"Green Key was just a great time of year," Don Weir '70 said. "You're in the final leg of the trimester and looking forward to the summer."
Weir, a former brother at the Animal House-inspiring Alpha Delta fraternity, said that Green Key was an especially invigorating time of year because it signaled the end of the long, bitter Hanover winter. As a result, most of the men on campus were "acting up a bit" during the weekend.
"I remember a party that my fraternity had where some of the brothers dressed up as pagan priests and assembled on the porch in front of the house," Weir said. "They proceeded to chant and jump off the balcony into the hedges below -- they had had a few beers by that time," he added.
Weir also said that the music helped defined the weekend, with bands on the lawns of every fraternity and Motown music streaming from the doors of AD.
Libby Hiltabrand '91 also remembers dancing on the lawn of AD while the bands played in her more recent stint at Dartmouth. While the weekend usually heralded the beginning of spring, Hiltabrand said, the weekend was fun even when the weather wasn't.
"It was so cold my senior spring that everyone was in their flannel pajamas, wrapped up in blankets, playing beer pong in the basement of Chi Gam during their "Come As You Are" party," Hiltabrand said.
As the weather forecast for this Green Key predicts even more rain, it is good to know that the parties go on even when the sunshine does not.
Liz Castellani '99, former Green Key president, also remembers wild times at the AD lawn party, where hundreds of dancing students turned the yard into mud.
"I can remember looking at the AD house and thinking, 'Of course this is the Animal House,'" Castellani said. "There was a great band playing in front of the door, a 25-plus-foot funnel from a third floor window, people dancing on the balcony porch, people dancing all over the front porch, and people climbing in and out of the first floor windows with lots of beer."
Castellani said that the various bands at different fraternities and the spring weather defined the weekend, but that the strong sense of camaraderie that came out during the weekend was especially important.
"For me, Green Key stood out from other weekends because it was a time for the current students to just relax on a beautiful campus before finals and graduation set in," Castellani said. "It was a little more low-key than Homecoming and Winter Carnival, but that's what made it so enjoyable."
