1944

It was suggested that class secretaries might like to contribute nostalgia to this issue. A nice assignment. Pea-green freshman . . . for many a long train-ride into White River Junction or Lewiston, just across the Ledyard Bridge... Freshman Trips, balancing along the ridge of Liberty and Haystack mountains... green beanies on our heads. . . running the gauntlet on the Green ... tug of war with sophomores... Freshman Commons ... the crowding into same occasional food fights ... butter pats napkinsnapped to the ceiling ... after dinner pianoplaying in the lounge ...

Doc Pollard's smut class . . . eight o'clock classes, including Saturdays ... mail delivered through a slot in your door . . . booth-less phones in the halls: "Someone answer the g-d thing!" . . . guys with laundry and sandwich routes... opening rooms with a coathanger, a routine charmingly called rat-f—king ...

And, of course, the Cornell game fifth down ... tears leaving the stadium ... then rumors start.. . Sunday a long, long day ... Cornell concedes the game . . . victory! ... a bonfire on the Inn corner ...

Heeling for organizations all over campus, including Carnival snow sculpture . . . was it first or second winter when it got down to 40 degrees below? . . . skiing on the golf course and at Oak Hill ... Suicide Six for the adventurous . . . Carnival Outdoor Evening . . . torchlight skiers ... the awesome ski jump (did someone really once go down it in a babycarriage?)... weekends in DOC cabins. . . duckboards criss-crossing the Green . . . spring . . . sunbathing on the Massachusetts dorm roofs ... rapelling down Bardett Tower . . . introduction to road-tripping . . . almost three hours to Northampton . . . Rahars . . . beer and hardboiled eggs, to say nothing of handsome Smithies . . .

Closer to home, Main Street: the Inn and Coffee Shop, Travel Bureau, Macs (with Lou and Peter serving them up), Book Store, Indian Bowl, Walt & Ernie's No Shaves, Campions, Allen's Drugstore, Tanzi's, Fletcher's, Edith's, Camera Shop, and down Allen Street the Armpit and Midget Diner ...

Sophomore year and fraternity rush for many . . . pledge period shenanigans . . . Wormwood, the one-man campus police force ... the noisy Nugget... houseparties brought the big bands: Glen Miller, Vaughn Monroe, Glen Gray, and Louie Armstrong, sometimes one at each end of the gym... dates stayed in private homes or fraternities . . . chaperones moved in, you moved out. . . touch football and baseball on the Green . . . hockey on Occom Pond... the wild and woolly Harvard weekend in Boston ... übiquitous dogs, outside dining halls and running for touchdowns on Memorial Field . ..

Oh, yes, we did go to class ... taking notes and exams, writing papers, and learning from the likes of professors Benezet, Brown, Robinson, West, Stilwell, Foley, and Rosenstock-Huessy... and, of course, we had Hoppy, Bob Strong, and L.K. Neidlinger.

And then, Sunday, Dec. 7,1941 ... shortly after 5:00 p.m., the radio announcement that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor changed our lives forever. We traded in our Shakespeare, slide rules, and microscopes for some branch of the military. Our career decisions were simple: whether to walk, fly, or float. The campus shrunk, there was a 1942 summer semester, and the Navy moved in. A majority of '44s eventually received their Dartmouth A.B. degrees; some received them from other institutions; and, tragically, 23 of us died at war with only a degree in mortality. That's it. Blessings.

Frederick L.Hier, P.O. Box 24, Lovejoy Hill, Cornish Flat, N.H. 03746