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The Dartmouth
March 29, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Distilling Memories

So, we've built ourselves a world of the elite. What defines our unique proto-national culture, our zeitgeist, notre esprit, our je ne sais quoi, and our College's sine qua non? Let us start with what is most fresh in our minds: Green Key weekend. This weekend was a uniquely Dartmouth monument to self-acknowledgement; it's a meta-weekend that distills our passion for Dartmouth, pure Dartmouth, into a week-long experiment in self-love.

It's not surprising the Dartmouth men of 1899 who invented Green Key only desired an atmosphere that would allow them to catch fleeting glimpses of schoolgirls' ankles and take Daguerreotypes of them doing scandalous things, like voting or suffering from female hysteria: "Oh, I do say, Tippleton, the female sex does indeed exhibit a most bilious humour! Let us drink Sazeracs and revel in our dandyism." This attitude segued seamlessly, of course, into that homoerotic mud thing Psi Us do, which really puts the Greek in Greek system, if you know what I mean. Looking back, we soon savor these smallest storied slices of life here our ludicrous social inheritance and its massive influence on our daily lives.

We are addicts of tradition pong, the two-week lifespan of any serious controversy, a uncomfortable familiarity with urinal troughs, DOC trips all things we become heir to on Day one at Dartmouth.

As for us seniors, we've experienced a Rally Against Hatred, two different presidents, a huge screw-up by the Admissions Office in selecting the Class of 2011 and insightful cutting commentary from yours truly. All contribute to the ticking cultural record of our small islanded nation our time in New Hampshire's own Ivory-tower Lichtenstein.

The branded absurdity of Dartmouth life a life which we all share is why this college will become so memorable to us after our departure. The rest of the world will never share our stories because it was our time here.

The horrible squishy sound a mouth makes when eating EBA's drunk the least attractive thing a human can do can never be replicated. We will recall Collis as a haven for delicious soups, but so cramped that it made anyone carrying soup spill it all over myself only ours to remember. All Dartmouth women hating the word "moist." The little dinosaur stickers all over campus. "History of Jazz" being one letter away from being the funniest class in history.

And remembering that it should have been called "Herstory of Jazz." I put up a sign telling the music department that in front of the Hop, but shucks, I forgot to sign my name! Now they won't know how to be accountable to me. I apologize for that one, but I wanted us to remember how people think and act around here, and how we've gotten used to it.

At Dartmouth, holidays have always been meaningless. When is move in? Oh, look at that; it's on Yom Kippur every year. (Maybe the Office of Residential Life should stop taking scheduling lessons from the 1973 Egyptian and Syrian Fellows). Here, we eschewed the national calendar for our own. It was an honor to serve under you, Reverend Wheelock. It used to be New England Rum, and now it's New England Lite Beer.

Chinese author Lin Yutang once wrote, "What is patriotism but the love of food one ate as a child?" Why do you think all the alumni we saw this weekend some of them respected members of an adult world truly loved their Tuscany Bread and their restless nights on stained couches?

George Bernard Shaw once said, "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." But as a friend and alumnus from Anama, New Zealand once said to me when he first arrived on campus, "Dartmouth is superior."