College of the Holy Cross - Purple Patcher Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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The occasional Link, in whites and pastels, dutifully The Class of 1963 We are talking now of thirty-six months present and nine months not present in Worcester, Massachusetts in the time that we lived there so successfully disguised to ourselves as students. Our portrait of that time must be contructed in two unblended colors, honey and salt. Since it all belongs to memory, the tenses are a mixture of pres- ent, past, and probable. or over a century of Sep- tembers the College wait- ed knowingly on its high south hill of the city for f, our arrival from the four directions. But for only eighteen of the Colleges l I6 years were we given to participate, however unknowingly, in that wait- ing. Expectation and arrival intersected with precision one eventual September. The day was color. I am riding a limited ex- press, one of the crack trains of the nation and these pine- blue blessed colonial hills tell me the College is near. l am descending by jet over Framingham, driving along turnpikes to the Auburn exit, riding by Boston bus to gray Worcester common, and the day is color. Blazers glint purple, crossed in white. Six-tint carbon cards to register facts. Linen white, s-riped by blue. Black the asphalt, red the brick, green the vines and lawns and us. With the slant of evening comes settlement-parents gone, bags emptied, roommate sized up. And before the first midnight, as the bells are first shock- ing the new blood on campus, we wander through wonder ii over again, hunting new answers to the very sensible and impossible question: Who now am l here and why? Only after thirty-six months residence and nine months absence, coming abruptly into the humid satisfaction of sen- ior June, does the wondering end. For by Junetime the glory of ambition has found need to demote such harmful ques- tions to a lower place, or the humility of wisdom has sug- gested that a more ephemeral, more desirable query-What is Holy Cross College?-replace the other. Whichever cam- ouflage we opted for, the central question hugged our souls from the first belling midnight on. And so we delivered up our young persons to the priests of higher learning who smiled on our naive wants and bent us gently till we de- -W An Interpretation parted blurting: You have given me age and emergence but will not, oh, will not, not now, not every but will not ever tell me who I am. Or in terms of taste: sing four years of honey and salt. ln terms of color-but then it was forever color. The Class of I963 brought to this College one collective talent, spirited inquiry. That very quality gave the class color. That particular elan-a larger creative drive to which traditional school or sport spirit was but an emotional cousin -enveloped the institution. And passivity, a neutral tone, was from the beginning inherently alien to the class's full harmony. The first-year period of adjustment, upon reflection, seems to have been consciously shortened from Within. Our arrogance and eagerness overpowered the counsel of critics that we slow our pace and keep our places as homogenizing observors of the college scene. Arrogance, while it sliced dozens from our ranks, merely fortified the eagerness of the survivors. Praise certainly fueled our engines: Best group of young singers and athletes on this campus in some time, the two Docs conceded. Good core of shrewd debaters, senior oracles admitted. Looks like these boys will do things with the paper, magazine and radio station, the extra-curricular practitioneers guessed. What they all meant was-a certain spirit. The new and never-to-be-understood marking system shadowed us from the start. lts main emphasis, scholarly initiative, was simply academic phraseology for spirited in- quiry. We carried our vaunted vigor out of the classrooms and activity cells into the gray Worcester air and traded our red victory lust for parched red throats on Dinand stairs and freshman field. printed four issues of faltering poems and intramural scores, and announced early class contributions of the Westons, Collinses, Becks, Keoghs, Buchtas and Snyders. But the really indelible recollections of first year are drawn from the mist of intangibles that floated well outside the court or classroom. We'll recall more vividly our par- ticipation in Kimball chaos-movies and meals, or the vary- ing poses adopted during tea and yawns at the Newton quonset. Or the plastic smile of the corridor politician in love or hate with NSA. Or the yellow face of that iron god of a clock. Or the overstressed self-confidence displayed for amazed parents on the Weekend. Or a humiliating root beer in l..uigi's. Or a secret meditation at Leo's barbershop while staring at the spirited pole outside the door, revolving its heritage colors into an eternity of surprising repetition. The turn of the barber pole. And color . . . grass to slush to rain to grass, summer to spring, salt on the Linden ice, honey on Kimball pancakes. Same to you, l..eog yes, in September, Leo. ln its lI6th summer the home on lndian l-lill Went into another three months vigil, watching the blood flow out only to flow back again.