South, 26-0, in the Houseparty game and then lost a heart-breaker to Princeton, in which game TedArico, called by the Aegis "the greatest in the nation for his size," ran sixty yards for a touchdown.

Elsewhere on the campus, Green Key President Randy Gilpatric left the College to enlist in the army. Sam Stonestreet wrote to tell of his experiences in the Marine Air Corps.

Bill Perry and his sister escaped injury when their car went over a 40-foot bank on the West Lebanon Road, and ChaunceyThomas had only a minor injury when he fell from a second-floor window in Butterfield Hall.

As Fall seasons ended Sid Bull was elected captain of the 1941 cross-country team, Jim Rendall of soccer and StubPearson of football. Guy Swenson tied for first place in The Dartmouth's fall pick-a-winner football contest.

All this, and more, in an exciting November 1940. Fifty years ago.

Back at this end of the century an almost empty mail box (what else is new?) brought only a report that there's more good news for Luis Zalamea, whose controversial book, El Circulo del Alacran (The Scorpion's Circle), just out in Spanish, has reached third place in the Spanish best-seller list in El Nuevo Herald. The book has been called by some critics the novel about Miami and Cuban exiles.

Keep those letters flooding in.

P.O. Box 504, Burlington, VT 05402