Stuff Dartmouth Kids Like: You’ll always find your way back home

By Leslie Ye, The Dartmouth Staff | 10/25/12 3:00am

Freshmen, the bonfire will be the highlight of your homecoming. The rest of your weekend is going to be spent trying to get on table while ’84s play speed and slam. Don’t try to keep up. It’s not just you — few of us can. Anyway, apparently the administration is worried that the bonfire now constitutes hazing, so I am heretofore forbidden from telling you to touch the fire. Lest the old traditions fail, am I right? But honestly, the bonfire is a hoot! If you were subjected to the horror of listening to ghost stories and being fed green eggs and ham on Trips without lasting psychological damage, you’ll survive the fire too.

Every year, freshmen from bustling metropolises and tiny hamlets come together as one, slap Lone Pine tats all over their eager faces, don their class jerseys and some kind of footwear (if you are smart, they will be running shoes) and roar their way towards the Green. And every year, the freshman class paces their laps so badly that about 700 of them end up crammed in 10 percent of the running area while the other 400 sprint around, wondering where the rest of their class has gone. Can you be the first class ever to keep it flowing? I doubt it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try!

Everyone on an off term, GET EXCITED. I don’t know about you, but taking fall off has really made me appreciate Dartmouth that much more. Dartmouth is not only smaller and safer than New York, it is also more easily navigable and So. Much. Cheaper. Also, behavior that wouldn’t get a second glance at Darty is totally unacceptable in many other locales in this fine nation. So what if I want to leave the house in a swoutfit and Uggs? What if I want to go out in Sperrys wearing a North Face? Dartmouth don’t care. In fact, on Saturday night I am going to go out and voluntarily get paint thrown at me, which is basically the opposite of going out anywhere else. It’ll be a nice change of pace from heels and — gasp! — purses.

Alums, this is your time. You and your boyz (and grrrrlz) have descended upon this wondrous land to reclaim what’s yours. These were your basements before they were ours. You ran 100 laps more than these freshmen could ever handle. You invented the phrase “boot and rally.” You ordered a Billy Bob at the Hop years before we’d even located our Hinman boxes, dammit! It is your chance to remind the rest of us that you once ran this place and that we are ruining everything you worked so hard to build. So hold our tables for hours, tell us how much we’re betraying our ancestors and act generally superior all weekend. Joke’s on you, we’re still in the bubble. How you like dem apples? Kidding! We love you guys! XOXO.


Leslie Ye, The Dartmouth Staff