Sentimental Sap

It rises for some alumni every, fall, when the freshmen arrive for a hike.

A few weeks back it was The Salty Dog Rag" that I heard coming from the loudspeakers (and I do mean loud) outside the Outing Club House on Occom Pond. It was, however an old Rodgers and Hart lyric that I heard in my brain and I suppose my heart: "I'm a sentimental sap, that's all..." It's the first line of a popular 1928 show tune, the year I was born. The musical event I'm talking about, however, took place during the indoctrination of some members of the class of 1999 just prior to their departure on a Freshman Trip.

The DOC House is, of course, just across the street from the Hanover Country Club and I happened to be crossing the gulley and starting down the 18th fairway with three other Thursday regulars when we first heard the music. By the time we reached the green (two putts for a par, as I recall) it was hard to ignore the insidious rhythms and the dancers' beat that inhabits that traditional DOC song a song I first heard only recently.

I went over to investigate. There were two dozen young men and young women in front of the building, learning the steps they would need four or five days later at Moosilauke. One or two seemed predominantly left-footed, but most had quickly caught on. "First you put your right foot " New kids were arriving every few minutes.

Parenthetically, a word of explanation. I'm a member of the class of 1949, but I never got to go on an indoctrination hike because the war was still on when a small bunch of us '49ers arrived in early July of 1945. We were, incidentally, the last group of entering students to matriculate during Hoppy's long regime, which gave it a sort of sentimental edge. By the fall of that year John Sloan Dickey had the helm. Fifty years ago. Fifty years ago I was walloping pots in Thayer's basement when word came that it was V-J Day. That was the day before I was supposed to show up in Boston and get sworn in as a navy air cadet. Timing is everything. Thanks anyway, maybe next war. But that's another story.

Now 50 years pass. Regularly, a part of 1949's class dues has gone to support freshman trips, now more correctly referred to as DOC Trips. Whatever, they're a good thing. They start the bonding process about as quickly as possible. Instant immersion. If I'd gone on one I might have enjoyed a wider circle of '49 friendships. I might even have learned the Salty Dog dance.

Damn, those trips must be more fun than, say, e-mail, don't you think?

Well, there I am putting my clubs in the back of the car, changing out of my spikes, listening to "The Salty Dog Rag," waxing sentimental and a station wagon pulls up, full of family. I mean full. Mother and Dad, of course, Grandma, several siblings. And one young man, 17 or 18, who gets out, shoulders his backpack, waves nonchalantly to the relatives he's leaving behind forever—metaphorically speaking, of course—and walks toward the peers who, still talking metaphors, will be his new family.

"Have a great trip," I say.

"Thanks," he says, a little surprised at my interest.

Do I notice something like a lump in his throat? Do I notice something like a lump in mine? Oh, well, I'm a sentimental sap, that's all...