The Class (6 page)

start stepping. And keep in time!" Go!

And they were off.

As an LP blared stridently, the monster pounded his stick with relentless, debilitating regularity. Up-two-three-four, up-two-three-four, up-two-three-four.

After a few dozen steps, Danny was beginning to tire. He wished the colonel's beat would slacken even slightly, but the man was an infernal metronome. Still, at least it would soon be over-he prayed.

"Half a minute!" Jackson called out.

Thank God, thought Danny, just a little more and I'll be able to stop.

But an agonizing thirty seconds thereafter, the official bellowed, "One minute down, just four to go!"

No, thought Danny, not another four minutes. I can barely breathe. Then he reminded himself that if he quit, he'd have to take a gym class with this sadist in addition to his other courses! And so he mustered all his inner fortitude, the courage that had once fueled him on the running track, and fought beyond the limits of his pain.

"Come on, you puny carrot top," the torture master be!- lowed. "I can see you're skipping steps. Keep going, or I'll make you do an extra minute."

Sweat was pouring down all of the dozen freshmen s limbs. And even splashing onto their neighbors.

"Two minutes. Just three more to go."

Now Danny sensed in desperation that he'd never make it. He could barely lift his legs. He was sure he'd fall and

break an arm. Farewell to concertizing. All because of this ridiculously useless exercise in animality.

Just then a quiet voice next to him said, "Take it easy, kid. Try to breathe normally. If you miss a step, I'll do my best to block you."

Danny wearily looked up. It was a blond and muscular classmate who had uttered this encouragement. An athlete in such splendid shape that he had breath enough to give advice

while he was stepping regularly up and down. All Dan could do was nod in gratitude. He steeled himself and persevered.

"Four minutes," cried the Torquemada in a sweatshirt.

"Only one to go. You guys are doing pretty good-for Harvard men."

Danny Rossi's legs were suddenly rigid. He couldn't take another step.

"Don't quit now," his neighbor whispered. "Come on, babe, just another lousy sixty seconds." -

Then Danny felt a hand reach underneath his elbow and

- pull him up. His limbs unlocked, and stiffly he resumed the grueling climb to nowhere.

And then at last, deliverance. The whole nightmare was over.

"Awright. Everybody sit down on the bench and put your hand on the neck of the guy on your right. We're going to take pulses." -

The freshmen, now initiated in this sweaty rite of passage, gladly collapsed and struggled to regain their breath. -

When Colonel Jackson had recorded all pertinent fitness information, the twelve exhausted freshmen were instructed to take showers and proceed, still in their birthday suits,

down two flights of stairs to the pool. Because, as the overbearing instructor so aptly expressed it, "Whoever cannot swim fifty yards cannot graduate this university."

As they stood side by side under the showers washing off the sweat of persecution, Danny said to the classmate whose

magnanimous assistance would allow him countless extra

hours at the keyboard, "Hey, I can never thank you enough for saving me out there."

"That's okay. It's a stupid test to start with. And I pity anyone who'd have to listen to that ape give orders for a

- whole semester. What's your name, by the way?"

"Danny Rossi," said the smaller man, offering a soapy hand.

"Jason Gilbert," the athletic type replied, and added with a grin, "can you swim okay, Dan?"

"Yes, thanks." Danny smiled. "I'm from California.

"California, and you're not a jock?"

"My sport is---the piano. Do you like the classics?"

"Nothing heavier than Johnny Mathis. But still, I'd like

to hear you play. Maybe after dinner sometime in the Union, huh?"

"Sure," Danny said, "but if not, I promise you a pair of tickets for my first public -performance."

"Gee, are you that good?" -

"Yes," said Danny Rossi quietly, without embarrassment. Then they both descended to the pool and, in adjoining lanes, Jason with flamboyant speed, Danny with deliberate caution, swam the obligatory fifty yards that marked their final physical requirement for a degree at Harvard.

ANDREW ELIOT'S DIARY

September 22, 1954

Yesterday we had the stupid Harvard Step Test. Being

- in reasonable shape for soccer, I passed it with no sweat. (Or to be more accurate, a lot of sweat, but very

little effort.) The only trouble came when "Colonel" Jackson made us reach over to feel the neck artery of the guy next to you, my neighbor was so slippery with perspiration that I couldn't find his pulse. So when that

Fascist character came by to write it down, I just made up a number that popped into my head.

When we got back to the dorm, the three of us reviewed

this fairly degrading experience. We all agreed that the most undignified and unnecessary aspect was the damn posture picture just before the Step Test. Imagine, now Harvard has a personal file of everyone-or perhaps more accurately, every member of The Class- standing naked in front of the camera, ostensibly to test our posture. But probably so that when one of us becomes President of the -United States, the phys. ed. department can pull out his picture and see what the leader of the greatest nation in the world looks like in the raw. What really bugged Wigglesworth was that some thief could break into the lAB, filch our photographs, and sell them for

a fortune.

"To whom?" I asked. "Who'd pay to see the pictures of a thousand naked Harvard freshmen?"

This gave him pause for thought. Who indeed would treasure

such a portrait gallery? Some horny Wellesley girls, perhaps. Then something else occurred to me: do Cliffies have to take these pictures too?

Newall thought they did. And I conceived this great idea

of sneaking into the Radcliffe gym to steal their pictures. What a show! Then we'd know what girls to concentrate our efforts on.

At first they really liked my plan. But then their courage sort of evanesced. And Newall argued that a "real man" should be able to find out empirically.

So much for bravery. I would have liked that midnight raid.

I think.

S

tudy cards were due in at 5:00 P.M. on Thursday. This gave The Class of '58 a little time to shop around and choose a balanced program. They'd need courses for their majors, some for distribution, and some perhaps for cultural enrichment. And, most important, a gut. At least one really easy course was absolutely necessary for those who were either preppies or pre-med.

For Ted Lambros, who was certain he'd be majoring in

classics, the selection was fairly straightforward: Latin 2A, Horace and Catullus, and Nat. Sci. 4 with the pyrotechnic L. K. Nash, who regularly blew himself up several times a

year.

Both as a gut and a requirement, he took Greek A, an introduction to the classical version of the language he had used since birth. After two semesters he would be able to read Homer in the original. And in the meantime, as a fourth course, he would read the famous epics in translation with John Finley, the legendary Eliot Professor of Greek Literature. "Hum 2," as it was affectionately known, would

provide stimulation, information, and, as everyone at Harvard knew, an easy grade.

Danny Rossi had already planned his schedule during his cross-country trek. Music 51, Analysis of Form, an

unavoidable requirement for every major. But the rest would be pure joy. A survey of orchestral music from Haydn to Hindemith. Then, beginning German, to prepare him to conduct the Wagner operas. (He'd start Italian and French later.) And, of course, the college's most popular and inspirational free ride- Hum 2.

He had wanted to take Walter Piston's Composition Seminar, and had assumed that the great man would admit him even though Danny was a freshman and the class had mostly graduates. But Piston turned him down "for his own good."

"Look," the composer had explained, "the piece you handed

in was charming. And I really didn't have to see it. Gustave Landau's letter was enough for me. But if I take you now, you might be in the paradoxical position of-how can I put

ftP-being able to sprint and not to walk. If it's any consola-tion, when Leonard Bernstein was here we forced him to do his basic music 'calisthenics' just like you." -

"Okay," Danny said with polite resignation. And as he left thought, I guess that was his way of saying my piece is pretty juvenile.

Freshmen who are preppies have a great advantage. Through their network of old graduates familiar with the Cambridge scene, they learn precisely what the courses are to take and

which ones to avoid.

The Harris Tweed underground imparts to them the secret

word that is the key to making good at Harvard: bulishit. The greater the opportunity for tossing the verbiage like so much salad (unimpeded by the need for such trivia as facts), the more likely the course would be a snap.

They also arrived at college well versed in the techniques of the essay question, and could pad their paragraphs with

such useful phrases as "from a theoretical point of view," or

"upon first inspection we may seem to discern a certain attitude which may well survive even closer scrutiny," and so forth. This sort of wind can sail you halfway through an hour test before you have to lay a single fact on paper.

But you can't do that in math. So for God's sake, man, stay away from science. Even though there's a Nat. Sci. requirement for course distribution, take it in your

sophomore year. By then you'll have perfected your prose style so that you might even be able to argue that, from a certain point of view, two and two might just possibly equal five.

The program Andrew Eliot selected was a preppie's dream. First, Soc. Rel. 1, because the name-Social Relations-was itself an invitation to throw bull. Then English 10, a survey from Chaucer to his cousin Tom. It was fairly rigorous but he'd read most of the stuff (at least in Hymarx outlines) in senior year at prep school.

His choice of Fine Arts 13 also showed astuteness, Not much reading, little taking down of notes. For it meant mostly watching slides. Moreover, the noon hour of its meeting and the semidarkness of its atmosphere were most conducive if one needed a short nap before lunch. Also, Newall

pointed out, "As soon as we find girlfriends at the

Cliffe, that auditorium will be the perfect spot for making out."

There was no problem about his final course. It had to be Hum 2. In addition to its many other attractions, since the instructor held the chair endowed by Andrew's ancestors, he looked upon Professor Finley as a sort of family retainer. The night they handed in their study cards, Andrew, Wig,

and Newall had a gin-and-tonic party to honor their official course commitment to self-betterment.

"So, Andy," Dickie asked after his fourth, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

And Andrew answered, only half in jest, "Frankly, I don't think I really want to grow up."

ANDREW ELIOT'S DIARY

- October 5, 1954

- The occasions that we thousand-odd will meet together as a class in our entire lifetime are extremely rare.

We gather three times while we are in college. First at

the Freshman Convocation-sober, serious, and boring. Then at the notoriously gross Freshman Smoker- just the opposite. And, finally, after jumping all the necessary hurdles, one June morning four years hence when we'll receive diplomas. Otherwise, we go through Harvard on our own. They say our most important meeting is a quarter-century after we all graduate. That would be 1983-impossible to think that far- away.

They also say that when we come back for our Twenty-fifth

Reunion we'll be feeling something vaguely like fraternity

and solidarity. But for now, we're much more like the animals on Noah's Ark. I mean, I don't think the lions had too much to chat about with the lambs. Or with the mice. That's just about the way me and my

roommates feel about some of the creatures that are on

board with us for this four-year voyage. We live in different cabins and sit on different decks.

Anyway, we gathered all together as The Class of '58

tonight in Sanders Theater. And it was pretty solemn.

I know Dr. Pusey isn't everybody's hero nowadays, but when he talked tonight about the university's tradition of defending academic freedom, it was kind of moving.

He chose as an example A. Lawrence Lowell, who at the beginning of this century succeeded my greatgranddad as President of Harvard. Apparently, right after World War I, a lot of guys in Cambridge had flirtations with the Socialists and Communists-then preaching hot, new stuff. Lowell was under tremendous pressure to dismiss the lefties from the faculty.

Now, even guys as dim as I caught Pusey's tacit parallel

with Senator McCarthy's unrelenting war on him when he quoted Lowell's great defense of professors in the classroom being absolutely free to teach "the truth as they see it."

You have to hand it to him. He's demonstrated courage as Hemingway defined it, "grace under pressure." And yet The Class of '58 did not give him a standing ovation.

But something tells me that when we're older and have seen more of the world, we'll feel ashamed that we didn't acknowledge Pusey's bravery tonight.