While reading "Jacket stealers create ripple effect" (March 6), I came across jacket-theft-victim Noah Hall '07's comments assuming that, "It's likely a townie trying to cause mischief...." Being myself an 'ex-townie,' Hall's opinion left me shaken and weak with long-buried guilt. It is in the spirit of this that I have decided to come clean and make a full confession.
It was not "likely" a townie; it was definitely a townie who pulled this caper. As a freshman at Hanover High, one of the first things we were taught is the importance of jacket-stealing. Not just any jackets, of course -- only those belonging to Dartmouth students. Since the stereotype of the bored and desperate townie is, like most other stereotypes, 100 percent correct, we resorted to the wildest types of crime to enliven the monotonous drudgery that was our day-to-day lives. Jackets were stolen. So were shoes and other articles of clothing. One year we tried to make off with the Winter Carnival snow sculpture but sadly it proved too cumbersome. Ah, Dartmouth.
Did you never realize to what extent we thought about you? Did you never suspect that as you passed us at Foodstop or whenever we almost hit you as you jaywalked along Wheelock Street that the only thought spinning through our townie minds was how to separate you from your jacket? Was it not obvious in our beady townie eyes that "causing mischief" to the Dartmouth student body was the only reason we even bothered to get out of bed in the morning? Throughout my entire time at HHS, jacket-stealing filled my otherwise empty life with purpose and exhilaration.
With this in mind, I did some research, and was astounded to find just how much trouble townies have caused. Safety and Security statistics show, for example, that in 2005 there were 34 reported burglaries. Further research by this author reveals that no less than 32 of these were townie-caused. And out of 226 liquor violations in the same year, I determined that townies masquerading as Dartmouth students were responsible for an incredible 211 of these. That's about 95 percent!
Speaking from personal experience, I can assure you that there is no bargaining with these fellows. As a group they are blind to justice, deaf to reason, and will not desist until all jackets have been stolen from the Dartmouth community. Short of uprooting Hanover High and transplanting it to, perhaps, New Haven or Cambridge, there is very little to be done. I thank Mr. Hall for opening the lid on this mess before it was too late.
(The author would additionally like to report that his jacket was stolen recently. Whether his old friends failed to recognize it as his, or whether they took it as revenge for his attending Dartmouth may never be established.)
