To The Editor:
I have enjoyed the memories of Winter Carnivals past which appeared in your recent issue.
However, I am very surprised that no one has mentioned the most odious policy of the College during the early 1960s regarding carnival. When I was at Dartmouth (1961-65), it was of course all-male. As several writers have noted, hundreds of young college women from all over the East Coast and elsewhere came to Hanover as dates of the Dartmouth men for carnival weekend. Where to house all of these women?
The College in its official wisdom decided that the one or two dorms with the worst disciplinary records by carnival weekend would simply be emptied of their residents (tough luck for them!), and the women guests would be housed there. Sad to say, a broken window or a loosened ceiling tile from a hall-hockey game could doom an entire dorm to eviction at carnival time. This lousy policy ruined many a student's carnival weekend, and his ability to properly entertain his guest.
One year, the residents of a doomed dorm took all of their curtains with them when they were evicted, which left the College scrambling to ensure their guests' privacy. Another doomed dorm quickly crafted an ice sculpture on its front lawn, an accurate depiction of a large upturned screw with a crown on top. It was simply entitled "The Royal Screw." The dorm's evicted residents all urinated on the sculpture before finding somewhere else to live for the weekend.
Luckily, I never lived in a dorm which was emptied for carnival weekend, but I recall that my dorm (South Wigwam) narrowly escaped a couple of times.
Nevertheless, I personally have retained bittersweet carnival memories, with more bitter than sweet. The atmosphere and the events of carnival weekend are bright, crisp and magical for most (but not all) on campus.
I was not in a fraternity, and for three of my four carnival weekends at Dartmouth I had no date. There are few things in life more miserable than a carnival weekend in Hanover without a date. To find yourself in that situation for three carnivals will imprint an irreparable blot on one's self-esteem. I recall spending most of one carnival weekend in Baker,looking through coed college catalogues and transfer procedures.
Alas, some college memories are less than pleasant. Your recent articles have brought them back to me, 35 long years later.
