1987

Some would say that it takes longer than four years to conjure up a sense of nostalgia. Others would argue that they yearned for the (relative) simplicity of freshman year even before they graduated. What's certain is that the College left indelible marks (and, in some cases, scars) on all of us. Sit back with me now and enjoy a few memories from those not-so-by-gone days.

My freshman fall began (as did the following ten terms) with a late-night arrival on campus. After a bumpy flight from Boston on Precision Scareways ("the only airline ever to ask me my weight before a flight), I shared a cab into Hanover with Mark Modrall. Mark was not only the first classmate I met at Dartmouth, he was also the first person to help me carry my Dad's "What have you got in there, rocks?" trunk up flights of stairs in Streeter Hall. Now that I think of it, I didn't see much of Mark after that night. Hmm ...

For some reason, most of my memories of that first year center on Thayer Hall. Most of our floor would march en masse for dinner each night, like so many lemmings headed for a cliff's edge. There were elements of entertainment, though. One involved Thayer's greatest feat of engineering, namely the food tray tram that ran around the perimeter of the dining hall, transporting meal scraps to some unspeakable Grand Central Station in the bowels of the building, where an unfortunate student would have to greet them and help them off the track. It was said that a glass placed over a spoke in the track would shatter on its departure from the "station" if it wasn't caught. Now, that's entertainment!

For those who didn't use all 21 "punches" during a given week (and there were many), Topside offered a Sunday evening social outlet where we would use up as many leftover punches as we could and stand in a long line to do it. Freih ofer's chocolate chip cookies were always the first to go, and those who pushed the envelope by showing up fifteen minutes before closing were left with items such as Fluff, a pink, jarred substance that claimed a distant relationship to the marshmallow, itself the missing link of the food chain.

There were many other rituals that we went through together. We rushed to Campion's during Freshman Week to get our free Dartmouth mugs and then spent weeks trying to get the Campion name off them (I even heard that some budding chemist applied a form of acid to the glass and still couldn't remove it). We stormed the football field during many a half time and realized how much easier it was to be in the "8" than in the "7." We built and burned two bonfires.

Perhaps the best part about being in school was that there weren't many rules to follow outside of New Hampshire and United States laws (which themselves lapsed at times). Each of us was given the chance to set up his or her own rules to live by. Now, some of us did a fairly awful job of this, but the opportunity to admit mistakes and change our ways provided a tremendous education of its own. As the time passes, pushing our Dartmouth years further back in our memories, I prefer to recall our unofficial class cheer, attributed to Kim Hinton from the 1983 football season and reprised on Dartmouth Night senior year: EIGHTY-SEVEN'S GOT THE GOT THE JUICE .. .JUICE!

Gregg W.Rippey, 7048 S. Cook Court, Littleton, CO 80122