Tears for Some Clowns

HANOVER, N.H.--Oh wow. That's about all that you can say after spending the better part of a day here in this prep school-like atmosphere, this babe-in-the-woods of an Ivy institution. No, on second thought, you can say more. Like, oh wow, am I glad that I don't have to spend four years in Hanover.

I mean really, what is there to do all day? You can only drink beer for so long, and after you've seen "Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Sex" six times, you tend to get the picture.

The only intrusion into this seemingly wake-up-at-the-end-of-four-years-and-get-your-diploma existence occurs every other fall, in the middle of October, when those guacamoles from Cambridge journey north to play football.

You know, the Crimson of Harvard, the perennial bad guys (bad only because they go to Harvard) who must be beaten in order to justify spending the best years of your life in a cow pasture.

Now if you don't believe that beating Harvard in football ranks right up there in the eyes of many of the Dartmouths with God, family and the fact that liquor stores remain open on Sunday in New Hampshire, then you've obviously never been to Canoby Lake Park.

Because it's true. Exhibiting the typical inferiority attitude which leads to such statements, Dartmouths say things like "It's good for Harvard to lose." Or, "I want to beat everything that Harvard stands for." Or (and this is where it gets interesting, so take good notes), "Beating Harvard will make people realize that it has an equal."

It's really doubtful, though, that the Dartmouth fans, obnoxious at best and cry-babyish the rest of the time, have any equals. Anywhere. They simply fail to realize that while triumphs over the Crimson might cause hysteria in Hanover, losses to the Big Green hardly cause a ripple around Tommy's Lunch.

Which is why Harvard's victory was so terribly depressing for the Dartmouths. The fact that it means the Big Green will not win the Ivy title is secondary to the fact that after spending two years gathering enough credits for their M.E.O. (Master of Excessive Obnoxiousness) degrees, the Dartmouths forgot the most important requirement. They forgot the possibility of losing.

Sure, the Big Green did get in a few kicks, winning the majority of freshman and junior varsity events, the soccer game and the cross-country meet (just about everything, in fact, except the field hockey game; you've gotta dig that undefeated Radcliffe field hockey team).

The football game, though, is what they remember. It's like having Pier 4 hors d'oeuvres and then your main course at The Rendezvous. It's like staying up all night to write a paper and then finding out it's not due for another week. It's really pretty sad.

And so it was that on a beautiful autumn afternoon in Hanover Joe Restic, who obviously has an in with the big man in the sky, and his team of hated Harvardites broke the hearts of all those depraved Dartmouths.

You have to feel sorry for them, though. I mean you have Cambridge to return to, and while you're driving down Route 89 in the direction of civilization, you have to at least wonder how they can stand being cooped up in Hangover all the time.

And one last question. What are they going to do for the next two years? Oh wow.