From jovial competitions played riverside and in fraternity basements to attempts at late-night romance on the golf course, Green Key weekend provided pre-coeducation Dartmouth men with the opportunity to take respite from books, enjoy the sun and cultivate an image for the benefit of hundreds of invading women.
"Green Key was a break after the winter doldrums and May mud-fest ... It was a great bust-out weekend, and really close to a rite of spring," James Frey '68 said.
As with Winter Carnival, one of the more popular activities was importing women from across the northeast.
"In the old days the only times there were women on campus were the big weekends," Bruce Shnider '72 said.
"Harvard men have the brains, Princeton men the clothes, Yalies the conversations, but it's Dartmouth for sex and stuff," one Mount Holyoke student said of Ivy men in a previous interview with The Dartmouth. She was one of over a thousand women to descend upon campus in 1951.
An advertisement urging students to buy Green Key prom tickets at Campion's ran with the following caption in 1954: "Here she is again -- your Green Key baby, growing bigger every day until tomorrow morning, she delivers the goods. Watch her feet, her ankles, her knees, her thighs, her hips, her waist, her ... well, just watch."
A onetime Green Key date who spoke with The Dartmouth, however, expressed that this salacious reputation was at least in part just a piece of the mythology of the weekend.
"Dartmouth men had the funny reputation that they were always just about to jump on you and devour you sexually. That wasn't really the truth, but I think they enjoyed that reputation," Bea McArthur, a Vassar graduate who attended Green Key in the late 1940s said, adding, "It wasn't serious, the joke was that it was all these isolated boys, so what else could they think of?"
McCarther did offer a caveat, saying, "There was a lot of drinking. There's no question of that."
"That's where I learned the evils of milk punch," she added of the "gentle-looking" beverage served before bus rides home.
"I don't think [Green Key] was anymore outrageous than it is now," Frey said, noting that his son was a member of the Class of 1992.
How to Entertain Your Date
Although many traditional athletic events occurred on campus -- Shnider recalled watching crew races on the Connecticut River -- less serious events proved more memorable for many Green Key attendees.
"We had a great time just horsing around ... A lot of it was almost of the level of little kids," McArthur said.
One such event was the pairs canoe race in which Ledyard club members teamed with their dates. This was followed up by a "jousting event," as Dartmouth men attempted to impress their dates by standing on the gunwales of their canoes with the object of knocking their opponents into the Connecticut.
Frey recalled participating in a 1966 interfraternity competition entitled "Hums." Frey's house made it to the final rounds with a performance that included the use of Gregorian chants.
"That was a great way to impress dates," Frey said.
Meanwhile, the logistics of being a Green Key date were not always simple. Women were not allowed to stay in dormitories until the early 1970s, and McCarther described making travel arrangement to the isolated campus as "hard work."
Since routes were limited and often required multiple tickets, in some years, Vassar students chartered a bus for the commute.
Additionally, after arriving in Hanover, women found the area inns too limited in capacity to house the influx. Many solved the problem by renting rooms from homeowners in neighboring towns.
McArthur noted, however, that a certain camaraderie developed between the women who made the trip.
"I made some really good friends. There were some quite young ones; I don't know if they were in high school ... When something is hard to accomplish, it becomes more precious. Getting to Dartmouth was a challenge."
Debauchery and the Country Club
Frey recalled one spring in which some of the weekend's fair-weather traditions didn't quite go as planned.
"One year it snowed. People used to sleep on the golf course on Saturday night, and they woke up with snow in their hair," he said.
The practice of fairway camp-outs over Green Key caused the Hanover Country Club to serve as the site of scandal on at least one occasion.
A 1954 affair started when Hanover Police Department Captain Theodore Gaudreau noticed a student roasting hot dogs on the eighth hole green at 3 a.m. The offending party was apprehended, and his possessions in tote -- coffee, cupcakes, marijuana, heroin and Alka Seltzer among them -- confiscated.
Gaudreau then proceeded to shoo away some 69 students and visiting women on surrounding fairways and arrest golf team coach Tommy Keane for "willful promotion of unhealthy hours on the course with the intention of disturbing the peace."
Due to police edict, the Hanover Country Club was promptly closed for the weekend, leaving Coach Keane to reportedly exclaim, "Damn, and I was planning to play golf tomorrow, too!"
One sophomore attempted to sum up the experience: "I knew it couldn't last ... I'm just to par tonight."
