Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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ation between the University and Cambridge police. The University announced a giant registration drive and set up parking lots across the river near the Business School. More men than ever before registered talmost 2500 for the whole Universityl and many used the distant cross-river lots. But no matter how registered he is and no matter how bestickered his car, no normal man is going to drive across the river and walk back when he can nudge his way into a slot on Fender Alley. And no normal man cares much about the occasional fines tmaximum 353 which he pays, sometimes, on his tickets. 50 life Went on much as beforeee a lazy, good-natured battle between the tagging cop and the parking student. The cops took the philo- sophical attitude, recognized a perennial human frailty, and played the game. Beside the benevo- lent uncle the University seemed like a puritan- nical grandmother. No doubt there will be an- other tisolution,7 next year, and no doubt cops and parkers will continue to settle the matter in their own way. Now that the football ticket distribution system has been stabilized for several years, the entre- preneurs have had a chance to develop their sys- tems too. A casual stroller down Quincy Street early on any fall morning could see the usual row of beady-eyed, l'Julging-pocketed, little men waiting for the doors to open, and any innocent student Who arrived at the HAA olhces about 9:15 21.111. and found himself, say, 50th in line would find that the 49 men in line ahead of him were getting at least a thousand tickets. Huge syndicates were formed and it was often necessary to spend the night outside the Union in order to get anywhere near the best seats available. The Council urged an investigation but there was really nothing wrong with the system except that men fourth and fifth in line, so near and yet so far, occasionally suf- fered from palpitations. The beady-eyed men were simply carrying a good principle to its logical extreme. If the ticket system was becoming firmly estab- lished, so was the attitude the Harvard man car-

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Geologisls in the woods. of women emerged at midnight from the Graduate Center or from Lowell House? Two days after this outburst a committee of House chairmen re- quested the Housemasters to extend parietal hours 011 the Dartmouth and Yale weekends. Two days after this a petition for midnight permissions every weekend Was set afoot in the Houses. The sponsors of this petition, Leonard J. Friedman :51 and John M. Goldstone ,51, relied mainly on the more subtle argument that men denied the use of their own rooms for social purposes were forced to have recourse to the low, expensive, and inevitably de- bilitating dives of the metropolitan area. Their petition, backed by this reasoning and the signa- tures of over 2000 House members iover two thirdsi, was presented to the Housemasters, met one day in august session. As was expected, noth- ing further happened, and the issue died quickly. Changes are not often made in parietal rules; and the more concerted the campaign put on by the undergraduates the more lecherous they look. Restraint and more than the utmost in decorum is required, and of course no one is inclined to listen to decorous whispers. The parking problem was iisolvedi9 once again, eveh before men had returned from summer vaca- tions. This year the motif was to be close cooper-

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ricd with him and his girl to the game. There being; no reason to expect a Harvard win he placed the emphasis on the pageantry, and the display of skills Gnostly hy the other teami, and the party atmosphere. He cheered with no less visible enthusiasm but there was always a little voice say- ing iiwell, arelft you having a lusty, collegiate time, you gay blade, you! There was nothing unsound about this theory: it simply served to concentrate attention on the all-important, non- athletie side of football. The football season was as much fun as ever. No one thinks of the Houses as new any more; in fact it is hard to remember that they date back only to the early thirties. That is why it seemed so surprising when Lowell House celebrated its twentieth anniversary in October. There were speeches and a punch iinot wholly without appeal:7 and the House,s first master, Julian Coolidge 95, Was present. People complain that the Houses have no hold on their members, that they are as yet little more than eating and sleeping places, but this is hardly surprising When you consider that Lowell,s first Housemaster can still be expected to drop around for a dinner. Year in and year out, the Lampoongs best eHorts have been devoted to its tso to speaki extra- curricular splurges: its various iiawardsia the prizes of which are almost invariably stolen from the Crimson, and its historic pranks. Year in and year out, too, the actual Lampoons have been, if not as dull as dishwater, at least as dull as yester- day,s punch; and copies of the magazine have scarcely ever attracted any notice: Last fall, how- Corridor conversation.