To the Editor:
Once upon a time in Norwich, Vt. there was a rock band that practiced Rick Ackerboom's cellar. We were called "Boomer Seller" (get it?) and I played guitar. One July in 1987 "Boomer" said to us, "Band, can you rehearse on my deck overlooking the Connecticut River, I have friends visiting this weekend, it may be novel!"
So we did, we played overlooking the Connecticut River while Boomer and his friends floated and the riverbank soon was amassed with people, on tubes, in canoes, on rafts, who detoured from their journeys to anywhere, unknowingly meandering that fateful day on to the very first "Tubestock."
The very first Tubestock was not a "Dartmouth function," as College Proctor Bob McEwen called it in your story.("Student injured at Tubestock," July 26, 1994) It was not an "outsider" function. It was not to make money or to lose money, or for any one person to label. The very first Tubestock was for anyone from any walk of life that happened down the river, an unplanned live concert for the unsuspecting.
The following five Tubestocks had live music, a half-dozen bands, and students, doctors, ironworkers, line cooks, bartenders and mailmen. Everybody.When the live music was stopped by a resentful landlord, I, as a participating musician, lost my immediate insight, but what I read in the Dartmouth disturbs me. Are there unwanteds gradually being weeded out due to this "Dartmouth function" stuff? It can be a "Dartmouth function" and everything else, I guess, but I shake my head when I see the direction it may be headed. It refutes the point of the first Tubestock.
If you don't believe me, ask Boomer.
Tube free or die.