Up in Smoke

"The University has forgotten that human beings help each other only by interaction, by fighting and loving."

--i.e., The Cambridge Review, "Harvard 1956," May 27, 1956.

"With some reluctance I have come to the conclusion that the time has arrived to discontinue the Freshman Smoker."

--F. Skiddy von Stade, Jr., Dean of Freshmen, May 28, 1956.

Apparently the University has forgotten. Dean von Stade, at any rate, seems certainly to have forgotten one evening in 1935 when, as the CRIMSON reported, "with Rudy Vallee and his 38-piece ensemble striking the key note in a triumphal rendering of the 'Stein Song', the annual Freshman Smoker took place..." Among the other featured performers on the programs, it seems, were "Ann Graham, platinum girl," "Al Bernie, 14-year-old boy marvel," and an officer of that year's freshman class by the name of F. Skiddy von Stade, Jr.

Actually, it probably is about time for University Hall to put a permanent filter on the Smoker. What with female entertainers who cringe rather than entice, with firecrackers that go off in all the wrong places, and with Al Capp fighting a valiant annual battle against increasingly overwhelming odds, perhaps the thing really was getting to be "a menace to the well-being of Harvard."

At any rate, the end is relatively painless this way. The Class of 1960 will never know what it's missing, while Mr. von Stade and the rest of us will always have our memories.