Nightmen Guard College Despite Spooks, Pranks

Patrolling the University's buildings at night is not a boring job. While there is not anything unusual about the long quiet corridors in the hours when undergraduate are considered to be asleep, the surroundings are always potentially explosive. Sometimes there are complications in the nature of the buildings itself, or sometimes in the people who room there, but night watchmen say that the problems come up, whatever the location.

"What do you do with townies who like an occasional gentlemanly game of pool on the House tables?", wondered Charles S. Polinsky of Dunster House. when, makings his regular rounds one night, he stepped into the House pool room to find a game quietly in progress. At Eliot House, night men have reported two boys who openly inquired at the night desk, for the whereabouts of the billiards room. Misplaced high school boys, who are always made aware of the stiff arm of John Harvard extendehe stiff arm of John Harvard extended toward the nearest exit, are only one trouble for caretakers, however.

Peculiar Noises

The buildings themselves have peculiar vagaries. Men who have patrolled the University Museum agree that the creaking floors, groaning walls, and rattling windows, to say nothing of the anthropological exhibits, can give them the jitters. Alex Strugis admitted that he "can't help feeling creepy walking past the mummies on lonely mornings." As another man was closing an especially noisy window one night he felt something cold tapping him on the shoulder. Turning around he almost tripped over a loosely-wired skeleton which was shining in the moonlight and shaking in the draught. But what used to frighten the museum caretakers the most was a ferocious-looking Arab who habitually did research in the museum at 5:00 a.m. No man would not quake upon seeing the blue-suited white-turban-clad Arab, standing amidst dummy Anthropology exhibits, suddenly turn about and stare at him in the dawn stillness in Peabody Museum.

Mallinokrodt Flooded

At night the Chemistry laboratories has its occasional alarms, claims Kenneth E. Slocum, who guards Mallinokrodt. He tells of wavering temperatures in chemical refrigerators which caused all manner of explosions and poisongas leakages. Slocum's equipment, of course, includes gas masks. A major catastrophe happened several years ago. During a temporary discontinuance of service by the Cambridge Water Department, many students turned on the faucets at their laboratory desks and, obtaining no water, left the faucets turned on. When service was eventually restored, there was a large-scale flood, which required police forces and a crew from Widener an entire night to clean up.

Many of the night watchmen in the Houses have found time during their work to strike up acquaintances with students, though sociability is not formally listed, in the night watchmen's rule book. Some men confess that they have arranged occasional dates over the telephone for girls from other schools who were in desperate need of eligible men for parties. Daniel J. Gannon at Winthrop House, who has been a painter and paperhanger in off-hours, has often taken students who wanted to ears extra money on jobs with him. Frank A. Coughlin at Adams House has specialized in providing noiseless study rooms for frantic pre-meds before final exams. One custodian declares that he has served "as house mother, father, confessor, and loan shop." But regardless of student friendships, all House night watchmen insist that they have never relaxed in inforcing the 8:00 p.m. pariotal rule.

Student Pranks

Practical pranks occasionally chafe night watchmen, although they ordinarily laugh them off. Guy F. Martin, who has worked in most of the Houses, observes that when Spring comes Funsters take to throwing water; Bellboys and Deacons, fire crackers; and Gold Coasters, intermittent beer cans. But these never have bothered him any more than the ubiquitous winter snowballs. He recalls, however, being a bit upset on a Saturday night in the football season when Winthrop men overturned three fire extinguishers on him, each one as the preceding was being set aright. Yet, he adds, men staggering home from Cronin's are sometimes more of a challenge than the fire extinguishers in all the seven Houses.

Freshman once put a stuffed wild boar in the shrubbery in the Eliot House courtyard. With the diffused light glimmering in from the Charles and Memorial Drive just striking its foot-long head and six-inch fants, it certainly gave night man John G. Coakley a jolt; but he cautiously stalked the thing and shortly despatched it.

Without neglecting their vigil, most of the night watchmen find-time for personal relaxation while they sit in their offices, their ears attuned for phone calls and sounds of misbehavior. Many of them snatch glances at their favorite magazines, when no one is looking. Dugald Livingston of the Chemistry Laboratories, however, is an individualist. Any burglar second-storying his way into Mallinokrodt on the nights when Livingstond is on duty would be greeted with the errie sound of clarinet figures echoling up and down the shadowed stairways.

Only one of the staff of the night watchmen openly admits having made a serious error while on the job. Joseph Brannan, who is stationed at Langdell Hall in the Law School confesses that one night he saw what he took to a local vandal climbing in through a first-floor window. It was too late to rectify his mistake when, having run his man down, he discovered him to be a middle-aged, still athletic, professor of Law.