After graduation, just about everyone has some memories of Winter Carnival -- some vivid, some blurred. Soon the '05s will be making their first memories and the '02s will be making their last.
For many alumni, these memories have stuck with them for quite a while.
Jay Evans '46 recalled his freshman Winter Carnival experiences. He explained how there was a sign-up sheet with two-hour increments to work on the statue in the center of the Green.
"My roommate and I were late to sign up, and the only slot left was 4:00 a.m. -- 6:00 a.m., so we set our alarm clocks, oh God, it was awful."
Although it was years ago, Evans remembered exactly what they were instructed to do.
"There was a hose with running water. We piled snow into a wooden trough and turned it into slush," Evans explained.
They loaded buckets with the slush and used a pulley system to move the slush to the top, where someone else would unload and pack it.
"It was so dark, so foggy, that we couldn't see who was up top, so we just loaded buckets," Evans said. "It went pretty smoothly until all of a sudden a bucket of slush came pouring down, knocked my roommate flat, got me in the back of the neck."
Understandably, the two freshmen displayed their anger. "We used swear words, threats, everything we knew. We were soaked!" Evans said. Then he pulled out the kicker.
"We heard a deep booming voice saying, 'Boys, I'm terribly sorry. I guarantee you this will not happen again.' We could recognize Dickey's voice anywhere," Evans said, referring to the then-President of the College John Sloan Dickey.
Keith Ladd '56, also has memories of the statue on the Green. He participated in the construction of an Indian with one arm raised high.
"I just remember my mittens getting all wet and icy, trying to maneuver that slush," Ladd said.
Ladd also reminisced about the fun of traditions. "We all went down to meet the girls on the train or the bus ... it was fun going out on a cold night and watching the ice skaters. It was a wonderful time, gay, happy spirits ... it was like Christmas."
Phil Curtis '67 recollected with much clarity what a special treat Winter Carnival really was.
He noted that usually there were "no women on campus. Green Key Weekend and Winter Carnival became predominant. One would be lining up dates months in advance ... you only had one or two chances" to have a date.
He described how the men of old Dartmouth used to go down to Boston to meet their dates: "Kind of like Lewis and Clark, you didn't have the roads you have today. It was hitchhiking usually, or if you did have a car, you piled in four or five people."
Curtis said that this probably wasn't the best situation for meeting women.
"Let's face it," he said, "one weekend in Hanover isn't quite enough to get to know someone."
Curtis saw the experience as positive, though, emphasizing that for him, it was "a more romantic occasion than it is now."
Mickey Stuart '71 graduated right before Dartmouth went coeducational, and he remembered some of the events that led to Dartmouth's decision in the matter.
"We came up with this idea that maybe we should try [coeducation] out before we change, right? We invited all these girls schools up to Hanover, and they 'attended' classes."
Stuart noted that this wasn't too accurate.
"It was one non-stop party, no one studied, no one went to class; I got a girlfriend out of it. A lot of the girls just stuck around ... it was almost like a two-week party," he said.
Even after Dartmouth decided to let women matriculate, the large influx of women from other schools continued. When only women lived in Woodward dormitory, they received a large number of uninvited visitors one year during Winter Carnival.
"Around 9 p.m., fuses started blowing," Mary Conway '82 said.
"Our basement was inhabited by a bunch of women from colleges all over, these women came with more electric equipment than I have ever seen. They took over our bathrooms ... no one knew them. These unaffiliated women squatting in Woodward basement were completely random, and they kept blowing fuses!"
Stuart remembered a quote jokingly written by Dorothy Parker, a writer from New York, describing girls who visited Dartmouth over Winter Carnival.
"If all girls that went to Dartmouth Winter Carnival were laid end to end, no one would be surprised," Parker wrote.
Everyone takes different memories away from Winter Carnival, some crystal clear, some blurred, some cherished, some that would be best forgotten. What memories will you make this year?
