Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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RY O, lfrittle the hirehharh that streak! thrn white-water, Feroeiozzr the honlderr and ywtile the jtaddleg The Pony-Exp rerrnian-how .vnhject to slaughter! Whether hahed at the rtahe or Jcalped in the saddleg O wirpirh the wire, nnhnqyant the air For the walker oftight-rope: with trernnloar toe- How endler: the distance j9'om here to there, How finite the dirtanee from here to helow! Bat there three are sterilized, sealed beneath glan- Y 'There are the honey-pd drones of the hive- Thefe are in oeloet compared to the clan Of Nineteen Hundred and Forty-foe. Long if the eonrre and hard ir the way - Between Seylla the Dean and Charyhdir the Dra-79. And many the innocents pierced in the fray By a lanndry1nan'J harh or a Jnit-pre.r5er'J rhaft. Many the eorjzrer bashed cold to the garter- fFormerly fferhmen, eroning the Sanarej- Many the haher to .fnpply hread and hatter To rome illegitimate tnto ring lair. So don yoar falre whirlz-:err for artful dirgnire, Barn ineenre to ward of the ineonze-tax rhearry Then pray for good rnarhi, lady, andlbray for had eyer, And inayhe yoifll lartfer one or two yearr. J. L.. H. Such was our welcome to Cambridge. The Lanzjloonk JLH was not alone in predicting this gloomy fate for us. College was to be a preparation for battle, Everybody, the Crintren, the Adooeate, President Conant, laundry salesmen, hammered the point home. How many of us believed it, and how intensely fthe ROTCS had more applicants than they could handlej is now impossible to determine. We didn't have much time to think of the future, for Cambridge during the first week was an education in itself, even if Kitty was dead, and Frisky Merriman had given what everyone supposed was his last lecture in History One. The Yard was green and shady, and the British in Libya and the Russians before Moscow were far away. One of 997 pink-cheeked, wide-eyed little boys, dressed in school blazers, loud checks, or green suits, the freshman arrived between Tuesday and Thursday, and got up early on Friday morning to register. He printed his name on a lot of cards, waited on a lot of lines before many desks, and then had to face the line-up on the porch of Mem Hall. Loaded down with desk blotters, free issues of the Criinron and Lain- poon, the Gnardian and the Progrenioe, he tried hard to remem- ber which he was to buy, and which his roommate. Likely as not he ended up by getting them all. Crowded into the Union that night, with the rest of the class for the first and last time, he fought for the buffet supper, got ice cream on his pants, sang, cheered, and listened to the deans, District Attorney Bradford, and President Conant. That week he had his voice recorded, went to a lot of meetings, sized up his roommates, met a lot of people, forgot their names, and tried to work out a study program. He soon learned to develop Harvard standoffishness, the only defense against numerous and persuasive cleaning and publi- cation salesmen. Advice! That was one thing he found both plentiful and free. Everybody gave it, everyone but his freshman adviser, who didn't see why he shouldn't be able to handle History One, Math A, Gov. I, French 6 and Chem. B, and who really did say Drop in and see me some time ,... Freshmen turn out for a football rally during the 1941 season

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Our first miclyears-Brain-cudgeling in Memorial Hall. Sinking easily into Harvard life, '45 largely spent their first and second weekends resting up from the opening flurry of activity, and in conscientiously doing their first assignments, a phenomenon rarely to be repeated. By the opening of the football season, most of us had acquired some knowledge of Cambridge geography and slang, we stopped calling the Yard the campus and got acquainted with Union food. Weld met the 'Cliffedwellers at dances, jolly-ups and teas, and knew why they were linked with the food. Some venturesome souls even went out to Wellesley. As they had been for other classes, football and studies were our chief interests in the fall. We saw the team lose to Cornell, and then with Chub Peabody setting the pace, watched it beat Dartmouth, tie heavily favored Navy, and bowl over Princeton, Army, Brown and Yale. We learned the Fight cheer, yelled ourselves hoarse, ahd even forgot our indifference long enough to fight Dartmouth for the goalposts. Taken in by the term November Hours, hour exams caught us short in the last part of October. Our only defenses against such underhanded dealing by University Hall were long hours in dusty Boylston over Thompson and john- son and the Gov. I syllabus. The end of hour exams was the signal for the class jokers to begin functioning. Matthews formed sides for their water fights, Grays put up Squire Squinch for sheriff, and Allen Davis and Bob Curts advertised in the Crimron for a corpse. It was supplied, Gerry Levy, a fellow resident of quaint Mower Hall, wrapped in a sheet. The freshman football team, led by Jack Fisher, went through an uneventful season, and Bob Keahey was chosen for the lead in the Dramatic Club play. John Potter won the Annual Harvard-to-Wellesley bicycle race. College life seemed dull after the Yale weekend with its Yale-Harvard Ball, three House dances, cocktail parties and general hilarity. It was almost two months until Midyears and many freshmen wondered how they were going to fill the SFP' The skiers made ready for winter snows, and the basket- ball team opened its season with the usual drubbing of M.I.T. Many went out for the various competitions, others rested, some went to Deb parties or the Raymor, but the lucky ones got down to New York for weekends. Favorite Saturday evening diversion, however, was the combined card game and beer party, lasting on into Sunday morning, It was at about this time that we began skipping breakfast. Everybody felt that war would come sooner or later, but Pearl Harbor itself stunned the University. At a hastily- called student meeting on December 8th, President Conant pledged all of l-larvard's resources to the war effort. To the student body he could only say the visibility is low and advised us to stay in college until called. The advice was taken, only a few left immediately after the declaration of war. From now on everything was to be connected with the war, everything we did would be somehow controlled by the needs of the country and the armed forces. Many of us, for the first time in our lives, were forced to act with other in- terests than our own in mind. The Washington or University announcement was never absent from the Crimyon during the rest of our stay at Harvard, and long-planned careers were to be scrapped, changed and rechanged all within the space of a few days. H War comes on a quiet Sunday afternoon.