LETTERS

Not Me

Congratulations on reporting about the new social awareness at Dartmouth ["Beyond Me," Winter]. However, I object to being labeled as part of the "Me Decade" or "Me Generation" that neglected environmental and social ills.

Many of us, including myself, participated in smaller programs, other than the Tucker Foundation, to help the community around Hanover. Hopefully these programs still exist. I did so without fanfare or need for recognition, but just to feel better. I think you would find that, just like today, back then most Greek social service activities were done independently. Could it be that our contributions were more valuable back in the late '7Os and early 'Bos because there were fewer of us helping back then? Perhaps, but I think you would be surprised at the number of people who gave of themselves.

By the way, recycling beer cans is old news; some people have been doing it for 20 years. When you write about the fraternity brother or sorority sister recycling his/her plastic cup, that will be news.

Here's to still remaining anonymous!

Stellar Teacher

Your article on Bob Pack's poetry of physics [Winter] is incomplete without some mention of the inspirational effect of another Dartmouth graduate, Middlebury physics professor Richard Wolfson. Rich received his Ph.D. from Dartmouth in 1976 and has been conveying the joy and beauty of physics to Middlebury students (and some colleagues) ever since. Rich is a member of that forgotten group of Dartmouth alumni, the graduate students. I have never read anything about graduate alumni in this magazine. Some of them have done great things. For example, how many at Dartmouth (outside of the Chemistry Department) know that Marye Anne Fox, a 1974 Ph.D., has become one of the biggest stars in the world of organic chemistry, and recently won the Garvan Medal as the nation's best woman chemist?

As one who has dedicated his career to undergraduate education, I would hate to see Dartmouth go the way of the big universities, where the faculty have no interest in undergraduates. However, a few departments at Dartmouth have pulled off the rare feat of educating graduate and undergraduate students with equal enthusiasm and success. I think it would be worth pointing out occasionally the ways in which graduate students enrich the lives of Dartmouth undergraduates and celebrating occasionally their accomplishments.

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

Linguistic Comets

"If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand..." (Job 33:23).

I was very much interested in the article, "Putting Words in the Mouths of the Great," in the Winter issue. It interested me especially because my father, Cyril Muromcew '55, has spent 30 years as a diplomatic interpreter in the U.S. State Department. In that capacity he met Khrushchev during his Washington visit in 1959, interpreted for Presidents Johnson, Carter, and Reagan, and for more than 25 years participated in the arms control negotiations in Helsinki, Vienna, and Geneva.

My father discussed Charles Wheelan's article with me and thinks it both accurate and apt. He told me that such linguistic talents as Professor Garretson's appear only as often as Halley's comet.

There are only a few dozen diplomatic interpreters in the whole world, and I am proud that two of them are from Dartmouth.

I, too, am interested in languages Japanese in my case, not Russian. I have now been working for a year in a Japanese company, Mitsui, in Tokyo and speak good Japanese. Someday I hope to try my hand at interpreting, reputed by some to be the second-oldest profession in the world.

Tokyo, Japan

Unsung Scrum

Could you please tell me why the College neglected to name any rugby players as "Wearers of the Green"? The Dartmouth squad is ranked among the top teams in the nation. It played for the national championship in 1986 and 1988, and produced a number of players who were selected as Ail-Americans. The class of 1988 alone had two All-Americans: Chris Lena and Jason McGinnis.

San Francisco, California

The folks in Blunt and at the Athletic Council tell us that, because rugby at Dartmouth is a club sport, records are not kept by the DCAC as they are for varsity sports. The College was aware that the men's rugby team playedfor the national championship in 1986 and 1988, but no one from the team reported to the Sports Information Office that two players were named All-Americans which is why Messrs. Lena and McGinnis were not recognized at the Boston "Wearers" dinner. Ed.

RAID Aired

I suppose it is inevitable that the contents of the Alumni Magazine reflect the unfortunate administrative trends at the College, but I was nevertheless dismayed to read the story in the Winter issue about a "show" produced by a student organization known as RAID, replete with a description of the "show" demonstrating proper ways to "use condoms and rubber dams." For complete edification, of course, you should explain "rubber dams" to admiring alumni, so that we don't have to use our imagination.

I am glad, however, the story confirmed reports from that beleaguered bete noire publication, the Dartmouth Review, because otherwise who would have believed the administration line that once more the Review is guilty of distortion?

San Francisco, California

As we have explained in earlier issues, a rubber dam is a small piece of rubber that can be used to prevent the spread of disease during oral sex. Dentists commonly use the device to protect themselves from patients' saliva. We're not sure how an article reporting on a student activity reflects an administrative trend, though we frequently use rubber dams ourselves they're great for unscrewing sticky lids from jars. Ed.

Shedding Investments

I was very happy to learn of the recent decision by the Board of Trustees to divest fully its investments in companies doing business in South Africa. I commend the Board for taking an ethical stance on this critical justice issue. The Board's decision to divest is in keeping with Dartmouth's stated goal to provide our society with responsible leadership, for it is exactly this kind of moral leadership that our society most needs. Would that the Board's courageous decision might inspire other educational institutions such as one just down the street from me—to do likewise!

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Stories on the Mount

I am collecting stories for a history on the Moosilauke Summit Camp (Tiptop House), built in 1860 and lost to fire in 1942. I would appreciate recollections of the building or crews, and any relevant photos or memorabilia. Volume I in the Moosilauke! series, on the Ravine Lodge, was completed in September 1989 in time for its 50th anniversary.

Shelburne, Massachusetts

The Mutt

Congratulations on publishing Chris Miller's article "Son of Animal House" in your September issue. If read widely enough, Mr. Miller's fond apologia for everything that is detestable about the traditional Dartmouth fraternity house will surely serve to speed the demise of that insitution and its archetypal denizen, the Dartmouth Mutt.

The characteristic behavior of the Dartmouth Mutt may be described variously as asinine, barbaric, boorish, childish, crude, degenerate, drunken, idiotic, infantile, loutish, moronic, offensive, rowdy, stupid, swinish, and uncivilized.

When I attended Dartmouth in the 1950s, the Dartmouth Mutt was all too much in evidence. His behavior, which was condoned on the ground of "boys will be boys" or even "Dartmouth tradition," was a perennial embarrassment to the College. However, with the recent and civilizing addition of women to the student body, the Dartmouth Mutt and the mentality for which he stands both seem to have gone into a welcome decline.

Winchester, Massachusetts

Nose Guard

I read with interest Rodger Harrison's account in the November issue of his accidental field goal against Vermont and Earl Blaik's rebuke, "Never underestimate your own ability..."

The death of Bill Hoffman, a great captain of the '33 football team, reported in the previous issue, reminded me of a dissimilar incident. We were playing Cornell in the fall of 1932; Bart Viviano, the hulking Cornell fullback, came barrelling through the line with his head down. From my right guard position I had "submarined" under the Cornell guard and lifted my head just in time to stop Viviano with my nose. The blood gushed forth, covering the entire front of my jersey. Now, I had been raised by a principled father who had always admonished me to never be a quitter. I decided to let Bill force me to quit the game. Accordingly, I faced him with blood smeared all over my face and uniform and asked, "Bill, is my nose bleeding?" Bill studied me for a few moments and then said, "No, you're fine, Irv." Somehow I finished the game without exsanguinating!

Later, in the locker room, I told Bill I didn't know I was so outstanding that he couldn't take me out of the game. Like Earl Blaik, Bill gave me paternal advice: "Don't overestimate yourself. I remembered that your substitutes were both on the sick list."

Newton Centre, Massachusetts

Even before idealism was on the rise,some members of the "Me Generation"were reaching beyond themselves.