1981

.The Dartmouth AlumniMagazine staff asked us to focus our column on "special places" that our classmates recall at Dartmouth. Here are some of your favorite spots:

Candace Miller wrote, "I had a few special places during my years at Dartmouth. The woods behind Hinman Hall that led to the Connecticut River. The birch trees turn yellow in the fall so when the wind blew you'd get a shower of golden leaves. The Tower Room in Baker Library. On sunny warm afternoons I always felt as if I could step back into time while gazing down at the Green. The music library in Hopkins Center. I did some of my best studying there while listening to Brahms Deutsches Requiem."

Abner Oakes lived in Hanover as a child and states, "It is the old Davis Rink. I particularly remember the old tunnel in the back—dark and wet and smelly and just what a 7-year-old loves."

Holly Dustin recalls, "My favorite place on campus was to be nestled in an armchair, my stocking feet propped upon a footstool, with a writing board across the chair arms in Sanborn Library, with a good book, drinking Earl Grey tea out of a china teacup."

Greg Clow left his mark on campus: "In 1977 I was a member of the squash team. While everyone else was out skiing at the Skiway, I was trudging my way from Hitchcock over to the squash courts in the gym. We had a huge dump of snow that year...Three feet in one night. Classes were cancelled, but not practice, so I made my way over to the gym in hip-deep snow. When I got close to the gym, all the cemented walkways were still unplowed. So I made a bee-line from the corner of Crosby and East Wheelock to the front of the gym, leaving behind me a channel in the deep snow. As days and weeks went by, everyone used this new path. By spring there was enough sand deposited by snow boots that when the snow and mud subsided, a nice straight path was left across the grass straight to the gym. Some years later the College put cement over my path, and it became a legitimate walkway. For me, more than just a regular path, it became one of my special places at Dartmouth."

Keith Hammonds adds, "In the basement of College Hall, there was a dark corner where few students ever ventured. If you didn't work for TheD, you had no reason to stray there. But a few of us at The D, folks like Howard Morse, Chuck Nordhoff, Pat Berry, Jim Huttenhower, Matt Joyner and others, spent WAY too much time in this room. Sunday through Thursday nights, up until midnight or so. This was the newspaper's composing room, where a crusty Vermonter named Ira stoically laid out our pages and kindly excused our youth."

Danielle Dyer offered some of her favorite places: "1) Of course...the river. I've rowed and kayaked all over the United States and Canada and there is no stretch of water quite like the Connecticut River—the peace, serenity, beauty and memories it holds for both Alec (Kloman '80) and me can't be matched; 2) Casque & Gauntlet. I can hear the sounds of people experimenting (often with alarming results) in the kitchen, Jenny Toolin McAullife laughing in the living room, Dave Shula trying to create order out of chaos, Suzy Hopkins Axelson and Julie Wallin Kaewert in active denial that Toolin and I lived across the hall."

Oh, how lucky we were....

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